Downsizing

Lightening Our Load In the US

As we prepare to spend longer stretches of time in France, Carolyn and I have realized that we’re leaving too much money on the table by not renting out our Austin home. We’ve been aware from the beginning that it would be smarter to rent our home, at least part of the time. It’s a complex undertaking with what feels like endless options:

• Furnished short term rental? Sure, but where do we put our clothes and our favorite artwork (a lot of it created by friends), and who manages the turnover while we are away?

• Rent out the studio in the back? That sounds good but we’d need to build a real kitchen back there; people can only eat so many microwave burrito, and again—who will manage the turnover?

• Rent out the whole house unfurnished, long-term? What do we do with out furniture and other belongings? Will the cold plunge in the back yard be a liability?

What are we going to do with all this?!

Every option involves considerations that leave us stuck in the mud. The decision not to rent (in the past) has also been weighted by our understanding that not having a home to return to in the US (for instance if you rent out your primary home) changes the way the French government views your tax status; they’ll be more likely to consider France your center of economic/social activity and will (reasonably) expect you to start paying taxes and social charges in France.

Now that Carolyn is applying for her entrepreneurial visa, we expect to spend longer stretches of time in France (and of course to start paying income taxes there) so we really need to choose a direction for our Austin home. We have decided (we think) that we’ll rent out the main house furnished and move ourselves into the guest apartment. It’s a modest (but sunny and cheerful) studio apartment above our garage in a detached building on our property.

Until now it has functioned as Carolyn’s writing and teaching studio. We plan to add a kitchen sink and an oven/range in the next few months. We will need to create a space for Carolyn to sit and work (she prefers a sofa shared with a dog for her writing). We will eventually make the garage on the ground floor a living space (it’s currently full of my tools and musical instruments). And we’ll probably need a new bed since our current king size mattress is too big for the room.

That’s our main house on the left with the studio/garage on the right. The developer built five similar units side-by-side and we chose this one because the back building looks out at the big tree in the neighbor’s yard.

All of that work and planning seems easy compared to managing our stuff. Furniture, clothing, art, music collections, electronics, tools, kitchenware. What do we do with it all, how do we get the things we want with us to France (mostly the artwork in this category), and how do we downsize our lives to fit into the smaller studio? What will we want our lives to look like for the future short stays in Austin that we imagine?

I can be precious and protective of my belongings, but (with a few exceptions) I’m not very sentimental about them—I have an easy time letting things go. The result, I’m sure, of growing up in a military family that moved every three years. Carolyn has moved a lot, too, but she grew up in Austin and her family has been in Texas for generations. As a result, she has a larger archive of family and personal belongings than I do (if your parents aren’t constantly moving they’re less likely to throw away that art project you made in elementary school). We are more attached to some of those things because we are stewards; art, dishes, and furniture will be passed along to other family members.

I think Carlin wrote his bit about stuff over 50 years ago.

So where to begin? I have decided to go for the low hanging fruit first: I have sold several guitars, amplifiers, and other musical gear that I don’t play often or that I own multiples of. Likewise, I have sold or given away a good bit of clothing (after making five passes through my closet, being more ruthless with each pass). Carolyn and I have discussed getting rid of our record collection. I have given away a few tools and pieces of gear that I won’t likely need or use in the near future and I have a list of tools to sell. Even though I’m moving in the right direction it will take me all the time we have left to pare down what I own so that it fits in (my share of) the studio closet.

Carolyn has been looking into professionals to help sort through her archive of photos, school/college/grad school work, and other belongings. The services look expensive so she wants to make the first pass herself. Choosing among the different businesses reveals something about your level of self-hatred: do I need a maid, a professional organizer, a decluttering service, Lifecycle Transition service, or maybe it’s time for Hoarding Rescue!

This is not our situation.

The best advice I have if you are trying to pare down the volume of OWNERSHIP in your life (i.e. if you need to get rid of shit, and, like us, you refuse to participate in the self-storage industrial complex): do not overlook the power of simply giving things away. I’m not talking about the random slightly used, slightly broken, or too-cheap-to-sell stuff that ends up in the donation box for your local charity shop. I’m talking about giving away nice things, things that you might otherwise be able to sell.

I like to give things to people who I know will appreciate them, especially if they’re younger and not in a position to afford high quality gear—so your friend’s kid who has been playing guitar for over a decade but is still in high school, or your friend who has started exploring a second career in woodworking? They’re perfect recipients for the amplifier you’re tired of looking at or those tools you love but need to clear out. It’ll make you feel good which in turn will motivate you to let go of more. Carolyn talks about the organization guru Marie Kondo and her philosophy of letting things go with gratitude—I’m saying those objects can bring you joy again when you give them to someone who appreciates them.

I feel like I have read this book, but I have not.

We’ll keep you updated as the work progresses to prepare our US home for rental and we move into our studio. For those of you who have moved abroad or are considering it, which of your belongings did you find it most difficult to part with? What’s an object you couldn’t let go of or that required extraordinary effort to bring with you? Was it worth it?

À la prochaine,

Roberto & Carolyn

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