However, there is very little furniture. When you talk, your voice echoes throughout the house. I could list all the items in the house in this post and I wouldn't have to number past 20. For example, the master bedroom has a bed. That's it. Nothing else. If you want to put something down you set it on the bed or the floor.
The walls are all white with no pictures or paintings hanging anywhere. There are no blinds or curtains in the house on any windows (I think I would have put up curtains before buying a bed).
This relative has lived in this home over 3 years. Would you ever live like that, or have you lived like that?
I know two people like that - DH and me
We bought our first home in November 2003. We probably had about 19 pieces of furniture to fill a 3,500 square foot house. Most of the rooms were empty. We did at least put redi-shades up on all the windows for privacy
We lived like that for over two years. I'm sure many people thought we were house-poor. We weren't - we just chose to save up money and furnish the living room, dining room, family room, entry way, breakfast nook, and kitchen all at the same time, and in cash. I will say, if I had a dollar for every time somebody would come over to the house for the first time and say, "oh, did you just move in?", we could have furnished the house a year sooner!
A lot of times people would ask us why we didn't just go to Rooms to Go and finance something or get a piece at a time. Frankly, we really didn't want Rooms to Go furniture (no offense meant to anybody who loves them; we've had bad experiences with the quality) and DH and I don't have the artistic talent to go get one piece of furniture at a time and make it all look good and pulled together the way we wanted.
At the end of 2005, we hired an interior designer to come up with a plan for the rooms and to find furniture. It took a year to fully plan and execute the new design, and we love it. We had 30 pieces of new furniture delivered on the same day. We also added travertine floors, and a built-in and ceiling detail in the family room. The bedroom's still pretty sparse - we have the bed, plus our lovely Target bookshelves, TV stand, and nightstand. We figure that'll be the next big project, so why put a lot of money into throwaway furniture?
In the end, I'm really glad we did it the way we did. DH and I debated about buying the big house right away or going with a starter home like all our friends. We decided we'd rather go to a house that we really felt like we could stay in for a while instead of a home we'd know was temporary and wouldn't want to invest money or time in. We were very lucky that we bought at the time we bought - interest rates were still low and it was before the summer when the market went really nuts down here.
So, while I don't know your relative's particular situation, there can be some good reasons to live in a practically empty house for a few years. It all depends on your priorities and goals.
. My DH and I renovated our home and added onto it becasue we did not really want to move. Now we cannot agree on how to furnish the living areas. After two years we agreed on a couch and chair, but only because the old one would not last one more minute. Then DH went into mourning and kept the old thing for another week before we got rid of it. We spent a lot on custom cellular shades and we have not put curtains up yet. 
. When there is a Holiday or gathering though, I always have plenty of room to set up tables and chairs and seat everyone and our home is where our families seem to congregate 
