Monthly Archives: October 2021

The Loveseat Saga Ends, Finally

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

You may remember that just before the pandemic started, we made the decision to replace our large old furniture with smaller pieces, because our old furniture was too big for our little living room. It just didn’t look right.

We started with the tv stand. We had been using our old sofa table as a tv stand, and it looked large and messy, with lots of cords hanging down the back. So we replaced it with small tv stand from Wayfair.com that holds all of our DVDs (though you can’t see them), and we’re very happy with it.

Then the pandemic hit, and for a while furniture stores closed, and then they were only open for limited hours, and furniture was limited because the factories were closed. So we gave up for a while, though I was looking at loveseats and small sofas online the entire time.

A month ago we replaced our living room carpet. Out with the old brown wool, in with a bright cream nylon. What a difference it made! But we needed a temporary parking spot for the giant loveseat to get it out of the living room before the carpet guys arrived. We soon discovered it wouldn’t even fit in our little kitchen! So my husband and son squeezed it through the front door and put it in the garage. Once the carpet was installed, we decided not to squeeze the loveseat back in through the front door, but to sell it instead. So off we went, furniture shopping for its replacement.                                                                                   

Two days and four stores later, we were depressed. We didn’t find a single thing we liked. Everything was big and bloated and made out of cheap fabric, even if the price tag was high. One store was a sea of light gray; boring! So many pieces were uncomfortable. Online reviews often said the same thing so buying a loveseat online was out.

My husband then came up with a great idea; why not get a bench instead of a loveseat? It would be smaller, but would provide extra seating when visitors are here. We both began looking online and it wasn’t long before we agreed that we’d found the perfect bench.

It arrived in less than a week and now it sits in our living room and we love it. Next step: new, smaller recliners and a small chair for the spot by the window.

Placing Things in Appropriate Spots

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

I had just woken up this morning and reached up into my closet for something when I accidentally bumped my jewelry box and brought it crashing to the ground, sending pierced earrings and other pieces of jewelry everywhere, and breaking the trim off the front of it.

Unfortunately, I have a bad knee and couldn’t kneel down to pick up that mess. Fortunately, I have a helpful husband. He came and picked up all the little shiny items, some of which had landed in my shoes or on the floor. He will also fix the box’s trim for me.

But what was the jewelry box doing way up in the closet? Well, I never found room for it on my dresser, and since I dress up very rarely these days, I put it up in the closet, squashed between two big plastic boxes of sheets (flannels for winter and cottons for summer).

I really should keep it on my dresser, where my perfume tray is. But I don’t have much space beyond the perfume tray, which is pretty large and covered with bottles, most of which I don’t use anymore but am emotionally attached to. Each one reminds me of a specific time in my life, so I rarely wear them, but I like the memory each brings back when I sniff one.

Clearly oversentimentality is at play here. I need to reduce the number of perfume bottles, put them on a smaller tray, and put that jewelry box on the dresser where it belongs. I will add that to my to-do list!

Will Clutter Accumulation Hit a Wall Soon?

By Claire Posted in Clutter Tagged , , , , ,

Since the pandemic began, we’ve spotted flocks of delivery vehicles in our neighborhood. Whether it’s the bright white and blue FedEx vans, the darker blue Amazon vans, the white USPS vans or the brown UPS vans, they traverse our streets constantly, even on Sunday. All of them bring my neighbors (and me) an increasing variety of goods.

Never has accumulation been so easy! Before the advance of Internet shopping, you had to drive your vehicle to each store to load it up and bring stuff home. That required some work. And if you lived in a walkable city, as I once did, the amount of things you bought was limited by how much you could carry on the train or bus home, or on your walk home. You might see many things you liked, but you were limited by your arm strength.

These days we sit in a comfy chair at home and click on our phones (or tablets or laptops or desktops), and the burden of lifting what we buy is on the delivery people. This makes it so much harder to keep our homes uncluttered when the things that appeal to us are just a click away, and the only limit is our credit limit.

For now, anyways. Reports are everywhere that our supply chains are being greatly affected by the pandemic, by vaccine mandates and by the inability of companies to find workers. As a result, we’re told to expect delays and shortages of consumer goods for the foreseeable future, including the 2021 Christmas season.

That could certainly limit the amount of clutter we accumulate in the coming months.

Finding Solutions That Don’t Add to Clutter

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

One of the ways I ended up with too much clutter is that when I replaced something, I usually kept the old one “just in case.” My parents grew up during the Great Depression, so were raised with a frugal mindset that they passed on to me. Having raised a large family on one income, it often served me well (until we had to move and deal with all that clutter. See my new book for the gory details!)

Now that I live in a small house, and there are only three of us here, it’s really not a useful concept anymore. If something needs to be replaced, I’m best off doing so and then donating or pitching the original item. There is little spare room for “just in case” items.

So I was left in a quandary recently when my husband complained that one of our two little bathroom rugs had lost its grip and kept skidding when he stepped on it. The top of the rug still looked just fine, but yes, that skidding became annoying very quickly, and was also a disaster waiting to happen. We don’t need any broken legs around here.

I shopped online and found a lovely set of matching rugs from a vendor known for high quality. They really didn’t look much better than what we have, but of course they wouldn’t skid. The pair cost $60 plus shipping.

I thought about what I would do with the old rugs. They looked just fine, and one of them was. But I’d have to pitch them both. I wasn’t going to donate bathroom rugs.

The thought of pitching something that looked good (not to mention spending over $60) kept me from immediately acting on the situation. Then something occurred to me.

When I sew, I keep small squares of ribbed plastic shelf liner under the pedals of my machines so they don’t slide when I’m sewing. I vaguely remember throwing out the rest of the shelf liner after cutting pieces for each pedal. But I also remembered where I found it in the first place: the Dollar Tree.

So I ran out and picked up another roll for a whole dollar. I cut out a rectangle just a bit smaller than the width of our bathroom rug and placed it under the rug. It’s been a few weeks now and guess what? No slippage. So I saved a lot of money and don’t have to decide where to pitch those good-looking bathroom rugs.

My parents would approve.