Category Archives: Small-House Living

Too Many Suds

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

As I said last week, there are too many choices in our first world, and that creates clutter.

So now, I need to follow my own advice.

The other day, I was in the basement when I noticed a couple of packages of soap on my supply shelves. (I keep supplies and canned food in the basement because of limited space upstairs.)

I’d forgotten I had that soap. It was just a basic brand from the dollar store, but it’s still soap, and it will do its job whenever I remember to bring it upstairs and use it.

Did I forget to use soap in the shower? Am I hygienically challenged? No, quite the opposite. In the bathroom upstairs, I have several bottles of body wash in the shower (I use them interchangeably, depending on my mood), plus more in the vanity cabinet, and quite a few bars of soap in the vanity drawer.  In fact, I clearly have more body wash and soap than five women could use in a month. But why?

Because there are so many choices.

The soap I found in the basement is just plain old soap, not white jasmine, or sweet pea, or rose hip and patchouli nurturing nectar, as I actually have in the shower right now. But if I came in hot and sweaty from gardening, that basic soap would do the job just fine.

Years ago, I used to visit my great aunt and uncle, who spent their summers in a three-room cottage in rural Michigan, not far from Lake Michigan. They had an outhouse, but no bathroom. On the outside of the cottage was a shelf with a metal bowl and a white bar of soap. You filled the bowl from the nearby pump, and washed up in that bowl using the white soap. You dried off with a nearby towel. Simple.

My great aunt was a happy, lovely woman. I don’t think her life was diminished each summer because she had no body wash, no shower gel and no shower. She managed just fine.

I think I can learn a lesson from that.

A Flexible Spare Bedroom

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

After a lot of thought, I finally figured out how to make the most of our spare bedroom.

It’s not a large room; when one of our children lived there until they moved out and got married, they packed that room with a bed, flat-screen television, small dresser, end table and chair. Add the many posters and mementoes on the walls, and that little room felt like a closet.

After the wedding, it became a spare bedroom which was rarely used. The bed offered a place to display my quilts as I made them, but more often than not, other things soon covered the bed, like presents bought but not yet wrapped, household items we received as gifts but couldn’t find a permanent place for, and the excess of library books that I sometimes bring home.

When I decided that the room should be used more often, I turned it into a sewing room by bringing up one of my machines and the table designed for it to sit on. This worked well, but with the bed and dresser still taking up valuable space in that room, it was pretty cramped, especially whenever I was actually sewing and needed to set up the ironing board.

Last winter, I became tired of reading and writing only in the living room. I wanted another space where I could read or write in silence, or talk on the phone when my husband was watching something on television. So out went the bed and the dresser, and now the little room is uncluttered, with just the sewing table, a cozy chair and ottoman, a small end table on wheels, a small cart on wheels (holds sewing supplies) and a floor lamp. As a result, the room gives off a very peaceful feeling.

This past week, a relative came to visit for several days. We put our double-decker airbed in there, and she was quite comfy. I had packed up my machine and its table and put them in the closet, so some open space remained.

Next week, a few of my grandchildren are coming to stay. The airbed turns into two single beds, so we’ll set up those beds and the kids can sleep in there for several nights, with Grandpa and me right next door if they need anything during the night.

Then, after they go home, my machine will come back out and I’ll be back to work on my quilts. This room is now quite useful, and will continue to be so, IF I continue to keep clutter out of it.

The Roots of Clutter

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

How do we end up with so much clutter? Because we collect it. And why do we collect it?

For one thing, it’s cheap entertainment, and I do mean cheap; much stuff nowadays is inexpensive and doesn’t hold up well, but it serves its purpose by temporarily satisfying a desire. The problem is when we hang onto it when we don’t need it anymore, or when it’s no longer useful. Some typical cheap and temporary thrills that soon turn to clutter include clothes bought on impulse, kitchen items that are more attractive than useful, and craft items for crafts we hope to take up someday.

Also, credit allows us to amass all sorts of things we couldn’t afford otherwise. Compared to our elders, for whom stuff was more expensive and saved up for or not bought, we can have many things we don’t have the money to buy outright. So we can end up with more stuff than we would have otherwise.

Of course, clutter is sometimes the visible evidence of emotional issues. You buy something to make yourself feel better after an argument, a frustration, a breakup, or just a bad day at work. Shopping therapy can leave you temporarily satisfied but living in an overpacked home.

Finally, a lack of clutter, or simplicity, can leave us feeling naked, like there’s nothing to protect us from the world or ourselves. It’s no surprise that some of our greatest thinkers emphasized a minimum of stuff. They understood that possessions don’t make the man (or woman), and that sometimes, possessions own you instead of the other way around, leaving you too busy maintaining all of your stuff to think hard about what’s going on in your life and in the world. Ultimately, your clutter can be a great distraction from more important issues.

Need Help Decluttering Your Home?

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

The hardest part of getting rid of things you don’t need is finding a good place to send them. You don’t want to just throw things away when they’re still useful (just not useful to you).

Here’s the scoop on 11 apps that will help you send your unneeded belongings where they will be wanted, and you can even make a few dollars doing so. A couple of them offer decluttering help, which will keep you on the right track so you can live a simpler life and make your home feel roomier, no matter what size it is.