Maybe You Don’t Need More House

I work with people moving in both directions. Some have toys covering every surface and can’t imagine another year without a playroom. Others walk me through rooms they haven’t actually used in months. What’s interesting is how long people can live in a house that no longer fits because moving feels more disruptive than staying.

You adapt. The dining room becomes an office. The office becomes a nursery. The garage slowly becomes storage. Two people working from home learn exactly how loudly the other person talks on Zoom. Or the opposite happens. The children leave and suddenly an upstairs bedroom hasn’t been entered in three weeks. There’s a formal living room nobody sits in. The pool is being cleaned far more often than it’s being used. You’re paying to cool rooms that mostly hold furniture.

Eventually, someone says, “We need a bigger house.” Or, “We need to downsize.” That’s usually when I ask a question that has nothing to do with square footage: How do you want an ordinary Tuesday to feel?

Not Thanksgiving. Not the weekend when everyone comes to visit. Tuesday.

Maybe you want enough room that everyone can disappear for an hour. Maybe you want your children to walk outside and find other kids. Maybe you’re willing to give up 1,000 square feet if it means you can walk to coffee in the morning. Maybe you want less house and more yard. Maybe you’d happily trade the pool for a screened porch beneath an oak tree.

Or perhaps, after talking it through, you realize you don’t actually want to move at all. You need to rethink how you’re using the house you already own. That’s useful to know too.

I don’t think the goal should be continually moving into more house. It should be finding a home that supports the way you actually live. That’s why I like starting with life rather than bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage.

Once we understand what isn’t working now, we know what the next house needs to do differently. And that’s a much better reason to move.