Uncluttered Living, Part3
(You can catch up with Part 1 and 2)
So, here is what I am learning about living without clutter:
The more that I like the design of a space on its own, the less I feel I need to put things in it.
I can really see that in the rooms we've finished up until this point. Especially the bathrooms. They really stand on their own for me, not needing much more adornment.
Which is odd. When I lived in apartments, I felt like I had to fill every wall, every shelf and every corner.
Why? I'm beginning to realize that I used these moveable items to try to distract my eye from the room itself. Something was always not quite right in most of my apartments...the furniture wasn't purchased for the space and so it didn't fit in. The light was wrong. There were layers of paint on the door frames. Perhaps there was a cable wire for the television thoughtlessly tacked against the baseboard leading from the window and down the hallway. Or the light fixtures were cheaply made and out of proportion to the room or they were fluorescent panels.
The worst space was an apartment that I lived in for a little over a year when I was fresh out of college. It was a dwelling that symbolized a complete failure of imagination. The rooms were awkward white boxes with vinyl windows, cream carpeting and hollow core doors that jutted off of a hallway which ran the length of the apartment. The layout was a series of dead ends. Nothing I could purchase or scavange or refinish made me feel comfortable there. I always felt itchy and restless in that space. It was a newer building hunched between a small neighborhood of tract houses and a parade of high voltage power lines. I was miserable in that place and no amount of "stuff" could save me. Strangely? It was the largest space I have ever rented.
The apartment I fled to immediately after leaving that one was a charming (barely) one bedroom in the city on the top floor of a brownstone. It had gleaming wood floors and windows on three sides as well as a skylight. The bathroom had lovely tile walls and a clawfoot bathtub. It was approximately 300 square feet of space that felt incredibly "right".
Now I am beginning to get it. The design of the space needs to stand on its own. So much so that if I moved into a room with only a large pillow and a vase of tulips, I could call it welcoming and warm and live comfortably there. THAT is the key to my personal decluttering odyssey.
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Comments
I'm soooo with you on this. I've had piles of "decor" unpacked and ready to install for months, but I just haven't done it. Anytime I start to work on it, I realize I don't really want the hassle.
It clutters the view, clutters the mind, and detracts from all the hard work that went into crown molding, for example. Plus, it's much easier to clean when there's less STUFF (which I think you covered in part 1). :)
I don't doubt that this change is partly due to the fact that after living with all these things packed away in boxes for years, I got used to not having them.
Currently on the mantle: a simple glass vase with dried Kangaroo Paws and a yet-to-be-framed artist print. The room feels complete with just those two things. When I started to load books, frames, etc. into the built-ins beside the mantle, I felt like I was ruining it. It remains a work in process.....
Posted by: kim | May 10, 2006 1:14 PM
Your conclusion that design is the key to a livable apartment or house couldn't be more true. I'm incredulous that so many things - buildings, processes, and products - are so badly designed. Bad design is not only the cause of uncomfortable apartments, but many of our modern ills, the most striking of which is the environmental devastation we humans are causing.
Anyway, your post inspired me to write a post of my own.
Posted by: Charlotte | May 12, 2006 10:52 AM
You have really inspired me with this string of posts! I removed six bags of clutter (clothes) from my home this week, and I'm aiming for more in the immediate future. :-)
Thank you.
Posted by: Bling | May 14, 2006 8:25 PM
Having just bought a new house last year, I'm keenly aware of the fact that SPACE is the most expensive thing in the world to acquire, and anything new thing I bring in the house is a little bit less space I have to live in.
Posted by: Mike | May 15, 2006 11:36 AM
My wife and I periodically schedule stuff purging parties (after reading this, we scheduled one for tonight). We get together and tackle a room, starting in one corner usually and working our way around, making three piles - landfill, good will, and a pile to put out in the yard with the FREE sign. Tonight: the kitchen.
Posted by: SD | May 15, 2006 3:30 PM
This is something that has been the bane of my existence. I'm a packrat; always have been. My family is worse. Much worse. I inherited my grandmother's house. Every closet and 2 rooms were packed floor to ceiling with "stuff". It's been 5 years, and I'm still drowning in stuff. Slowly though, it's going away.
My problem is that I'm overly sentimental. I save every card, every letter, every movie ticket stub. I have to get out of that habit. I used to run an ebay store and had an entire room filled with computer parts, a lot of it not worth selling. I've given it all away.
Books - I'd never get rid of my books.
CDs - They're already on my computer.
One day I'll get rid of all the crap...
Posted by: Larry | May 24, 2006 4:27 PM