Six months ago, after getting married, I moved into my husband’s house. He has lived here for over 20 years and is well entrenched. He loves the aesthetic appeal of minimalism but still lives by the rule of the farm: everything will eventually be useful. He has things stored in closets and in boxes in the garage. Frankly, there’s stuff everywhere, and most of it is rarely accessed or used.
Sometimes, I think it distracts him. I think he would do well with less stuff and fewer things to make decisions about. Like so many successful people who wear the same thing every day (so they can save their decision making for important things), this would be a great practice for him to embrace.
After ending my first marriage, I divested myself of many of my belongings, but often have felt their loss. I wanted to embrace minimalism. I wanted to truly be able to let go of my attachment to things strictly for the memories they held. My sister is not a minimalist. She likes having nice things. She collects art and kitchen gadgets. She works hard to make her house and yard a showplace. I like visiting her house and sometimes wish our house looked like that. Then, I think about all the work it takes to care for all of it and become exhausted at the very idea. I much prefer reading, playing with the dog, or even meditating over cleaning, arranging, and housekeeping.
For all these reasons, my husband and I both started contemplating embracing minimalism, at least a little. Notice I said contemplating embracing it. After years of buying into consumerism, neither of us was really sure that we could eliminate our attachments to having and buying stuff. If nothing else, though, we knew some decluttering and home improvement was needed to keep us sane.
Closets
I decided we needed to start with the closets. All of them in the house were full. I know this sounds counter to minimalism, but we needed to be able to organize the contents better, especially in the master bedroom. As my husband pointed out, if I gave away all the clothes and shoes I don’t wear, there would be a lot more room. While my itty bitty committee sputtered in the back of my mind, ranting about all of his junk, I realized he was correct. Admittedly, much of that is because I have gained weight and they don’t fit. I am working on it and hope most will fit soon. I’m not sure how many will still be in style, so much of it can go. However, even after cleaning out all the old, I still felt more organization was needed.
After some research, we decided a custom closet system would be worth the investment. It could be tailored to our odd-sized closets and specific organizational challenges. Also, it will add value to the house if we look to sell. It made a big difference, and it also felt true to certain aspects of minimalism. We can’t get rid of everything. Keeping what we do have organized helps us focus on the important things, not on trying to manage or find our stuff.
Offices
We are lucky. We both have our own offices in the house. His office is stuffed with years of paper and detritus. Mine is full with everything we could not find another place for in the house. I thought I had gotten rid of most of my superfluous stuff in my divorce. It’s amazing how fast I replaced it. After purging our closet, we knew how to declutter our respective offices. He spent hours shredding years of paper, and I donated old books and organized my art supplies.
My office is actually the loft. I love the space, but it is lacking in natural light. Like many people, I am more productive and healthy when I get natural sunlight, especially when working. With this missing from my home office, I found myself to be less effective when working there, thus defeating the purpose of a home office. So, once again, despite our attempts at minimalism, we spent money. This time it was spent on adding windows and skylights.
Kitchen
What is it about kitchen gadgets? How many tools do you really need to cook meals? According to my sister, anything that makes one task easier is worth having. I’m not that bad, but it is easy to collect gadgets and tools. I keep thinking I should empty out the cupboards and only keep the necessary items. I couldn’t do it. Some of those gadgets I have been collecting for a while and thought enough of to keep through the divorce. Others were wedding presents (from my latest wedding). However, I can keep from buying anything new and as things wear out, I don’t need to replace them. I have to admit, some things have been moved to that one cupboard in the kitchen that requires a step stool and moving the stand mixer just to access.
Minimalism. We didn’t quite make it. However, we did make good progress. We still have more stuff than we need. I still have a few clothes that don’t fit, but they are motivating me to lose weight. My husband has eliminated some of his “just in case” junk and the rest of it we organized in a set of wood lockers we installed in the garage. While we did spend money in the process, we gained a lot of organization. We have organized everything we kept, and our things do not hold sway over our minds. In my estimation, this makes our foray into minimalism a success. We were feeling bogged down by our possessions. Not any longer. That is a win.
Photo Credit
Photo is public domain from Unsplash on Pixabay
Guest Author Bio
Valerie Jocums
Valerie, originally a computer programmer, is just starting her new career as a writer. She loves the sun, her Australian Shepherd dog, and her husband. When she isn’t mountain biking, listening to music, or reading, she is writing about everything she has learned.
Follow her on twitter: @vkjocums
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