I spent a few hours yesterday in my garage, again. I’m making progress and getting rid of a lot of stuff I don’t need, or even want for that matter. So this begs the bigger question. Where in the world did all of this stuff come from and why do I have so much?
Space. Maybe it’s because I downsized from 3,300 to 1,780 square feet, but that was 4 years ago. I took everything from my old house because I could, everything but the furniture. It wasn’t my style, so I gladly left it. The photo is of my ‘formal’ living room in the old house. A useless room that was used once a year at Christmas time. I loved the red walls, but I couldn’t take those. I hated the coffee table so much, I listed it in the divorce decree as the ‘ugly coffee table’ that he could keep.
I’m realizing the I don’t need this much stuff to live or to be happy. I don’t need to keep a lot, I don’t need to buy a lot and I don’t need to pack every inch of my house with stuff. My neighbor saw my master bedroom closet and said it’s the smallest she’s ever seen. It’s small, but it’s only about 1/3 filled, and that’s with the shelf I took out. Empty space is good. I want more of it.
Personal attachment. I don’t have many of these items. Some would say it’s because my heart is 2 sizes too small. It could be. I do keep a few things. My kids each have one plastic tote in the attic. I place items in there that are meaningful to them like their favorite outgrown toys or art projects. I kept one thing from my grandma, her turquoise blue double boiler pan. Useful, and it reminds me of her cooking french toast for me when I visited. It’s about the memories with a person, not the stuff.
I also sometimes keep stuff because it cost a lot or I got a great deal on it. Does anyone care about that other than me? No. If I’m not using it, it needs to go.
Blank canvas. Being an artist, this is the difficult part for me. I see everything as a blank canvas. Furniture, clothing, housewares… pretty much everything in my sight is mentally placed or redesigned at some point. This world would look a lot different if I had the time to do everything in my head. Here’s how I’m combatting this issue. I’m getting rid of things that I can replace when I have time to do a project. For example, altered books. I don’t need to save the 50+ books, as if I need one or two for a project, I can get them cheap at the thrift store or free in the Half Price Books dumpster. As for the miniature chest of drawers with the small drawers begging for art, that I’m keeping.
With less stuff, I’m more organized, I know what I have and I won’t be in gridlock. I will not only remember I have the little drawers, but I can find it and have space to work on it.
Laziness & ease. Some things take time and effort to get rid of. My old computer is a good example. It needs to go to the recycling center, and without the hard drives in it. I would have to take out the hard drives, destroy them or wipe them with a special program where data cannot be retrieved, load it in the car, drive to an electronics recycling place and carry the heavy thing inside. It’s easier to leave it sitting there collecting dust.
Sometimes I keep things because I’m lazy. I don’t feel like cleaning out the 12 plastic totes filled with tiny objects. When I started being intentional about downsizing and really thinking about what I have and what I need, the laziness went away. Once I accomplished downsizing some small areas, that motivated me to do some bigger areas, then snowballed into the whole house and garage. Instead of planning storage and organization for one space, I had a plan for the whole house. That really helped a lot.
Future need. I hear this one a lot, and have practiced it some in the past. “But what if I need this in the future? I’ll have to get another one.” This can be nipped in the butt by changing your shopping habits. First, don’t buy extra. Wholesale shopping can be good, that is if you have 8 kids or you’re stocking up for your bomb shelter. Do you really need a back-up can opener or an extra iron? No. These are thing that are easily available. If you’re breaks, go buy one. If it really stresses you out that bad, there’s superstores that are open 24 hours a day.
Yes, the argument can be made that we should not have to buy something we had because we gave it away. Here’s how I see it. If I have just a few things, it’s so much less stress, less maintenance and less to clean. If I had all these “extras”, I would not be able to find them anyway, the result being a new purchase anyway. There are people that do need these extras and would be blessed by them. I’m evaluating everything in my house, trying to apply these principals, then getting rid of a lot of stuff. What’s the good news? I’m saving a lot of money, I’ve had no regrets about the masses of stuff I’ve given away and I don’t have much desire to purchase new things.