My Family and I Gave Up Furniture, and Haven’t Looked Back

When our two young sons skitter around the house like little Tasmanian devils, my wife and I don’t fret about them running into couches or knocking over tables, because we got rid of all that stuff starting two years ago.

Kristy and I, along with our four-year-old, Ari, and three-year-old, Luca, live in a 382-square-foot DADU (Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit) in Shoreline, Washington, that’s basically unfurnished, save for a pair of nightstands, stools, dressers, and some shelving units in the kitchen and kids’ bedroom. We’ve lived without indoor furniture since 2023, when, inspired by mobility and health advice from popular longevity podcasters like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, and books like Built to Move, which teaches readers how to be less sedentary, Kristy and I became obsessed with making lifestyle changes to build healthier habits. One particular blog post by biomechanist, movement teacher, and author Katy Bowman titled "Why I Went Furniture-Free" changed our home entirely. In it, Bowman describes how getting rid of furniture in her family’s house forced them to move their bodies constantly, rather than molding into a couch or being glued to a chair for hours at a time. The idea for Bowman and others who’ve in recent years embraced a "furniture-free" lifestyle is that eating, playing, and working on the floor means getting up and down many times a day, sitting in yoga-like positions, and using more of our muscles. The focus is on kinesthetics, not aesthetics. We were into it.

We started by getting rid of our dining room table and chairs, partly because our then toddlers wouldn’t stop climbing on them. Then, we got rid of a small coffee table that I made, and the couch. (Kristy does miss that from time to time, as it was a good place to snuggle with the kiddos.) Removing those items made our living/dining area go from feeling cramped to suddenly having much more space for Lego building, wrestling matches, and yoga sessions. The boys immediately took to the extra room. We decided to keep a padded play mat in the living area; we often congregate there to eat breakfast or read books together on the floor.

About a year into the furniture-purging process, we made the more extreme decision to get rid of our beds. The idea, for the boys’ sake, was to be able to easily put away their blankets and pillows and convert their shared room into another play area during the day. (Don’t worry, they still have plenty of cozy creature comforts, stuffed animals, and feathery blankets.) Kristy and I sleep in a lofted space that we really only use at night, so forgoing beds there was more a matter of increasing our mobility than saving space. We still sleep on a thin carpet and use pillows. (What a luxury, I know!) Once we made the switch, it only took a week or so to adjust and feel comfortable. Kristy and I swear that our lower backs and necks have benefited immensely from ditching our mattress.  

While a lot of people think our lifestyle is strange—even our own extended families—we’re not entirely alone in our decision to ditch Eames chairs and La-Z-Boy furniture. Like Bowman, natural lifestyle coach and best-selling author of Be More Human Tony Riddle talks online about living mostly furniture-free with his family of four. Riddle works at a low table while squatting or sitting on the floor, and his family also eschewed chairs and beds. Many cultures around the world utilize the floor for daily activities like eating, hanging out, and sleeping; in Japan, for example, the practice of sleeping on tatami mats dates back centuries. I’ve shared a meal with my wife at a luxurious restaurant in Istanbul sitting on floor cushions. This past fall, our family felt right at home in Marrakech taking a traditional Moroccan meal from the floor.

Though we are committed to a minimalist lifestyle, we’re also human, and as such, enjoy some specific comforts. This leads to confession number one: We eat dinner at an outdoor table in regular chairs (gasp!) every night, even in the rainy Pacific Northwest weather. We have a portable heat lamp and string lights to make things cozy. Confession two: We own the house at the front of our property and rent it to Kristy’s parents who mostly live in Alaska, so I use it to work remotely. There, I sit in a chair— sometimes even on the couch—to write emails and do busy work. We also use the main house’s garage for laundry and to store bikes and outdoor equipment, which frees up space in our DADU.

As our kids grow up, I’m sure they will start to realize that their parents, and their home, aren’t quite the norm, and I’m okay with that. The point of going furniture-free, for us, is to add more movement to our lives, have more space to play and be in motion indoors, and spend as much time outdoors as possible. (It’s easy to spend hours watching TV or lazing around when there’s plush furniture to relax on; not as compelling without it.) From time to time, we ask Ari and Luca if they like not having a couch, table, and chairs, to which they respond, "There’s so much room for activities!"

Illustration by Ruthy Kim

Related Reading:

It’s Time to (Officially) Cancel the Dining Room

The Time I Traded Labor for Free Lodging in a Converted School Bus