Lauren Cobello is no stranger to change. In the span of five years, she got divorced, changed her last name, and shifted the direction of her career. But she never considered becoming a minimalist — certainly not with a big, beautiful house of four children and plenty of pets.
Forty-two-year-old Cobello is a single mom to 17-year-old Andrew, 13-year-old Hannah, 11-year-old Kaylee, and 9-year-old Abigail. The family of five lived in a six-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot craftsman-style house in a quiet neighborhood located in Oswego, New York, a small town on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario.
It was the home she kept after she and her husband split in 2018. “At first, it was empowering because I learned how to fix things myself,” she explains. “For example, my daughter put her foot through the front steps of the house, and it was going to be $2,000 to fix it. I didn’t want to spend that, so I YouTube’d it, and I rebuilt the front steps myself with the help of my best friend.”
While Cobello relished those moments of being able to say she didn’t need a man around to do the heavy lifting, she explains that it was a very stressful time. “I run a public relations agency, and I travel frequently for work. As a single mom of four, I just crave simplicity. Living in that house by myself with 13 years of stuff to clean up was not simple.”
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The revelation came in 2021 when Cobello decided to live “that van life” and do some RV traveling. “I bought a camper, and my kids and I traveled around the state with it. I learned how to set it up, and hook it up myself at each stop, and it became a part of my healing,” says the mom. “That’s when I realized I was drowning in both mental and physical clutter. I was out in the woods with just the necessities and a lot less stress. I thought, ‘if I can replicate this in my personal life, that would be amazing.’”
So, that’s exactly what she did. With more than a decade’s worth of stuff to shed, Cobello set out to find a small rental. “I came across a cute, little house and jumped on it.”
In February of 2023, the mom put her house — and all its memories — on the market. “I had five offers in two days, so things happened quickly from that point on,” she says. “My old house sold within a day.”
To say it was a downsize would be an understatement. Cobello had to squeeze four kids, two cats, a dog, and all their belongings into a trim 1,000 square feet. There was a lot to get rid of. Cobello promptly began listing all of the furniture on Facebook marketplace that she knew just wouldn’t fit into her new space. “I wanted to start fresh, and this new house has a third of the space of the old one.”
“I didn’t want to rent a storage unit and the furniture just wasn’t going to fit. I sold what I could — 3/4 of it to be exact — and donated or tossed the rest into a dumpster. Within three weeks, I went from a beautifully decorated six bedroom home to one that was completely empty,” says Cobello.
The bigger challenge may have been convincing her kids to leave their old home. They were extremely “emotionally attached” to the house. “I realized that as the parent, I had to make the tough decisions, knowing we’d all be happier in the long run,” says Cobello.
As hard as it was, Cobello says it had to be done. “I realized that half the stuff was probably stuff we never used, and my kids rooms were filled to the brim with stuff they never played with. So, I thought, ‘what if we just only brought the things that we loved and brought us joy? So, I had the kids go into their bedrooms and select only those things.” While very Marie Kondo-esque, the decision to part with most of their stuff came from therapy sessions and a whole lot of soul-searching, says Cobello.
Involving her kids in the purging process seemed to go more smoothly than she’d anticipated. “I was shocked when each of them only picked a couple stuffed animals and some pictures off the wall. They didn’t care about any of the other stuff,” she recalls.
Cobello also promised the kids she’d take some of the cash they were saving by downsizing and take them on a trip to Jamaica. “It would be a celebration of five years of single motherhood, this next chapter, and us working hard together as a family weathering some tough storms,” she tells HelloGiggles.
Her three youngest kids, with whom she shares 50/50 custody with her ex-husband, are now also sharing a bedroom. “We play more games, we’re together more as a family, it’s been the best experience. I can see that they’re happier,” she enthuses. They also go out and “do fun things” a lot more than they used to.
That may be because Cobello suddenly had more time on her hands, without the constant upkeep of a 3,000-square-foot house and the surrounding property. She no longer has to mow the lawn, snow-blow, or pay for garbage pickup — her landlord takes care of all that. There was some easing up of duties inside the house, as well.
“I don’t do laundry anymore because I didn’t buy machines. Instead, I use a service. I also use a grocery delivery service and now have a housekeeper who comes every other week and cleans the house and cooks meals for the week. It allows me to work out of my home and hang out with my pets and kids. I don’t have a dishwasher and I swapped my traditional vacuum cleaner for a robotic one.” A smaller home meant smaller bills, and allowed her to have even more financial freedom than she had previously.
While not quite a trendy “tiny” house, the new small house doesn’t have space for guests, and Cobello has exactly enough cups and plates for the members of her household. “I used to get so overwhelmed because there was always so much stuff all over the place. Now that stress is gone.”
While Cobello says that friends and family have been largely supportive of her move, she did first get a lot of skepticism from others. “Initially, I’d get questions like ‘oh gosh, how are you going to fit all of your stuff and are you sure this is a good decision?’” she says. “Once people saw the set up and how much it has changed me, the questioning stopped. It’s incredible to witness what happens when you decide to just change your life.”
