We moved into a new house about a year and a half ago. Not long after we moved in, I became interested in minimalism. I saw a group on Facebook, called No Sidebar that offered a “course” in simple living, 30 daily emails. I thought why not try it? It sounded good and we had just MOVED. I mean who LIKES moving? You have a ton of stuff, then settle in, acquire more stuff, somehow forget how much you dislike moving, and then decide to do it again. It seems like every time, it becomes more difficult.
When I was in college I thought I had a lot of stuff, but you can pack a dorm room into a car. You never exactly know how, but it can be done. Then you move into an apartment, maybe you have some hand me down furniture, and you need a truck or a small U-Haul. Then the next thing you know, you have a house. And then your parents are tired of having YOUR stuff in THEIR house. So they start bringing things. Do you want this? Do you want that? Their house is full of stuff they were saving or keeping for you because you didn’t have room. Well, now you have room, so they’re handing it off. And if you have the lovely opportunity of buying and selling a house at the same time, your chances of stress are HIGH. You can end up with a house full of stuff and only a couple hours to move it in because you’re supposed to magically get it out of one house, close on your old house, close on your new house, and move into your new house. All while the moving company charges you! If you haven’t had this experience, trust me, it is rated very HIGH for stressful life events. Friends are busy, tired of helping move, and you need a moving company. Even though you got rid of stuff before you moved. You sold stuff, donated stuff, and threw stuff away, just to make your house look nice for showings. Yet, somehow it seems like your stuff still multiples.
Well, we decided that this time, our stuff will fit easily in our house and we will use it or it has to go. We wanted our house to be ours. We wanted it to reflect who we are and what we value. We want our house to be authentic. We chose a different color scheme. Our favorite color is blue. So we decided to paint all of our walls grey, and then we could put just about anything on them-blue, yellow, and maybe a few other colors. It seemed like a simple color scheme. And we like simple, so it was fitting. It took us a while to put things up on our walls. Our previous house had tons of walls, and we had decorated quickly. We bought some cheap stuff, decorated with what we had, and pretty much threw things on the walls. Almost everything we had was green and brown. This time, we bought an open concept house. We quickly realized that there were very few walls, and the walls were pretty large. So, we needed to put up things that were pretty large, and it also meant we better like them quite a bit.
It probably took us 6 months to put the 1st thing on our wall, and within a year all the big spaces were pretty much full. We had waited for the right things and the right prices. Things that showed our values and that were a little bit creative. And it has paid off. We feel much more comfortable in this house. We enjoy it so much more. We’re not done decorating, but we appreciate the pieces on our walls more each time we look at them so far. Instead of thinking, “that’s boring, why did I pick that? I need to buy something else. It’s not quite right.” We’re actually content, and we have little desire to be hasty and throw something up. Here are some of the things we picked:
So moving into a new house, started us on our journey towards minimalism, towards being more authentic, and wanting to have a simpler life so that we could feel more fulfilled. Well, we started with the walls. We have reduced a number of areas of clutter and such in our house, but we are definitely not where we want to be yet. You should see our basement…yikes!
What about your house? Is it a place that you enjoy? A refuge from the world? Or is it stressful? Does it make you feel like you want to get out more? Or leave you wanting more or feeling unsatisfied? If it’s the latter, then maybe minimalism is something for you, even if you didn’t know it, or know it existed.
Living the Life 
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