Shophouse Living: Large Family Life

An inside glance into shophouse living as we settle into the first chapter of our homestead story… listing our house!

Settling into shophouse living

We are three weeks into shophouse living as I’m sitting down to write this…and I have to say, it has been pretty good so far! The hardest part by far and away has been being separated from Brandon (my husband) while he works on the house. He has been faithfully doing odd jobs for the last two week all by himself. What a soldier! All the while, we’ve been reading books, baking cookies, and playing in the weird March snow!

slowing down

If you missed my previous posts, there were a lot of factors that lead us to this place. But one of the main motivations was a sincere desire for simplicity. It’s easy to get lost in all the noise of technology, work, and distraction, and we really wanted to make an abrupt turn around. We wanted the days to feel longer and for all of us to remember what it’s like to be bored. So far, I can say we are on JUST the right track since we have NO cell phone service inside the shophouse and ZERO technology. We have had to make the most of our time by reading, singing, baking and exploring the ten acres of woods around the shophouse.

ONE ROOM, MANY FUNCTIONS

Our living space consists of one main room with a kitchenette, dining table, master bed, and small seating area. It’s super cozy and where everyone wants to be ALL the time. At night, we all pile in around the couch and read or write stories while the babies drift off to sleep in someone’s arms. We sing and pray before bed and everyone just kind of peacefully falls to sleep. Eventually someone turns out the light. It’s quite humble, but it suits us so well. We are all eager for our man to join us and brighten up our home with his big heart and love of adventure. In, fact, we are going back to the old house tomorrow for a week to finish up some final cleaning and packing so that we can bring him back with us! We are all eager to close the chapter on listing our house! And did I mention… I love that I can roll out of bed three steps from the coffee pot. Why aren’t kitchens ALWAYS in the master bedroom??

shophouse living is like camping

For the most part, everyone hangs around the main room, but there is a much larger open shop that is attached and that’s where the kids currently bunk. It’s sort of like being on a long camping trip with blow up beds and suitcases at the moment. But once our house sells we will bring the bunk beds here and set up a more long term | short term sleeping situation. It is definitely encouraging patience and cooperation among the kids!

shophouse living smart spaces

One of the best things I did was pack our rolling book cart! Every night the kids go rummaging through to pick a new read. I’m going to place a big order with Thrift Books soon so we have some new choices. Several of us are reading All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot and it is our new favorite! We can’t wait to get the next book in the series.

Since we have no closets, we just purchased a clothing rack that we will hang up in a central location so that we have one place to go for all our hang up laundry. We are all learning a lesson in minimizing! I have wanted to minimize our clothing situation for a while so this is just the perfect catalyst.

What’s next?

We have decided to settle in and REST for one month before we start the search for the dream property. It has been a wild ride balancing it all, and it’s really important to us that everyone feels connected, loved, and secure as we start the next leg of the adventure. We’re so excited! It feels like we’re finally going somewhere!

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