Too Much Stuff

We are preparing for a house renovation to make our first floor more livable for just me and my husband in our new empty nest lives. We're bringing our bedroom downstairs, the laundry room upstairs, and converting a small room into a bathroom with a walk-in shower. The goal is for us to be able to stay where we are as we age and stairs become problematic, and we're doing the work early while it's easier and we can afford to.

The kids' rooms upstairs will stay as they are for a few more years as people come and go from college, and our bedroom will become a guest room. That whole second floor needs some work too, but that won't be for a while.

We're also improving our first floor powder room, and having a simple tool room space put together in the basement where I use my bandsaw so I can have better lighting and a less spooky experience down there when I need to cut something out.

We've chosen fixtures and drawer pulls and cabinet stain. Windows have been ordered. While whole areas are being gutted, new wiring is going to happen that will put light switches in more reasonable places. Plans have been drawn up and tweaked and tweaked again. We await permit approvals. We've picked out some cool tiles. 

  

It won't look like much of a change from our kids' point of view (which is good since they tend to not like change), because neither of the converted rooms were places they ever used. Our new bedroom will be in the space that was my home shop, and the nook where the new bathroom will be was more of an inadequate guest space. The most notable change for them will be the butler's pantry--which we've used for years as a craft supplies space--will be gone.

This was the most beautiful and organized the craft area space ever looked back when I first put it together in 2010. We could actually open the table and work on projects there when the kids were very small. Now imagine that same space with an extra set of shelves filled to the brim on the right wall, and tubes and paper and boxes piled thigh deep on the entire floor. I don't think I was ever inspired to photograph the area at the height of the storage crisis. Now it is empty.

 Empty!

 

The tricky thing is not simply moving things out so work can be done, it's deciding where those objects will go since they can't go back. The craft area/butler's pantry will be fitted for laundry and a linen closet. The nook will be a bathroom, so none of that furniture would have a home. 

Which means we've been engaged in a ruthless level of clearing stuff out of our house. We have too much stuff.

That happens whenever there is so much going on that there isn't time to thoughtfully edit what's in our immediate environment. When there were kids at home, life was a constant shuffling of stuff. I'm not dealing with anything in the kids' rooms or closets--that's a project for when they have spaces of their own to move into later--but the renovation deadline gives Ian and me motivation for addressing boxes and piles and bags that have cluttered every corner for years.

Some of this sorting process has meant completing projects that have been put off too long. I've felt bad that Ian's army awards have collected dust on various shelves since he got them. I finally organized the medals and coins into frames, and put all the certificates and flags, etc., into a single storage box.

The rest of the army things we are still working on. Ian retired in 2020, and during Covid not only did he not get a decent sendoff, he didn't have a way to return his gear. It's been stashed wherever it would fit in various spots all over the house, so we recently consolidated the army things into a single pile. I have not missed how hard it is to contact anyone in the Army when you need to. Lots of messages, lots of voicemail menus to navigate, still no luck figuring out what they want back and where to take it. But it needs to be gone in the next few weeks, so cross your fingers for us.

For a lot of things moving out of downstairs rooms, we've had to clear upstairs space for those things to go. The bulk of that has meant an honest clothing purge. That's been overdue for a long time, but it can be hard. Admitting outfits will likely never fit again is a bit of a defeat, but I'm realizing it's worse to see them in the closet and feel bad than to have them go to someone who can use them. I got rid of two large bags of clothes and can finally get everything in my dresser. I figure a few sentimental keepsakes are okay, but they now live in garment bags in the attic.

Most of what we give away I do through a local Facebook group called "Buy Nothing Bay View" which was started several years back to prevent things from ending up in landfills. Most of the time when I put up a post with a picture of something on my porch I want gone, it disappears within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes.

Among the sentimental items I chose to donate was a long coat my grandmother bought me back in college. She knew I mostly lived in t-shirts and jeans which went fine with my grungy winter jacket, but she wanted me to have something nice for when it was cold and I was dressed up. I loved this coat. I did wear it for a few years. It doesn't fit now. It doesn't make sense for a nice coat to hang in a closet when someone could be wearing it.

 

Same with Ian's suits. There is sentimental attachment to them because Ian's father died when Ian was only three, so my dad was the one who took him out suit shopping. My dad wore a suit and tie nearly every day, even at home. He once made a crack about how his tie was all that stood between him and barbarism. He loved a good suit. It meant a lot to Ian to have his help choosing some. We kept one for the attic, but passed the others along to a group that helps get veterans back on their feet.

Then there are the things that I really like, but have to admit I do not use. Like this vintage purse! It's so cute! I love it! I used it exactly once! That's stupid! I passed it along to someone who I hope takes it out on the town and maybe I will see it there.

Then there are things like these baskets: A very nice one that came with the house, and a sentimental play one. They are both now off with other people who I truly hope enjoy them. They were perfectly nice things to have around, but they weren't doing anything other than adding to the number of things in the house.

The biggest bonanza of the porch giveaways was the 3D glasses. I wanted exactly two pairs once for something I was doing back in the late 1900s, and my brother (maker of holograms and master of the 3D world) excitedly said he could help and mailed me HUNDREDS. I don't even know how many hundreds. I used the couple I needed for my project, and kept the rest forever in the above posted nice basket. I did save out a dozen or so (because you never know, and a few don't take up much space) but the rest were picked up off my porch by people a few at a time. Over the course of a week the pile got smaller and smaller until they were completely gone. 

We've given away a loveseat, bookcases, wires, art supplies, grout, sand toys, bikes, tools, broken violins, books, rugs, folders, buckets, boxes, lamps, a rice cooker, etc. etc. etc., and more still needs to go. It all seemed good to have on hand, but the truth is if we ever need any of those things, we can get more. There was more stress than peace of mind having those things in reserve at home.

Not that I needed a reminder that it is better for things to go to people who can use them rather than gather dust in our house, but I got one recently anyway. One of the things we gave away in the fall as we we emptied the basement was a red wagon. It was hard to see it go because the memories of pulling my kids around in it are so strong. But I decided those memories persist with or without the wagon in our house, and someone else could be making their own happy memories with it, so we posted it on the Buy Nothing site.

 

The person who picked it up messaged me a few weeks ago to say that she had gotten it for her sister's child to use. They had been talking about how much they wished they still had their childhood wagon, then mine appeared online, and they were so happy to have it. Her sister died recently from cancer, and she said it meant so much to be able to use that wagon before she passed.

 

Obviously not every donated item is going to provide such a profound experience, and I suspect many of the odds and ends that sat in my home unused will wind up unused somewhere else. But if I ever needed an illustration of why moving things along I don't need is worthwhile, that was certainly it.

 

A big struggle for me is not having objects to spark memories. I worried for a long time that if the thing left, it would be gone from my mind as well. I'm starting to realize it's okay to let some of it go. Plus I can take pictures. 

 

I think for creative people who like to make things, it's hard on some level to give up anything. Every scrap, every object, every doodad and bit and piece could be used to make something new. I never lack for ideas. I lack storage. 

 

In an ideal world I would sit in a giant workspace and make whatever came to mind and then have it leave. I would like to make tiny furniture and gigantic animals you can climb and weird things that light up and spin and instruments that don't make sense and doll houses with hand painted wallpaper and a million other things, but there is no room. Maybe if I ever retire I will make such things and then put them on the porch for someone to take, and then I will make the next thing. Right now there is other stuff I need to make and fix in order to afford what we actually need, so that odd plan has to wait.

 

In the meantime, I am delighting in making stuff go away. I used to be in a season of need. Now all I need is more empty space. It gives me room to think and dream and breathe. Empty space is bliss.