Part of the decision to move to a much smaller home – in my case moving from a house I’ve owned for 12 years to a rental apartment – is the understanding that a smaller place means less room for stuff.
You understand this on a logical level but perhaps not on an emotional level until it comes time to start deciding what moves with you and what must be disposed of by selling, donating, etc.
This is particularly hard if you have a collection. I know people with collections of crystal figurines, clocks, lighters, ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, baseball caps…
I’m not a particularly sentimental sort and I’m not big into collections. Ok. I did collect books (several thousand hardcovers) for years. And perhaps I had a brief lapse and collected Beanie Babies a while back but generally… I’ve never been much of a collector.
However…
19 years ago on my honeymoon I had bought a lovely handmade pottery teapot from a local artisan. I’m not a tea drinker and I’m not sure what struck me about the teapot but I had to have it. I parted with $75 for this teapot and was happy to do so. It had pride of place on a shelf in my kitchen.
And then…
My mother got the notion that I wanted to collect teapots. First it was a Christmas gift of a teapot that looked like a hound dog wearing a Scottish style tam. Then on my birthday a teapot shaped like a rooster. Both of these got displayed along side the original art pottery piece in my kitchen.
And then…
My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law got the notion that i was collecting teapots. Over the next several years I was gifted with teapots for Christmas, birthday, Mother’s Day, anniversaries – any gift giving occasion and soon I was overrun with teapots.
And I still don’t like tea.
I began to comment how I didn’t like tea and I was a coffee drinker. No one got the hint. By now the shelves in the kitchen were bowing under the weight of all of these teapots and having run out of room to display them there they’d begun creeping onto the bookshelves and tables in my living room.
Being young and not wishing to appear ungrateful – after all it’s the thought that counts, right? – I continued to silently resent the teapots. By this point I had clowns, more dogs, cats, an elephant, several elaborate teapots that looked like an old fashioned sewing machine, an old potbelly stove, and a chess board. I swear I was having nightmares about teapots forcing me to drink tea after a while. At last count there were over 50 teapots in my teapot collection.
And I still don’t like tea.
I can’t even imagine if I had to deal with all of these pots today. Fortunately, a few years ago I finally worked up the courage to put a halt to the teapots and no longer have any – other than my original artsy teapot.
The problem with a collection is it often overruns your space and becomes a weight on you. When the last teapot was gone I felt a sense of lightness and freedom. I hadn’t realized how much the burden of all of these possessions – the dusting and the space they take up – had become until they were gone.
And I still don’t like tea. I’m addicted to coffee. But please, for the love of all that’s good and right in the world, don’t buy me any more coffee mugs. With my luck it’ll just turn into another collection.
I have a huge collection of Precious Moments figurines…my first one was a wedding gift and I started a collection that is probably in the 100′s and my guess may be worth quite a bit of money.
When I left the house and moved to the apartment, I have never unboxed them. I quickly realized when making that move that stuff is just stuff. The important things like photos, a few select treasures here and there are what matter to me most. I like my uncluttered apartment. It seems to mirror my new life.
)
I’m looking forward to having an uncluttered life (in so many ways) and I think I’m at the point where the new Merlene – Merlene 2.0! – isn’t interested in the excess baggage (or boxes) any more. My tastes have changed and evolved just like my priorities and my dreams have
It’s kind of painful for people who haven’t done this before but having lived in apartments most of my life and especially when I lived in New York city where one room in a house at $800 or $900 was a bargain, you need to de-clutter often and having huge amounts of crap I used to play a game called have we used this in the last six months. The only things that were off limits were Cd’s and DVD’s and some books. And if I haven’t used it in six months I’m probably going to be able to live just fine without it. Anything that has not been used in six months goes out the door.
For years until I was in my twenties I prided myself in being to take up everything that I owned and move completely within 3 hours using nothing but a compact car.
Another important tip is if you know your not where your staying. Of your living on a short term lease -Your furniture can be the actual moving containers. In New York and I don’t know if they ship here they have a store called the container store. One of the many awesome things they sell is a selection of low maintenance hybrid furniture that is actually in it’s own shipping container. I have about 1000 CD’s and about 300 DVD’s and usually keeping them unhurt and reachable during a move the smart way has always been to have them in milk cartons, you know the big heavy duty plastic boxes the dairy’s use? It isn’t as good of an idea as it sounds though because they don’t stack when you get the ones from dairy and supermarkets ( plus your stealing it from the diary) .
Not being stacking means they are messy and disorganized once they land where they are going to live for awhile and hard to get them all in one place neatly. That means they usually had to be moved into another holding/display space and then moved by another means. The container store sells decorative and stackable diary containers they look great especially if your looking for minimalist furniture and they come with lids so when you have to move or store them you shut the lids click them tight and you have a self contained display and shipping container.
My personal chest of draws also bought from the same place. all i have to do is tape them up ( they open back or front ) so they don’t come loose during a move and then roll the whole unit into a truck. Again they can be stored or used and never leave their shipping container. Now that I have kids and furniture and real things it’s harder to do but I’m always keeping an eye on how we can reduce and make moves less traumatic and expensive.
I haven’t been able to do it as much as I would like for the last few years but I am getting everyone in the house playing the “have I used it for six months” game. we also are moving into a house that is much smaller then the one we are living in now. Jen is a pack rat and so are both the kids but it’s actually freeing as well as cost effective when considering hiring movers to just unload as much crap as possible.
( I also collect teapots but Japanese one’s ..I do drink tea however. )