The Art (and Beauty) of Minimalism
What is minimalism? At its most basic, it is a simple style. Actually, the technique of minimalism began with an art movement and it has taken over modern culture today. (As you may have noticed if you are part of the generation X Culture, our great grandparents homes were much more cluttered than our homes are today. It seemed as if they were trying to fill up all the empty spaces. Today, those spaces are seen as beautiful and give the atmosphere of a space the beauty that most of us are aiming for in our design styles.
Today, the beauty of minimalism isn’t just seen in the actual design. We see it in the aura of a space, and this aura translates to our mood and how it makes us feel. I’ve had (it seems) a long journey with Swedish Death Cleaning over the past few years. In effect, I’m cleaning up my stuff and getting rid of things I no longer use, that are broken, or that are not helping me achieve my best life. It’s funny how fast a space can fill up with knick knacks.
We have developed certain rules in our household, one of them being if we buy something new, something old has to go. Technically, we’re not done going through all the old stuff in the first place, but we made a pretty good dent last summer. We organized the basement and then proceeded to have a garage sale. (While we made money from that, I think the stress and the setup isn’t worth it, so we will not be doing that again).
I find it very hard to live any kind of minimal lifestyle when you also have kids. We now have three children, and the toys clutter the living room floor on the daily. It’s not just the toys though - it’s all the clothes that they seem to constantly grow out of. At first, I was keeping all the things because we didn't know if we would be having more kids. Now that we have three, we have discovered our limit, and now all the things can go. It’s just a matter of being able to find the time to dispose of said things.
As soon as my youngest starts to outgrow something, I plan on donating it. I have boxes upon boxes of children’s clothes sitting in my basement, waiting to go to a good home. I’m thinking of donating to a women’s shelter as opposed to Good Will or even the Salvation Army. The same thing with books and toys. It’s important to keep everything organized on a regular basis so things don’t start getting out of hand. If you let it go, it will soon become overwhelming and you won’t know where to start.
I like the idea of having only one of something, and having that one thing have a particular home. Once it’s done being used, it goes back in it’s spot. Ideally, if everyone in your household followed this rule with every single item, it would be easy to stay organized and tidy. This is the beauty of only having minimal items because then it becomes a whole lot easier. However, kids don’t know better until you train them to know, and as you can see, it becomes hard to maintain this if you have a mountain of objects.
My mother-in-law told me this story of a friend of hers. One day, my mother-in-law helped her friend to organize her work desk, and she found a mountain of pencils that were all sharpened and at many different lengths. The lady in question ended up throwing out most of the used pencils, saying she had more. A couple of months went by, and she had the same stash of sharpened pencils, again all different stages of being used.
As you can see, minimalism and the art of decluttering isn’t something you do once. Minimalism is a life style change, and it isn’t until you start changing your habits that you will begin to see a change in your life. Not only do you need to change your way of thinking in regards to minimalism, but you need to take an active role in helping to declutter your stuff. Make it a routine to go though your belongings once a month or so to help keep the clutter to a minimum. Make a rule of thumb like we did, one thing comes into the home, one thing must go. Keep only one of each thing, and realize that you don’t need backups in case something gets broken, misplaced, etc…You can always replace it if that does happen, but if that’s how you feel, try to examine where that feeling is coming from. It’s not the item that you need, it’s the change in mindset.
Imagine the beauty and the freedom of only having what you need, and a few nice things that you want. You don’t need to fill every corner of your living room with furniture or things in order to feel fulfilled.
Thank you so much for reading and we’ll see ya’ll next week!
Sandra 🧡
