There was a wee-bit of clamor for photos of my living space; probably you folks just want to see what it looks like to live someplace where it appears the inhabitants have already packed to move. I can't blame you--it's like looking at those dioramas of ancient people in a cave. Ahem.
I thought I'd do it "anatomy of a room" style, and I'm starting with the bedroom, which is probably my most monastic space. There's also never any real light in there (which is fine unless you want to take photos), so forgive the lamps. Because my aim--as I have gone about drastically altering my material and emotional relationship to money and objects--is not so much to create beautiful, artful surroundings as to create a functional, peaceful, and cost-effective life, I've labeled some things in the room to show what they are and where they came from, and if you click to enlarge the photos, you can more easily see what's going on with that.
The above photo makes me a little nervous--that's what my inner-OCD-angel calls clutter, but in fact, we do need/use all the stuff that's on that bedside dresser, so I'm going to chill out about it. For reals.
Full disclosure: I took the clothes out of that laundry basket. Nobody needs to see my dirty skivvies, right?
What I love about this room: its spare functionality. Everything I need here is here, and very little that I don't. This room is for sleeping--you know, mainly. I also exercise here every morning, and that's all I'm going to say. ;-) Also, there are many objects that I love in this room, either because they are lovely or because they serve us well, or both--the solid wood armoire, the black iron bed, my nightgown (yep--I have one nightgown and wear it pretty much every night).What I spent real money on: the bed and mattress and the exercise bike. Everything else was a cast-off (from friends or family--things they no longer wanted/needed), a practical gift, or a yard-sale/thrift sale purchase. Why is this important to me? Well, I aim to be frugal, not cheap (spending money on things I need--spending the right amount of money to fully achieve but not exceed my objective), with the ultimate goal of working less and living more, and I aim also to use up the fewest resources, partly by reusing as much as I can of the stuff that already exists in the world. I think I'm succeeding fairly well in this room.
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31 comments:
I just found your blog a couple of days ago and I am really enjoying it. We are working on a major simplification here so it's really inspiring to see what works for you. Thanks for sharing.
Lovely and Simple! You bedroom and mine actually have many of the same elements. When we first moved in I was a bit disappointed that the bedroom was so small, but now I love that it is clearly a place for sleeping and nothing else. Bravo!
OK, so I'm thinking about our bedroom and wondering where you keep your jewelry, cosmetics, clothes you might wear tomorrow...?
I really long to live in a space like this and yet I gather clutter like a nest I'm building around myself. This is the first time I've seen minimalistic without thinking it is sparse and unbeautiful. I'm inspired, thank you. X
Thanks, ladies. And Alice--truth is, I don't have much in the way of jewelry or cosmetics, but the jewelry I do have is house in that dark-wooden box on the armoire, as well as in the little pink bowl and the small, hinged green box, also on the armoire. My cosmetics are in a a box with a lid that lives--this may be a little gross--on the back of my toilet. (My bathroom has NO storage whatsoever.) As for the clothes I might wear the next day, I don't actually _go_ anywhere, sadly, so there's no hurry--I just pluck the clothes out of the closet and dresser before I shower. There are a few hooks on the back of our closet drawer, though, for things we've worn and might wear again. I'm not going to lie and say that those clothes don't also sometimes get thrown over the end of the bed or on the exercise bike. Just not today!
Lovely, Melissa, and yes, inspiring!
The bedroom might not be the best place to ask this question (oh my, imagine the conversations that could follow from that opener!), but I'm wondering how your focus on minimalism interacts with your creative process. For me--and I admit I'm a bit of a magpie--I've been feeling like a little bit of "excess" is necessary to the process. Like, a scrap of vintage embroidery that sits around for a while before I figure out what to do with it, or a copy of The Handmaid's Tale that I was glad I held on to because it was there when I needed to reread a bit of it to psyche myself up for something I was writing. You know what I mean? So I'm wondering if your creative process is just not that material-object-focused or if other parts of your house have some flotsam.
Sarah--indeed, there is some flotsam in other spots. I do try my darndest to keep the bedroom flotsam free. Actually, I try to limit the "excess" to my studio area, but since it's now only a foyer and not a whole room with a door, I try to keep even the excess as organized and tidy as possible. Think boxes, bins, pin board, etc.
