The idea was to eliminate every thing unnecessary...

The idea was to eliminate every thing unnecessary, to make the whole as direct and simple as possible,
but always with the beautiful in mind as the first goal.
Henry Mather Greene (architect)

The pictures in this gorgeous post by Anairam over at fra(a)iing, reminded me of the lovely quotation above (which I first saw here) and motivated me to tackle some of the decluttering projects that I've had on my "to do" list for months.

Picture Mr Brainwash via So.Super.Sam.

Ok, so it's not that bad. Yet. But I do love stuff and I am (like many creative people I believe) a bit of a collector. Some might call it hording, but I prefer to think of it as collecting.

One challenge of being a collector is how to arrange and store the collections, whatever they might be. I love the idea of displaying one's stuff but the truth is that I have too much to display it all at once and so a large proportion needs to be kept stored away to stop it feeling like I'm going to be swallowed by the clutter. Also, I find there is something incredibly satisfying in everything being neatly arranged and well-organised.

And so boxes are my friends. And drawers. And shelves. And cupboards, of course. And I know it's bad for the chi to have things under the bed, but how can I not take advantage of all that useful space?

So on Sunday morning, that was the area targeted for decluttering project phase 1 - the storage boxes under my bed...

storage boxes similar to these by Amazon

Because my spare room has a lodger in it at the moment (that's a whole different storage story), I am currently keeping my boxes of art supplies under my bed. The move from guest room to bedroom happened quite suddenly so they'd been stuck under there in rather haphazard fashion, along with the things that were already being stored in that space, and it all desperately needed dealing with.

And the task wasn't going too badly actually. I was sorting and discarding and re-organising, and order was being restored. But then I started paying too much attention to the stuff itself and not just on rearranging it. I discovered (or rediscovered) some of the lovely goodies that I'd stashed under there and I began to get a little side-tracked.

I don't know if the same is true for you but when I see my stash it starts my creative juices bubbling and I suddenly have the urge to set aside anything sensible (including all that boring organising) and just play with the stuff instead? Do you know what I mean?

And so I must admit that's what happened. I ended up sorting out a box or two and then just pushing it all back out of sight, except for a few bits and pieces that I kept out to play with. And the decluttering remains on the the "to do" list.

So I've decided that the solution is this... I'm going to move to a smaller house. Like this guy, Jay Shafer, who lives quite happily in 96sqm. Remarkable. Watch a tour of his tiny house here.

Or, instead of getting a smaller space and ridding the house of clutter, I'm going to simplify things even more by (simply) getting rid of the house.

Pictures by Toast

I'm liking it!