Clutter & Minimalism

[Calliope]

Do you collect things? Do you have a lot of stuff? Do you notice it, or does it drive you crazy? Do you need a lot of furniture and kitchen gadgets? Are you looking to accumulating more stuff over Truckmas? Does your partner have a lot of stuff with seemingly no purpose?

One of my goals for today is to declutter our apartment. It's 600ft/2, so it's not enormous, but it's perfectly big enough for our family. We don't need a lot of stuff, but between my art supplies (cameras, huge boxes of film, paints, collage supplies, ink print stuff, my tablet, frames, canvases), books (and journals, and magazines, and my own manuscripts lying around) and various bric-a-brac, I've maxed out our little storage space pretty well, at least for my tastes.

I think the thought of owning "too much stuff" makes me a little nervous. I like things to be clean and well organized, and I also like to recycle things and buy second-hand goods - although it takes me a while to acquire some things because I'd prefer to buy something that will last and is the "right" thing rather than just buy something. We can be pretty spartan about things (We own one kitchen knife, I put my clothes in suitcases rather than a chest of drawers, we never have a Christmas tree), but I can't stand clutter, and I'm itching to get rid a few items that I know I'm just keeping for sentimental value.

We recently helped some of Spuuky's family move house, and by the time I turned up the house they were moving from seemed COMPLETELY FULL of toys, multiple sets of kitchenware, and other various crap...but then I was told they had already moved SEVEN TRUCKLOADS of items from the house. They stopped moving only when it because apparent that the new house was absolutely full of stuff. As far as I know, the old house is still full of their items that they now have no place to put and no use for - a concept that is fairly horrifying to me. Then they sent out a Christmas Wishlist and I threw a WIFELY TANTRUM and at my insistence we're getting them zoo passes instead of physical things.

Ladies, I would be interested in knowing how many hats, handbags, pairs of shoes and coats you own. I'm up to nine pairs of shoes (Gumboots, ankle boots, knee-high boots, doc martens, oxford flats, oxford heels, slippers, running shoes and sneakers) and I feel so frivolous about it I'll be getting rid of at least two today xD.

If anyone wants to join me in a few hours (Sarah, I'm looking at you!) or laugh at me while I'm liveposting this process feel free. Also, there's nothing particularly wrong about having a lot of things, and being minimalist doesn't inherently make you a better person, but I'd be interested to hear how everyone lives and how they feel about their material possessions.

[fire_of_avalon]

I think I've mentioned this before, but I have a problem with hoarding clothes. I wear a uniform at work and truly I only need a few sets of pajamas, a few layabout outfits, a few casual outfits and a few formal outfits, but I have a dresser full of clothes, a closet full of clothes and... a storage unit with three suitcases (among other things) stuffed to capacity with clothes I haven't even seen in five years.

I also hoard books and business/financial documents that are really wasteful of space. Why do I have four years of bank statements? Because I'm an obsessive filer and referencer and basically I want my whole life to be a reference library so JUST IN CASE someone asks me about my spending habits in February of 2010 I can whip out the bank statement.

And brickabrack. Letters and postcards and Christmas cards. And I just realized I'm becoming my great grandma and you've brought that to the surface (she was a legitimate has-a-problem hoarder of everything, growing up dirtfloor poor and all) and now I have to STUFF-IT-BACK-DOWN. Or spend the day filing. Or something. Ugh, I don't know what to do! NEED A BIGGER HOUSE.

EDIT: I have three hats but I'm making some more. I have three pairs of shoes that I actively wear but probably a dozen that I don't wear much or are seasonal. I have so many handbags it is actually stupid.

[Fuzakeru]

My significant other and I bought a house almost exactly a year ago and we've accumulated a 'house full' but I don't feel like we're at all cluttered in about 90% of our home.

We don't need a lot of stuff, but between my art supplies (cameras, huge boxes of film, paints, collage supplies, ink print stuff, my tablet, frames, canvases), books (and journals, and magazines, and my own manuscripts lying around) and various bric-a-brac, I've maxed out our little storage space pretty well, at least for my tastes.

Haha! This sounds JUST like me. My office is the 10% that is just a little crazy at times. (Thank goodness for doors that can close sometimes.) I never know what props I might need so I have a wide range of just stuff that I don't NEED but might need some day. (Like fairy wings and birthday hats... I mean, who knows, right?) Art supplies I find on sale, color swatches, different paper types and weights, etc. I specifically love objects that are unique in color, reflection, shape, and texture. I mean, I needed alligator felt in this last week. You never know what you'll need!

