This 'as-told-to' essay is based on a conversation with Juli Ford, a 57-year-old real estate agent and certified senior advisor based in Massachusetts. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When my children were young, we saw my parents all the time.

We lived very close to each other in South Plymouth, Massachusetts, and my parents always helped with the kids. From the time they were born, Wednesdays were Grammy and Grampy Day.

My dad got sick in 2005. When we learned in the summer of 2011 that he probably didn't have much time left, we talked about what life would be like after he was gone, including where my mom would live.

When he passed in December 2011, my mom was not ready to live with us. At 68, she had never lived on her own. She'd been with my dad since she was 15.

Then, in April 2015, a house in Pembroke, Massachusetts, about 30 minutes from South Plymouth, came on the market. The second I saw it online, I thought, "Oh, this is perfect."

The house had a beautiful in-law apartment

The house is 4,300 square feet, and the basement is about 800 square feet. Upstairs, there are three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.

My mom fell in love with the home's basement apartment. It's full of beautiful natural light. It's one bedroom with a den, a full kitchen, a fireplace, its own laundry, 1.5 baths, its own outdoor patio, and two entrances.

We made an offer within two days. We bought the house in April 2015 for $630,000.

My mom had no interest in ownership. Instead, she made a financial contribution toward the down payment equal to what she would have paid in rent for the next five years.

She also gave us money every year for utilities. Last year, she started making a bigger monthly contribution to help cover household expenses. She essentially has not had to pay rent for 10 years, and as the house gets older, the cost of maintaining it grows.

It was a dream when we first moved in

My mom helped me a lot with my kids, especially with their schooling. My kids were 10 and 11 when she moved in, and they were homeschooled. We drove around a lot because we were going to museums and other activities in Boston. She sometimes helped with driving, and she became their English teacher because her first career was teaching English.

Grammy Wednesdays continued when we moved into the house, and my kids, who are 20 and 22 now, would go down and visit her on their own.

My mom has exceptionally good boundaries. I'm sure we did things differently than she would have done with our kids, but she's always been very good at keeping her opinions to herself.

My mom is still independent, but needs our help now

At 82, she's a bit less independent than she was 10 years ago because of health issues. Still, she has privacy: I don't know everything that she does all the time, and we can go days without seeing each other. Other times, we see each other a lot more often.

We have had a few medical emergencies with my mom, so I got in the habit of keeping my phone next to my bed. There have been a few times that she's had to call me.

I cannot imagine how much harder it would be to be a daughter of an aging mom if we weren't in the same house. I would be so much more concerned about her being alone and getting lonelier. It would be more time-consuming for me if I had to go somewhere else to support her.

The house gave us other financial benefits

In the beginning, the only financial benefit I really thought about of combining households was that we could get a nicer house than my husband and I could afford on our own.

Around the time we got this house, my brother's family went through a foreclosure after his wife had been hit by a drunken driver and had a traumatic brain injury. They had a lot of housing instability during that time because she was unable to work and had massive medical bills. They were not sure where they were going to live.

Because we combined households with my mom, we were able to tap into the equity in this house to help them. We took out a home equity loan and bought a small, lovely house, and rented it to them. We weren't really making any money on it, but the rent was paying the bills.

Within two years, they recovered their credit enough that they purchased the house from us. They were able to rebuild their financial well-being in that house.

We used the proceeds from the sale to buy a vacation property in Vermont, which we turned into an Airbnb for four years. When we sold it, we paid off our kids' student loans.

We were all able to build wealth because we combined households with my mom. We feel so proud and grateful. It's not something I saw coming 11 years ago.

I see multigenerational living as one of the most compelling solutions to our elder care and affordable housing crises. Bringing families together around this is really an underutilized solution.

• As an interior-design expert, I've seen people make common style mistakes in living rooms.
• Hide cords from your TV and electronics, and don't put too much furniture in the living room.
• Accent chairs should be used sparingly, and rugs should add personality to your space.

Your living room should feel like a calm, personal retreat—not a source of visual chaos.

As a seasoned interior stylist and founder of DBF Interiors, I've seen plenty of cluttered, unintentionally designed spaces that could be improved with just a few simple tweaks.

Here are a few things to get rid of in your living room if you want an instant upgrade.

Remove furniture that makes your space feel cramped.

Placing too much furniture in a living room is a common design mistake. Poor spatial arrangements paired with large, clunky pieces just make a space feel crowded rather than cozy.

Instead of filling your living room with lots of furniture, be intentional about the items you select.

Focus on curating instead of collecting, seeking out essential pieces that are unique and functional. This will help you maintain a more open floor plan.

Replace boring rugs with ones that make a statement.