Your creative-process question is a good one and one I really want to think about. On the fly, though, I'd say, I do my best thinking/creating when my space is clear, clean, open. I would also say, though, that I don't hate stuff-that's-been-around-awhile as much as I hate the accumulation of new and not-needed stuff. Much of my focus is on not getting. I feel like most people would have much simpler spaces if they just stopped shopping! ;-)
you and i are destined for something (together)in this lifetime... i just know it. guess what adam and are have been talking about for a few weeks now? removing everything except the bed (actually, keeping only the mattresses, we're tired of our big stupid sleigh bed. who ever thought that was a smart idea for a 10x12 bedroom?). our room is so small, even a dresser makes me feel claustrophobic. i need it to feel completely serene. funny thing is, anyone who entered the room as is would think it was sparse already. but i bet you get that too. ;)
Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your space. I love it--so simple and tidy. I agree it's the bringing in of stuff that's the problem for us, despite the fact that we are good at ongoing purging. I'm struggling with toy storage these days--we don't have space for a dedicated play area. Any advice? Perhaps a topic for a future post? :)
Melissa, yes, your thought that "clean, clear, open" = creativity rings true for me too. So I guess the question becomes how to balance the need for openness with the need for "extra" to ferment. Lots to think about here. I'm also pondering your statement that your goal is "not so much to create beautiful, artful surroundings as to create a functional, peaceful, and cost-effective life" and how those two sometimes complement and sometimes conflict in my own mind. Thanks for the great food for thought.
You're a smart cookie, Sarah. I guess I'd say that "beautiful and artful" aren't always in conflict with functional and peaceful, and I clearly have an artful soul; I just meant to say that if I were to prioritize my goals, artful would come second (and it didn't always). For example, the quilt on my bed came to me because it was made for Annabelle as a gift but was too big for her bed. I thought I would get rid of it, but I'd been needing a bedspread to go over the now-slightly-shabby-looking comforter that keeps us warm through Maine winters. The thing is, that quilt is NOT in "my" colors. I love turquoise, blue, brown, gray--cool neutrals. The quilt is purple and yellow. I put it on the bed anyway and was surprised that I could live with it--in fact, it brightened my quiet space in a fairly pleasing way, and I appreciate its hand-madeness a great deal. Still, it's not totally me. A few years ago if it had been on my bed, every time I passed it, I'd think "I need a new bedspread that's more beautiful," but--to my own surprise--I have never given it a thought. It does its job; it's good enough. No need to "get" anything else.
Heather--we do so need to dream up a collaboration, my dear. I think of you in my daily life so often and know we could cook up something brilliant!
Teresa--I have always been super careful about what toys come into our house and, in fact, Annabelle has very few. She's never been a real toy girl--it's more an issue of art supply storage at our house. But when she was littler, we did employ this kind of system: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49819508
I'm looking at it now and wishing I had one!
I also have always (and still do) rotated toys; for example, Annabelle has some playmobil and also a couple of Littlest Pet shops sets. There's not enough space for both these kinds of toys to be set up in her room, so she has one of them in there at a time, and the other goes on vacation to the basement in a big plastic tub. All of the sudden she'll remember the playmobil in the basement and we'll go fetch it and put away the pets--it's like a new toy!
Nice. I love it.
Wonderful space. As I've been ridding our lives of stuff, I realize how much it frees up my mind. I have four young children, and I used to think, "Oh, I'll just live with the mess because I'd rather spend time with them than spend all my time cleaning," but now I realize, I don't have to live with a mess if we just have less stuff!
Right now, we are in difficult circumstances. Long story short, we are living out of one room in my mom's house, BUT this has made me realize how little my children really need, and I will be getting rid of so much more while I'm here. It's great preparation anyway because our dream is to travel the USA in an RV with our kids.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiration!
Love this post. Will you post more of your rooms? I want to live the same way.
Love your blog.
Cheers from Utah
Melissa, so funny you should mention art supply storage! I am totally struggling with all of the kids' art supplies. I keep rearranging them to no avail. We have to tote them up and downstairs often, so they need to be portable. :)
Erika--I hope you get through your tough spot and get to live out your dream; it sounds like a perfectly lovely and achievable one, and I'm sending good vibes into the universe for you!
Rika--thank you, and I will share more rooms--absolutely.
i tend to be like you in that i'm mindful of what i bring into the house. my husband, however, doesn't give it much thought and brings lots of things home. he's getting better, but i don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on the issue. are you and your husband on the same page? if not, how do you "cope"?
I would say we pretty much see eye-to-eye, at least on the philosophy of the thing, definitely on the idea that we want to buy less and have more time for _doing_. He does say, though, that his own tastes in decor run toward the "cozy" while mine can be a bit austere. ;-) Throw pillows are a good example--I hate them. They seem like useless bits of stuff that you buy just to buy them, and then they never stay where they're supposed to be. They make Mark feel comfortable and at home. He usually defers to me, though--we don't have any throw pillows!
"Well, I aim to be frugal, not cheap (spending money on things I need--spending the right amount of money to fully achieve but not exceed my objective), with the ultimate goal of working less and living more,"
exactly what I want. I'm working on it. i think i have shifted the way and frequency that i shop in the last few years. it needs to shift more though. and i just need to sift through what i have now. thanks so much for sharing all this. keep going please! :-)
You got it, lady!
i'm impressed:) i'm the exact oposite of you i think! wish i could be clutter free but find i seem to naturally attract it!
