PSSSSTTTTT… purging those bookshelves? Don’t miss your chance to help out with a great cause. We would be so grateful for your help!
It’s that time of year.
The time of year when we all light the torches of good intentions following swiftly on the heels of all things seasonal gluttony… to simplify. Thus is the cycle of life.
I think that discussing this topic can be hard because everyone is in different places.
I also think that the key to this is embracing where you are, and working on it from your own stage of life, whatever path you find yourself on.
We’ve touched so much on this in the past. I was starting to wonder if I had anything else to say. This year, we’re in a totally different place, so we find it interesting to visit again. We’ve felt a little bit of an overwhelmed disconnect and we’re ready to plug in again with our site and our readers. That’s you guys.
We’re here to revisit it all, even though we’ve been living in this perpetual state of simplifying for what feels like forever with our rehab. At the end of the day, moving can bum you out. I thought I’d stayed pretty on-top-of-it-all. So moving and moving again and cleaning out storage units can unravel you in a way. We’ve been in this state of reestablishing our family and business and purging {even more}. So at some point I stepped back about a month ago, and realized I was sad. I had no idea why.
If any of you have moved recently, you can probably relate. Transition can be hard.
We have to say, though… simplifying isn’t a trend for us. It’s not something we did years ago, because it sounded good. It was something we wanted to do, because we wished to change the trajectory of our lives. Little did we know that these little changes we felt the need to make {some behind the scenes and some in full on blog mode} were ultimately leading us down a different path. Looking back from 2012 when this series began, little did we know we’d eventually find ourselves here.
In a totally new town trying to figure out life. It’s kind of crazy, looking back.
So we’re approaching this year with a sense of realistic expectations.
People have asked us how it’s going in a smaller home.
We love it. We’re so grateful. We’ve been living in a season of gratefulness, because this past year was a tough move for us. Are you sick of me saying that yet?
We’re also coming down off our moving high, and ready to finish it up so our family can spread out a little. We’re going through the awkward the-kids-and-dogs-are-bouncing-off-the-walls-because-of-bad-weather-days. {The dogs have had a come to Jesus.}
If you’ve been following along with our Money Pit saga, we aren’t able to finish out our basement right now. Yay #septic. That means we’re living in 1700 square feet with three children and two dogs. All three children are sharing a room. I write about all this and realize, as I type the very words, it’s a silly first world perspective to say it’s “small” in any way shape or form. We’re choosing to live this way. We realize that lots of people live in less space. Lots of people also live in much more. But for us, we downsized for now. There’s a perspective, again, that needs to be adjusted here. We’re still catching our breath.
On the purging front: Before we moved, we had a huge garage sale and purged and sold and donated all the things. And we still had more things left. Because we’ve been crap managers for the last couple of months, we’re coming down from that whole, I-thought-I-might-die-in-an-avalanche-of-my-own-things move, and ready to do even more in the simplification sector of life. We lived in the same home with three kids for over a decade. That was a lot. Even though we tried.
The process of simplifying can also be challenging with what we do in our business. We want to embrace the smaller spaces in our personal lives, while also creating real ones for our family. We also want to help others find solutions for their homes. We’ve been asked how we balance what we do with simplifying, but we’re not a minimalist website. {We truly respect and adore those.} We’re a realistic business that is still evolving. We’ve embraced that.
We currently have two small storage spaces that we’re slowly whittling down, because there’s a process of first moving, and then going through a rehab, and then moving again and settling into a new house. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that I don’t miss my crap.
Yes. Even the craft supplies. Working from home can be a challenge, and making some changes will help.
Why am I telling you this? What am I getting at?
Because we don’t live in a magical world where we can snap our fingers and make it all disappear. We all have lives and families and relationships and jobs and it’s a multifaceted situation for everyone.
Life is messy.
We have to be willing to work with the process, and that process is different for everyone.
So in comes the new year, and we’re ready to tackle it. Again.