I find that many people settle for bland, uninspiring rugs that fail to add color or flavor to a space.

Since rugs make such a big visual statement, go for something exciting. Try out colorful, patterned rugs to jazz up your living room and infuse it with your personality.

Too many accent chairs can cause unneeded clutter.

A beautiful accent chair can complement and enhance a living room.

However, not all spaces have a layout and ideal seating plan that allows for one. Forcing a bulky chair into a space that doesn't fit it properly can create unnecessary clutter.

And if you find yourself needing multiple accent chairs to make a space functional, consider swapping them for a larger, more comfortable sofa.

Hide visible wires to keep your space looking neat.

Visible cords and wires can distract from a well-decorated space and make it feel cluttered.

Fortunately, there are many creative ways to hide them. For example, you can feed them through your TV console or snake them behind baseboard accessories.

You can even purchase concealing cord caps and paint them to match your wall color.

Cover your basic pillows with fresh designs and colors.

Instead of keeping the accent pillows that came with your couch or sticking with basic designs, consider upgrading.

After all, curated accent pillows are a great way to add more personality and substance to your living area.

I suggest swapping out accent pillows every six months to a year to spruce up your living room.

Instead of completely repurchasing new pillows each time, opt for covers that are easy to change and low-commitment (especially if you want to try trendy textures, colors, and patterns).

This story was originally published on May 10, 2021, and most recently updated on March 24, 2026.

• Seven years ago, Matthijs van der Ham won a lottery to rent a tiny home in the Netherlands.
• One of the main reasons van der Ham has stayed is the village feels safe for his 13-year-old son.
• Instead of complaining about noise, his neighbors turned his son's birthday party into a mini festival.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matthijs van der Ham, 44, an architect and woodworker. For seven years, he and his 13-year-old son have lived in Minitopia,'s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.

Seven years ago, when our landlord told me the apartment on a farm where I lived with my seven-year-old son was coming off the rental market, I needed to find somewhere else to live.

Around the same time, a tiny house became available at a Minitopia village in 's-Hertogenbosch, the first of several in the region. I was already familiar with this particular village because, earlier that year, I'd helped a friend build a home there.

The Minitopia Foundation held a lottery for the rental and hundreds of people applied. With a bit of luck, I won. Within three weeks of losing our apartment, I had the keys to our tiny house in 's-Hertogenbosch.

Living in a tiny-home village has been liberating

When I first moved here in 2019, it was common for tour groups to walk through the site and for drones to fly overhead to film life here. That's less common now. There are many more projects like this around the world, and tiny homes are becoming increasingly normal.

Back then, the site was mostly concrete. Over the course of my time here, however, it has become much greener. Every year, I plant trees along the street and invite the neighbors to join. They often do. On a typical street, the local government would probably remove trees like that or make you go through a long approval process. Here, if I want to plant trees, I can.

In my spare time, I like to create art from wood. On a normal residential street, if someone saw a man walking around with an ax, they might call the police. Here, people ask what I'm making and tell me how nice my art is.

In a place like Minitopia, the entire street feels like your living space, unlike in normal neighborhoods where everything is clearly defined: fenced gardens, parking spaces, a road, a pavement.

Here, there are no fences and no strict boundaries. It's much more fluid. When you live in a space that is less rigid, it becomes easier to think that way, too. Living like this has been liberating, and I feel freer than I used to.

Minitopia is a fantastic community for raising children

I've always been happy here, especially when it comes to raising my son. It's a great place for kids to grow up. It feels safe, and there aren't many cars passing through.

My son is always strolling around outside before returning at a set time. It's really nice that children have the opportunity to explore here. That's one of the main reasons I've stayed.

Another reason is that the people are really great. A few years ago, I threw a party for my son's birthday. At first, I only invited his classmates. Then we ended up inviting their families and everyone at Minitopia. There are more than two dozen homes here.

It turned into a small festival. We had a food truck, music, and neighbors lending chairs and helping out. In a normal neighborhood, we'd have received noise complaints, but at Minitopia, everyone just wants to have fun.

We do a lot together as a community, which is special. Every Tuesday, we have a get-together where we make art, eat, and talk. On New Year's Eve, we had a big party.

You can keep to yourself if you like, but I love that there are so many opportunities to do fun things together.

I've never been tempted to move

Though I rent this house, it feels like my home. I handle most of the maintenance, and I'm free to change it as I see fit. For example, I've made some improvements, such as adding a roof over the porch.

While my dream is to one day live on a piece of land with better soil so I can garden more, at this point in my life, living in a tiny home village works well for us.

In my seven years here, I've never once been tempted to leave.