Monthly Archives: July 2021

Can You Predict Declutterism?

By Claire Posted in Clutter, My Books, Personal, Small-House Living Tagged ,

(I don’t know if declutterism is a word, but I just decided it should be one.)

I’m thinking about my kids and whether I could have predicted which ones would or wouldn’t become declutterers.

The messiest one is now into minimalism; go figure. The neatest one (well, let’s say the most organized) is still fairly neat. Another messy one has quite a bit of stuff in their house, but all of it is much loved and was curated to go together, so that it’s actually quite an interesting house and not messy at all. Then there is the one who is emotionally attached to everything and it must not be moved around.

They are fairly true to the way they were in childhood except for the one who’s into minimalism. That one has several small children and I think the minimalism is a reaction to the kiddie chaos. After all, it’s important to feel you have something under control when you live in chaos.

As I’ve mentioned in a few of my books, I was not a messy kid but I was very emotionally attached to my many beloved dolls, books, records, craft supplies, etc. I used all of my things and some showed the wear (I prefer to think of those items as looking well-loved.) I am certainly not a minimalist and was forced into declutterism out of necessity. I never would have predicted that I would someday live with a minimum of stuff. But then I didn’t know I was going to end up in a small house. (That life event was precipitated by another life event as explained in my latest book, Memoirs of a Downsized Declutterer.)

Do your childhood clutter habits show up in how you live today, or have you changed completely?

Extreme Wardrobes

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Personal, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , , , ,

During the pandemic, I became addicted to reading sewing blogs and watching a few sewing vloggers on YouTube. One thing they all seem to have in common is that they make a lot of clothes for themselves every month.

I realize they need to have a steady stream of projects to talk about. But speaking only for myself, I don’t want or need that many new clothes. And just the modest number of clothes I’ve made for myself in the last year caused me to go through my old clothes and winnow out things that still fit. I’ve been able to make the new clothes out of better fabrics than what I can find in ready-to-wear clothes, so for me it’s a no-brainer to get rid of some still-wearable clothes so I can wear the new things I’ve made.

The bottom line is that I have that rule for myself, where all of my out-of-season clothes have to fit in two big plastic boxes. When they make those boxes overflow, which they did not long ago, some things have to go, and they aren’t going to be the things made out of good fabric, things I put a lot of work into.

This makes me wonder if those sewists I follow keep their wardrobes at a reasonable size or if they don’t care. One of the vloggers has mentioned that she uses a spare room as her closet. No thanks! That’s too much for me. I can think of many uses for a spare room, but closet isn’t one of them.

Keeping the Huge Chairs in the Small Living Room

By Claire Posted in Personal, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

Before the pandemic began, we had begun buying smaller furniture for our living room. Our old furniture was scaled for a 26’ long room, so it was clearly too big for this living room.

For quite a while, we’ve lived with just fewer pieces of furniture in the room. But they are clearly too big in scale and I wanted to replace them with smaller scale furniture. The pandemic goofed that up as many stores and manufacturers closed down temporarily (some permanently). Now that they’re open again, there are supply chain problems so there are delivery dates out (sometimes way out) in the future.

Now there’s another stumbling block. My husband doesn’t want to give up his recliner. I should point out that our recliners are over 20 years olds, well made and still very comfy. Unfortunately they are still very LARGE. I’m willing to give up mine for a smaller model. But he has his worn to just the way he likes it, and he doesn’t want to give it up.

I get it. I’m not thrilled about it, but I get it. If you’ve ever seen the sitcom “Frasier,” you know that Frasier’s luxury condo contained a very hip modern set of furniture plus his father’s old, duct-tape-repaired recliner. His dad didn’t want to give up his chair either.

Since I haven’t been able to find a small sofa I really like anyways, I’ve decided to give up the hunt for now. One of those recliners will break at some point, and then we can start the furniture hunt again.

Preparing for Smaller Living Quarters

By Claire Posted in downsizing, Simpler Living, Small-House Living, Uncategorized Tagged ,

I read an article that suggested if you’re planning to downsize to a tiny house, you should reduce the possessions in your current home to the bare minimum so that you’ll be acclimated to living in a tiny house before you get there.

On one hand, I can see where that’s true. Living with the bare minimum is going to be a necessity for you. On the other hand, I don’t think anything can really prepare you for going from a large house to a small one. You just have to jump in with both feet and do it.

Once you get there you’ll quickly realize that not all of your furniture will fit, and that you don’t have as much storage as you once did. That’s not a bad thing, though: it’s like being given guidelines for how much you can keep. You can only fit so much in and the rest has to go. So bring in your favorites and keep everything else out in the garage, or in a storage unit if there’s no garage, and then filter through everything.

There’s also no way to prepare for the feel of living in smaller quarters. In some ways, it will be tough. When you’re used to a large kitchen, a small kitchen feels almost claustrophobic at first. You’ll need time to learn to work in it. If you’re used to a huge bedroom, your new cozy one will also feel different. But since most of your time in there is spent asleep, it quickly becomes a non-issue.

Ultimately, these things can’t be experienced until you’re actually there, so I don’t think you can really plan for them. If you’re heading for a tiny house, you might consider renting one first to see if it’s for you.