For us personally, we’re in the middle of reformatting a few things.
But at the end of the day, now that we’ve moved I keep going back to… I don’t miss the stuff. I really don’t.
Chances are, if you’ve been on this journey for a while, you don’t either. Cycles are normal. There’s a joy that comes from a well organized home with intentional spaces. Some things will fit and some things won’t and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I rambled through all of that to say we’re smack dab in the middle of settling in. That means we have a lot left in the whittling-it-down department. And you may be somewhere on this crazy spectrum of life, feeling the very same way.
This post started out as a round up from our original series, but I think more than anything, we just want to hear from you. We’ve touched on LOTS of topics pertaining to this in the past. We have changed our perspective on some things and stayed the same on a ton of it. At the end of the day, beyond the schedules and planning sheets and posts and perspectives… it comes down to this:
Keep moving forward.
It is a marathon, after all.
So where are you this year in the journey of life with all things purging? What do you find personally to be the most helpful thing?
What do you want to discuss this year?
Tap tap. Is this thing even on? ;} ::Looks around awkwardly, shuffles off stage::
We hope to hear from you!
Amanda says
One year into our new house, and we’re still just settling in. We built/moved into our house in November 2015, and it took us a solid six months before we even really looked at the basement (it was a hot mess like whoa). After a marathon purging session, where I literally touched EVERYTHING we had in the basement except the Christmas decorations (because who wants to do that in July?), and we thought we were good. Six months later, and we’re kind of back to where we were, except now we have shelves filled with stuff too. I’m still not sure how that happened, except that I kind of blame Christmas/the grandparents, and trying to keep the toys in the playroom to a minimum/what actually gets played with (we’re in a weird spot with a 2.5 year old and a 10 month old – enough to put things away but not quite past enough stuff to actually get rid of it yet). I figure we’ll have another big purge this summer again, and maybe this time it’ll stick. Maybe.
I’ve also been trying to reclaim spaces (that sounds weird for a new house, but I took over the closet in the playroom as my office last month) and we’ve been hoarding some things that need to find homes in those areas. I realize this is totally rambling, but I guess I’m trying to say that I get rid of stuff, but I still end up with piles in my basement that still need attention.
But I agree with not missing the “stuff” – over the past year, there have been *very* few times where I’ve had to go down to the basement looking for something from the old house. It really helped with the cleaning out last summer. Good luck with letting it all go!
Sara says
We moved this fall as well after 10 years in the same house. Our process was to try to purge while packing, but as always, it comes down to the wire & you just throw stuff in boxes to deal with later. We got the largest storage unit we could & a large U-Haul. Obviously we had to unpack the U-Haul within 2 days, which was fine because it was mostly the furniture & daily use stuff. The storage unit we had for 2 months & slowly pulled stuff out as we had time. However, again, it came down to the wire of not wanting to pay another month, but we were able to move it all into a large shed at the new house. BUT, it’s just sitting there. My goal for one weekend when it warms up (we live in NC) is to go through everything & purge again. Because like you said, I don’t really miss all the crap. I feel like other than the seasonal stuff, it can all go! We also downsized & sent the oldest off to college, so there is a whole bedroom worth of stuff we don’t use or need anymore.
Lucy says
we’ve lived in our somewhat small house (<1,000 sq ft) for 10 years. we moved in as boyfriend/girlfriend and now, we're raising two kids in it. as rooms and spaces evolved and we accumulated more and more stuff, we would buy "storage solutions" to hold the stuff. a couple of years ago, we stopped the buying… no more extra stuff, no more storage solutions. i would do mini purges here and there but nothing major. last month, we watched the documentary "minimalism" and that did it. right away, we emptied and got rid of two dressers, two plastic drawer units and a huge Ikea wardrobe. my husband now says that we just made our house bigger. i always knew we had excess, but for whatever reason, i could never get myself to get rid of those things. it feels great to have less stuff around our house. i'm looking forward to warmer weather so we can purge the stuff in the garage! (lest you think we're hoarders, it's a one car garage and we're able to park our car in it.)