As far as personal items: the only thing I have too much of is novelty t-shirts and perfume/lotion/soap/etc. that I've gotten in gift baskets. I can justify keeping the shirts because I do wear them a lot while painting, hiking, or going to the gym. The girly smelly stuff? -_- I almost resent it all. People keep buying it for me because they see me use it but I'm only using it because I have too much of it and don't want to throw it away or it to go to waste. After this Xmas I'm going to just go through and donate everything I haven't opened and maybe get to go buy whatever smell I want to smell like this year! (Yes, I've asked them to stop but someone I just met or a family member always does this! I'd rather have a gift card to Bath and Body instead of you deciding I should smell like River Rowboat Mystic Journey this month.... at least ask me what I like.)


PS: I'm so proud of my house. It is so difficult not spamming this post with pictures of the place.

[Psychotic]

I try to be as minimalist as possible but life does sometimes get in the way.

[Calliope]

Whoops, there have been more replies. Attn: FOA:

I actually like getting rid of a lot of things at once, and it's funny how quickly I forget that I even had them. However, if that doesn't work for you, you could get rid of one or two handbags at a time so it doesn't feel so severe.

One thing I had a lot of was t-shirts, especially from concerts I've been to over the years. Spuuky's Mother is making me a quilt out of them for Truckmas - it will probably be the most thoughtful and meaningful gift she's ever given me.

I used to be a chronic bank-statement-and-legal-notice psuedoarchvist - until I switched everyone over to electronic statements. I actually only need to glance at things once or twice and then I forget about them.

[Calliope]

PS: I'm so proud of my house. It is so difficult not spamming this post with pictures of the place.

Spam away, I might do so tomorrow. I'm houseproud this year for the first time in my life xD

[Pike]

Ladies, I would be interested in knowing how many hats, handbags, pairs of shoes and coats you own.

Hats: 0
Handbags: 0
Pairs of shoes: 1
Coats: 2 if you count the long coat, which I use as a sort of jacket.

I don't like having a whole lot of stuff but the reason has nothing to do with liking minimalism and everything to do with the fact that I've moved like... 17? 18? ...times in my life and having more stuff = more work packing. And packing is the worst. So trying to have less stuff is actually a practical consideration more than anything.

Someday when I actually own a house (lol, like that will ever happen) I would like to own All The Things, and by All The Things I mean all the books, video games, video game systems, and My Little Pony figurines.

[Shorty]

I am not a minimalist. Not in the slightest. I enjoy collecting things and elaborate decor. I collect (or used to collect) trinkets and baubles to display on shelves and I love having things up on walls. I have a huge collection of seashells that I need to go through and get rid of some except for my favorites like sand dollars and starfish. I often consider Tyler Durden's "The things you own end up owning you" words of wisdom and I feel guilty about wanting so many physical possessions in order to make my space feel more like mine.

I own exactly two hats that I will probably never wear in my life - one is a black sort of pillbox hat with a veil and the other is a sort of vintage-looking hat with a huge bow and also veil. They hang on two hooks on the side of my armoir and are mostly for decor. I might end up getting rid of them.

I have exactly one bag. I am incredulously ridiculous about finding an absolutely perfect bag and sticking with it. This is a Hurley brand leather bag I got on sale for $15.00 at Ross and it is perfect. I will never in my life understand the need women have to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on designer bags.

I am bad about shoes, though. I am a shoe hoarder. It's bad bad bad because I buy heels and I love them so much that I never want to wear them as for fear of ruining them. Between heels, flats and boots, I would not be surprised to learn that I probably have twenty-five pairs or more. I should probably get rid of some.

Since becoming a gypsy, I have reduced my possessions by about 90% (except for the shoes). In living in apartments and houses, I think it's natural to acquire things so that the space doesn't feel empty and hollow. Living in a closet doesn't allow the luxury of doing so.

[Pumpkin]

We live in a tiny place that we have too much stuff for. This is going to sound like I'm passing blame, but a lot of it isn't my doing. I moved in here and there was too much. Pretty much every single wall is covered with something. I couldn't even hang up a picture of my sone without having to move around some trophy placks. We have like 7 shelves of different sizes all over the tiny living room and another big book shelf in the bedroom.

There honestly hasn't been much room for my stuff. The bookshelf in the living room in at least 90% sharky's books. The one in the bedroom is split, I have a few shelves to myself, but it is mostly paperwork and stuff. I use my desk as a bookshelf mostly.

