More about Stuff

A couple of days ago, I caught up with the blogs I missed while out of town and ran across this blog entry about storage. Her post tied in nicely with the way I’ve been thinking lately about things or stuff.

I’ll never be one of the minimalists who owns just 100 items or less. I’ll probably never participate in the 333 project (although I could pretty easily). But I do subscribe to the idea that whatever I have in my home should serve a useful purpose and be pleasing to the eye. What I don’t find pleasing is seeing stuff cluttering horizontal surfaces, or a house stuffed to the gills with things.

I’ve also always thought that paying for storage at one of those U-Store places is nothing but waste. Get Rich Slowly wrote an excellent article about paying monthly fees to store things you aren’t even using.

I feel the same way about buying home storage solutions only to accommodate more things. Let me be clear, I’m not talking about having some containers to put your lunch in. Or a case for a laptop or some other electronic device. I’m talking about boxes and bins to keep things you’re not using, almost certainly will never use again and yet those things have to stay in your house, weighing you down, taking up space in your home and your mind. That kind of stuff.

One of the most freeing experiences after we’d rebuilt our apartment and our clothing came back from the clothing restoration place was realizing a whole lot of them, in fact, were ruined. We tossed about 2/3 of our clothing, including shoes and coats. Kent says that he missed a couple of pairs of shoes and his winter boots because winter boots and good, comfortable shoes you can walk in are a necessity, and it's really hard to find shoes to fit his size 11 1/2 wide feet. I was luckier in the shoe department or I'd have felt that way too, but otherwise we didn't really miss anything else.

What I learned from the entire experience, not just losing the clothing but losing the furniture and being out of our home for five months, was that my things are not me. They aren't what makes my living space a home. Even more, though, I realized that my things own me as much as I own them, and they take up mental and emotional space I'd rather use elsewhere. 

Minimalism and me

I read several blogs about frugality and minimalism; the two topics often go hand in hand in Blogland, and I am interested in both subjects. I remember spending hours taking my sisters’ furniture from their Playskool doll house and arranging the pieces just so in the back of one of their toy pick up trucks—I loved the idea of a small living space. I’ve always been fascinated by the miniature and little and completely enjoyed finished the doll house my uncle made.

From Doll House

Some minimalist blogs can be a bit preachy and judgmental as though if I choose to have more things (or Stuff as it’s generally termed in these kinds of blogs), then I’m morally deficient. But I did find a minimalist blog that lets me look into that world without being judged that I’m not—nor ever will be—fully part of that movement.

Miss Minimalist wrote a post about the 100 things she and her husband don’t own. What I loved about the list was that she also included some of the reasons they choose not to have those items. That list also solidified for me that while I like living in little spaces and I prefer an uncluttered existence, I also need items that she and other, more purely minimalist people, would find burdensome. The clean bare lines of no curtains or artwork on her walls works for her, while I positively chafed until we got our curtains hung up last weekend. I needed that color and that bit of softening the curtains provided. Plus they helped with the acoustics in the room.

But I do enjoy her blog because she's not judgmental. She talks about what works for her and I'm free to pick and choose what works for me in my streamlined existence. Maybe that's the term for me: streamlined.