Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Clutter

I will not, cannot tell a lie. I am messy. I have a hard time keeping our space clean and organized and without clutter. I don't like dirty, I clean the kitchen, the bathroom, sweep and mop the floors and keep the house "clean" almost every day, but not organized. We work where we live, so in every nook and cranny you will find tools, supplies, items from our shop, junk we collected. I don't mind it. For the most part. Sometimes, I go into a cleaning tizzy and don't want to be cluttered anymore. But, it always goes back to the way it was before. Cluttered. I am learning to create a space (in this tiny, tiny place) that is healthy and comfortable. (remember, we have an entire vintage shop stored in our home...)I don't have any advice for others who are also cluttered, except that you can probably live without the stuff, but why should you. If you enjoy collecting, then collect. As long as you can live your life around your stuff, then I don't see what the problem is. We're not all rich and have huge houses and garages to store our stuff and organize our spaces with. I can't go to ikea and buy tons of chic storage units and wall shelves. Although sometimes, I wish I could....
Most of my "collections" have sentimental value to me. We have acquired a lot of it from family or friends. It is such a hodgepodge collection of sorts, that I don't even really consider it a collection. It's just stuff that I look at and think "Dad" or "Sid" (Our friend from the Tucson swap meet who would gift me items from his shop every week) or "Alita," one of my best friends and soul sister when it comes to vintage and thrifted.
I'm not embarrassed of our clutter. Usually when people come over, they get lost in all of our collections. It's fun to tell stories and let people explore. It's us and our home and who we are. I am happy in our space and happy where we are in our life. Maybe someday we'll have a beautiful loft space, or a big old house, or a cabin in the woods, but for right now, we're city mice in a tiny house full of love.

Do you have clutter in your house? How do you feel about it? Is it hard to keep your house clutter-less when you're working full time, raising a family, or just right brained-artist type who doesn't care much for organizing?

xo,
Beca

8 comments:

  1. we have clutter! mostly piles. and we're really bad at putting things away so the couch becomes a dump all haha. i try to clean it up once or twice a week depending on how bad it gets... i think andrew and i would both love to be the type of people who could live a minimalist lifestyle but we just have too many keepsakes. and continuously have random projects going on. i feel like i'm starting to make peace with it, just trying to make sure "everything has it's place" for when we do end up putting things away.

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  2. Man, do I know about clutter! All of our things don't fit in our tiny house. It's good because it's been helping us get rid of things we don't need...We're both working on putting things away when we're done using them, but it's hard when you're so busy (and both have tendencies to start too many projects). I started just being ok with having tons of fabric in plastic bags that keep traveling from room to room even though they aren't the prettiest containers. As long as they're contained, it's all good :)

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  3. Your collections are so rad! I love all of your neat stuff. I'm okay with clutter. My house is small too and I run my tiny shop out of it too so it is NEVER "clean" by most standards. Most days my husband would love for it to go away but for the most part he puts up with it.

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  4. you're all inspirations to me. I feel like everyone I know has picture perfect houses and I am glad that I am wrong!!

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  5. I'm clutter crazy too. My boyfriend and I have so much stuff packed into our little apartment! Love your blog

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  6. We totally have clutter. We moved from a 2 bedroom house (1200sqft) to a 1bdrm1office apartment (900sqft) and we rented out the office, so we really are living in a 1bdrm apartment now. It's made me curate my collections a little more. I used to be horrified of my clutter, because I had an old roommate who was a real jerk about it. But (slowly) I've embraced it, and realized I may never be a minimalist, but I can at least aim to be a clutter with a bit of organization :)

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  7. found you through danielle from dinosaur toes.
    i agree with you and your feelings about clutter.
    i love looking at little items around my apartment and knowing remembering where they came from.
    lovely blog!

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