The dressers and the walls probably bug me most. There are two dressers and I have to pack all of my clothes in to 5 drawers out of... 14? Most of the closet is also sharky's clothes so he has all of that extra room for clothes on top of that and the few things I hang up in the closet, like dresses, are stuck sharing hangars because we don't have enough hangars or closet space. I hate having something on every wall. It makes the space feel so small. There can be some empty walls. But if I want to hang something, we have to rearrange things. His aunt and uncle were also trying to be nice and gave us a tennis ball carrier that we have no room for.

We have the old torn bedroom sheets that need to be thrown out and some extra junk. His mom gave me some clothes, which was sweet, but it isn't my style and doesn't fit so really all it has done is taken up more space until I get rid of them. He also has a keybord in the clostet because there is no room for it in the bedroom. He also has a lot of old boxes, paperwork, and a broken computer in there somewhere, as well as some other stuff, a lot of which we probably don't need to keep taking up space.

I did add a lot to it with my son's wagon for when he was visiting. That's taking up a lot of unnecessary space. We should probably ask if we can store it in his aunt's garage since they just built a second one. Overall, just a small space so we can't do much with it.

As far as shoes, I have... 5 pairs? We have a shoe rack so that isn't a big deal. I also have 2 coats, and we have no room for them so they hang off of the kitchen chairs.

[Fuzakeru]

PS: I'm so proud of my house. It is so difficult not spamming this post with pictures of the place.

Spam away, I might do so tomorrow. I'm houseproud this year for the first time in my life xD

I will make it so then! I hope you post pictures of your place (and other EoFFers of yours!) cause I love seeing the environments people create around them.

Pictures of our house!!!!!!!!!!!Our new home! The front porch lights reminded me of cylons.


This is our bedroom. We strive to keep decorating and just 'stuff' to an absolutely minimal because we feel that too much stuff would hinder us from sleeping. We have a big master bathroom with a garden tub but I didn't take a pic. I should have though cause then you could have seen all the girly smelly things I own. x_x


Our living room! We decided to do bookshelves on the entire wall to hold our collectibles and so we COULD gather knick knacks and other interesting things without it looking like clutter. There's a whole nother bookcase that got cut off in this picture.


The dining room and most of the kitchen.


The guest bathroom and our back porch. We plan on working on the backyard this Spring. I want a fire pit, swing, and herb garden.


Guest bedroom one: the Medieval Room.


Guest bedroom two: the Cabin Room.


So now we're in the basement downstairs.... Some cleaner shots of my office (baskets of stuff hiding in a closet) and ..... well, our cat boxes because I find it HILARIOUS that we hung banners there so this is the 'Royal Poop Station'. ....am I weird for thinking that it funny?


Our haven. We spend the majority of our time down here. I store my manga and nerdy books down here and the wall by our computers is covered in video game world maps. It was an expensive but fun project!

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Your house looks so much like the house one of my friends used to live in, but cleaner. It's kind of scary.

Anyways, I have way too much stuff. I honestly need to clean up and get rid of some of my magazines and papers I don't really need anymore. Also, I'm pretty sure I have hundreds of books, and my video game collection has slowly been growing. I've only ever lived in three different places though (one of those being a dorm room, so I still could store a lot of my stuff back at the parent's house.)

[fire_of_avalon]

So... I call dibs on moving in with Fuza.

[Jessweeee♪]

I literally have trash on my bedroom floor. A wrapper to some candy I ate a month ago.

[Jiro]

I got a lot of crap. I attach too much sentimental value to things and it leads to crowding and trout. It would be nice to have a place where I am allowed to spread my trout out though. Like smurf, I wouldn't need to throw out all that much if I wasn't confined to having all my trout in a single room.

[Calliope]

@Jess -

Well, I went through all of our stuff and culled probably four grocery bags worth of stuff that shouldn't really be in the house. Half of that was things I had already put aside (clothes to donate, a bagful of canned/non-perishable goods we had bought for our local food drive), and while the house looks much better it's more to do with me moving things around rather than getting rid of stuff.

I'm only left with the most difficult items to cull, which will have to be it's own project next month: A box of business papers (everything from medical bills to immigration papers, all sorted by category), a box of letters/cards, a few random items that I'll never use but like because people I like gave them to me, and a huge box of miscellaneous camera equipment and electronic debris. I make it sound worse than it is, my friends all tease me about my neatness xD

On that note, I can't imagine ever living anywhere larger than a two-bedroom apartment, let alone owning a giant house. Dealing with lawns, a garage, multiple storeys of house to clean? Yeah, no thanks! I'll gladly take having to share a washing machine, and surrendering control of my radiator.