I've just fallen in love with your various crafts, and I'm curious... where do you get your felt supply? I live in Hawaii, see, and felt art is sorely underrepresented in our craft stores (at least on Oahu). Is there a place online, or are you lucky enough to have a local shop with such delicious colors?
I'm glad you found me!
I do get my wool felt online, mostly at A Child's Dream Come True. It's also available at Magic Cabin and Purl Soho. Have fun!
I would like to know a little about your history with "stuff." Have you always been a minimalist? Was there a defining event (I'm trying not to use phrases like "a-ha moment, or words like "epiphany" ; ) ) that motivated you to do a massive decluttering? Did you grow up this way? I'm in awe.
Audra--I have a touch of OCD (not diagnosed or anything, just a personality trait!) that has always caused me to feel nervous about clutter. As a young person, that didn't stop my spaces from being cluttered and messy, but in my adult years, I would say I have always had less stuff than the average bear. We have also moved a lot, and without the money to hire movers or big trucks, that usually has meant starting from scratch at each new place, or just about. I got used to less accumulation of things for that reason, partly. I never liked the feeling that I might buy something expensive or special to me and have to leave it behind.
Now, what has really changed my life and what I'm trying to communicate is the true desire to rid myself of the desire to buy stuff just for the sake of buying stuff--which doesn't necessarily have to mean minimalism, I guess. I don't know when the light bulb came on--about six years ago, I'd say, but I realized consumerism made me miserable, that it was wasteful, stressful, and pointless (and terrible for the environment and our culture, I think). I began to train myself not to see shopping as a form of recreation, and I'd say I'm nearly 100% there. This has meant being able to afford to stay home with Annabelle, to donate to charity, to live, essentially, on far, far less money than most of us believe we can live on. (I'm totally interested in the concept of "unjobbing.") It also means that what you see in my house is just about what will be in my house a year or two years from now (unless we move!).
hi there, i'm back.
i hated throw pillows too!!? i've had only one in the house for years. it's a really beautiful down filled pillow that i love looking at. but mostly, not into them. then, just a couple of weeks ago i made 2 for our sofa. i LOVE them! (i'll blog them soon) they are so freaking cozy when you're laying around reading with a quilt thrown over you. i'm totally converted. but just a few will do...
i'm curious. do you ever just get tired of looking at the same things and just want to mix it up, say season to season or year to year? i tend to donate (or craigslist) a piece when i'm tired of it... then scout out something to freshen up the place at the flea market. are you into that or are you good to go with the same things forever and ever?
(i am such a dork. can you believe how much i love this discussion?)
And I love answering these questions, Heather--they're really making me think. Part of the reason I don't do too much freshening is that I just don't have very much discretionary income. I may have trained myself not think in that way very much because I can't really afford even the merest redecorating expense. For example, right now I don't have curtains up in the living room because while I do own the curtains already, my rods from the old house won't fit these windows, and I haven't been able to convince myself to buy new rods. That almost seems silly to me as I'm saying it (since I could get very cheap or even second-hand rods), but it does explain where I'm currently at vis-a-vis decorating. The blinds keep the sun out, and they're already here. ;-)
I definitely will pick up something lovely for the house if I'm in a thrift store and it seems perfect and I can afford it. That just doesn't happen very often, so for the most part, I will have these things and only these things for the foreseeable future. That said, if I really determine that we need something--that will improve our lives in a real way--I seek it out and buy it.
I do also like to rearrange sometimes, moving something from one room into another--that makes it sort of new. And I make things! There's always making things!
I simply love this blogging world for helping me find people like you. When I read your blog about how you like to create a hoe with things you already have and how you try and recycle things trying to make them prettier..i was like..oh my god! thank goodness im not the only one..and made me realise that it really is a nice thing to do, rather than feeling awkward about coming across as cheap. I have been wanting to do a post on how i have transformed my own home in seoul, ever since i moved into it, but kept thinking..its not like i have bought new expensive furniture or anything...all i have done is make my own signboards outside each room, decorated my empty ice cream tubs to turn them into planters..or how i have redecorated a clock thrown away into a magnetic board cum clock :D...but now i realise..i must write about all those little details that i worked upon in my home. Thank you so much. By the way, im a designer fro india living in seoul, do visit my blog when time permits.
http://seoulcurry.blogspot.com/
:) cheers.
shweta
Hooray, Sweta! I'm so glad you found me and that I made you feel more confident and less cheap! ;-)
I'm loving this series and I linked to it over at my blog, http://amandaismissadventure.blogspot.com/
I'm always struggling against my natural inclination towards hoarding but this has inspired me to try harder!
Thanks, Amanda! Here's to letting go. ;-)
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