Years of spending all of our time and money on the business has led to obvious neglect of our home. I'm not much of a home decorator to begin with since I'm not sure if minimalism is an actual style, so it doesn't bother me so much if my walls are white and my wall hangings are mostly non-existent. What DOES bother me is that my kitchen chairs don't match, my kitchen cupboards and counter tops have taken 16 years of abuse, I have no trim around any of the doors and a chunk of my carpet has a bare spot from where the dogs tore it up when it was only about 1 week new.
I'm going to go off on a tangent here and say that if I lived alone, which I'm very glad I do NOT, I would have maybe a couch and a table and a desk for my laptop. And very little else. I have learned that when you have "stuff" you have to spend time on your "stuff". Dusting and sorting and moving and situating. I would much rather do something else. I've spent the last 10 years purging my stuff. I used to LOVE collecting books. Now I use the Library and the Internet and have gotten rid of all but a few dear-to-me-books. (Obviously pictures are important to me so I have several boxes that I can't seem to do anything with but can't get rid of them either.) There isn't much in my closet because I've never had an eye for fashion- jeans and a t-shirt suit me fine. I'm drawing near the end of my home schooling years so there are about 5 book shelves worth of stuff that will soon be finding a home through Craig's List. I like the fact that I don't have a lot of stuff.
BUT. . . I don't live with minimalists. I wouldn't trade any of them but I'll just say that sometimes I'm fighting a losing battle. I won't mention any names. . . Gloria, Rob, Zach . . . but there has been a collection of stuff piling up in what used to be the family room over the last year. We don't really use that room for anything and it's connected to the garage which now houses the newest family member, the baby Mustang, so it's an easy room to close the door on and try to forget about. It's an understatement to say that it has been a stuff-magnet. More like a Stuff-Explosion. I've avoided it just like I avoid the back yard. But it won't go away.
I've spent the last week or so facing the giant that is my family room. I have to take some of the blame because, due to the fact that I couldn't get to the attic stairs, boxes of things I started to sort last spring were still around as well as the Christmas boxes that didn't get put back up there LAST Christmas (made it much easier to get to them this year, however). All of this is very difficult to admit but I can finally face it now since there seems to be a light at the end of this long, dark, crowded tunnel. The family room is now almost empty and there are plans, REAL plans, in place to make it a cozy, you know, FAMILY ROOM. Imagine.
I hope to have an "after" picture within a week to post with the "before" picture at the top of this page. . . (Keeping my fingers crossed. . . )
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