Cindy Roth says
My husband and I are one year from being empty nesters, with 2 kids in college, in a 1600 sq. ft. home we have lived in since before they were born. We’ve dealt with years and years of hockey gear, but for about 7 years now we haven’t had to deal with much in the way of toys and kid stuff. We’ve come to the realization that for now, we can’t add on, and with only 2 of us here full time, that’s ok.
Right now my husband is in the process of putting a retractable ladder up to the attic, which is very low headroom, and adding lights up there. I was hoping it could be used as a craft space, but for now it will just be storage. And I have a whole extra bedroom that I can use now, except during the summer and school breaks, so I won’t need it unless the boys move back in after graduating.
We learned to constantly purge because we have tiny closets in this house. I run an Etsy shop, with fairly large supplies and items which need to be produced and stored all year. When I was a stay at home mom, when the boys were little, my creative outlet was redecorating and gardening. I was constantly changing and buying new things to feed that need, not knowing it was just to be creating. Now that I have a successful creative outlet, and maybe due to maturity, I don’t need new things all of the time. When I see something I like, I ask if I am willing to part with something else to make room for it. So we’ve been simplifying for a while, out of necessity, and also because I wanted less visual clutter in my home.
I really enjoy your writing style and your decorating. Keep up the great work and love every day with your kids!
Bonnie says
We got a little snow and ice in the DFW area of Texas this past weekend (very rare weather for us) so my plans with friends on Friday night and Sunday afternoon got canceled. My friends and I were not brave enough to get out (like Jamin was) so I hardly got out of my house the entire weekend. So, I decided to go through my collected five (gallon size) zip-lock bags of receipts. I spent several hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and only made it through four bags. As you can tell, I keep every receipt “just in case” I might need to return something. I still have that one bag to go plus I’m planning to organize all of the ones that I needed to keep. Just to say, it truly is a process to keep up with things like this between working multiple jobs and spending time with family and friends. At the time, my dining room table and coffee table are a total mess but I know that when I’m in the middle of de-cluttering that it gets worse before it gets better. I’m actually quite proud of myself for tackling this project that no one will ever see except me. I take that back. I think my 4 grown children might appreciate this effort after I’m gone so they don’t have to deal with it š
Cathy says
I love following your adventure and think the discussions in the future should stay on the same track. I want to know what you’re doing around your house and why.
Even though I’m in a different place in life – I also moved this past year, did a remodel and am now trying to figure out the “stuff” situation at the new house. Twenty-five years ago we built our large dream house but since then the kids moved out and I became a widow. So I definitely needed to downsize! I’ve been purging for the nine years I lived in the old house alone but still have way too much. I did a major purge right before the move and now as I’m unpacking I’m purging again. I’ve sure learned a lot about myself in this process and it won’t be too much longer until everything is unpacked and sorted. Then the fun part begins! I’m going to have so much fun making this new house my own special home.
Kortney says
I guess my biggest challenge is we have lived in the same small house for over 30 years. We have 3 wonderful kiddos that are spread apart (30, 22, & 9). We only have our 9 year old beautiful daughter at home now. We have homeschooled the whole time.
Living in the same hous for 30 years there’s a lot of stuff. In 30’years things have been replaced or upgraded but not everything has left. I have been on our decluttering journey for 2 years now. I have relieved ourselves of a lot of clutter, but I still feel like I am drowning in things……
Amy says
This year, we’re starting our IVF process to have a family. So on top trying to find extra cash in our budget, I am purging everything that we haven’t used that is taking up space, and trying to sell through a buy/sell group with the intent that all cash goes to the IVF fund. So I find myself purging with more energy and I ask myself, do you use this? Would you be happier with this one more thing, or a baby? It keeps things in perspective, and I hope in the long run gives us more breathing room and cash for our medical expenses. Go 2017!