When you hear the word “hoarding,” you probably get a vision of a room filled with random junk from top to bottom, side to side, with barely enough space for a person to walk through.  But even though most of us will never reach that extreme, I did notice a little phenomenon lately in my “travels.”

Over the past month, I have stayed at several friends’ houses, either to housesit or visit.  And it was interesting to view their homes through my new set of “downsized” or “simplified” eyes.  Now, let me start off by saying, that these friends are NOT hoarders and are really no different than most people in America today, including me before I downsized.

But what I saw was every little space in their homes FILLED.  Every shelf, every closet, every corner, every room.  Again, I’m not saying things were messy or even crowded.  But every available space that was there, was filled.  It’s a funny little thing about us… we expand to fill our space.  If we live in a one bedroom apartment, we’ll fill that.  Put us in a two bedroom townhouse, we’ll fill that up.  Move us to a four bedroom home and before you know it… it’s full too!

One of the crazy things I noticed was the multiples.  Now by crazy, I mean crazy that I never realized it before!  Before I downsized my whole life and moved into a tiny house, I was exactly like my friends and most other average people.  I had multiple versions of the same thing.  For example, I probably had easily 7 or 8 perfumes on my dresser, tons of bottles of lotions, shower gels, creams, etc. under my bathroom vanity, half a dozen water bottles and portable drink containers and 5 or 6 spare blankets.  These are just a few examples… but I saw the same thing with all of these in my girlfriends’ homes too… cluttered up closets, baskets full of bottles and packed kitchen cabinets.  But when it came time for me to downsize, I realized I don’t need more than one of any of these!

Now, I have a bottle of body lotion.  I have a shower gel and a water bottle.  And in the storage underneath my sofa, I have a blanket in case I get cold.  If I run out of lotion or shower gel, I’ll know it because the bottle will be empty.  And I’ll replace it with a new bottle.  If I need to take water with me somewhere, I grab my one water bottle and fill it.  Not swim through a sea of bottles to pick the one I use the most anyway.  And when I’m chilly… guess what?  The blanket I used yesterday and the day before that, still works as well today.

It’s funny cuz like I said, I don’t think you even give it a second thought when you’re living it.  I know I didn’t.  But when you really consciously step back and take inventory of what you have… it’s amazing what’s stacked up when you weren’t looking!