Small House is Big Possession

There is a small house for sale near where I am (temporarily) living.  Small houses (less then 900 square feet) are interesting to a minimalist because they are easier to maintain, as well as less expensive to buy and provide utilities for.  Also having less storage space available is good because the owner may not be inclined to buy things to fill up the space.  They are appealing for many reasons.  You can find a few “tiny house society” groups and websites online if you’re interested.

Anyway, as appealing as that little bungalow is to me, I’m not sure that I want to own a house at all.  It seems that renting an apartment is more closely aligned with my minimalist philosophy.  If my goal is to own fewer things, then why would I buy a large thing like a house?  Plus I am debt free now, and that status would change with a mortgage.  Some say a home loan is “good debt”, whatever that is.

One scary thought I had last week was about an old ironing board in my storage unit.  I offered it to a charity because I am trying to clear everything out of storage.  The iron board is an old metal one that belonged to my grandmother, so it has some sentimental value to me (like everything does).  But I’d be happy to donate it to clear the space.  Once this idea of maybe buying a house entered my head, I thought – “of course I’ll keep the ironing board, for the house”! As if owning my living space instead of renting it means I’d naturally return to a packrat mode.  That is scary, like a part of my brain is working against me.

The Project

I really don’t know what to call this “stuff reduction” process that I am going through. Maybe if I knew the name for it I could search the internet for others with similar problems and goals. The process is similar in some ways to getting out of debt or losing weight.

Years ago I had financial debts that were out of control. The interest and fees (late/over balance) alone were more then I could pay each month, not to mention paying the principal. Eventually I found a path to getting it under control, then changed my habits and worked hard for a long time. Now I am debt-free except for one convenience credit card that is paid in full every month.

This blog has previously mentioned that I lost a lot of weight. I lost about 90 pounds over the course of 20 months and have kept it off for more than two years. How I did this may be the subject of another post. Here I’ll just say that it was a long process with daily effort, involving change of habits.

The reduction project is similar to these other projects in that it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes continual effort to change the way I do things on order to improve my life by getting rid of something (ie. debt, excess body weight, unnecessary possessions).

Debt followed me around like a dark storm cloud, and it was so very liberating to be free of it. Being overweight drained my physical energy and insulated me from the physical sensations of life. I see possessions in the same light – as a burden which limits my freedom. A burden that can be lifted by working to slowly reduce that which holds me back from enjoying the limited amount of time that has been given to any of us in this life.

So what do I call this? The word “decluttering” somehow doesn’t seem to fit. Except for the last couple of years I have been a packrat forever. For me this cannot be about just shedding excess stuff or organizing collections. It is about rethinking what it means to own a thing.

Dinnerware

When I was a child my parents had a set of plates, bowls and cups made by Stangl Pottery. Made of dark red clay, glazed and fired. They all had a distinct handpainted pattern on them. When I see this pattern I am reminded of home and childhood. Some time during my teenage years they replaced the set with another set of dishes which was more durable. When I moved out in early adulthood I took with me a few plates and a bowl from the Stangl set, but didn’t know what had happened to the rest of them. I figured the folks probably donated them to a church fundraiser.

This was until last year when some repair work was being done on their house’s foundation. I was helping move stuff out of the basement so the workmen could get to the walls. On the floor in the corner of an old room that had been closed off for decades was a large cardboard box which was almost totally rotted away. In the box was the whole set of Stangl dishes!! I felt like I found buried treasure, and the folks said I could have it all. Like any good packrat I meticuluously cleaned them, then ran them through a dishwasher to sterilize them. I bought some special “dishsaver” moving boxes with styrofoam plastic envelopes and packed them all away in boxes.

Because of this big reduction project I’m doing, it’s time to look at these boxes again. Instead of hanging onto everything, I want to only keep what I will likely use. After all I am a single person and don’t need 12 teacups and saucers. My first idea was to keep five of everything and sell the rest. They are all scratched and chipped to some degree, but I tried to pick out the five best cups, saucers, large plates, small plates, bowls, etc. When that was done I had only 2 large plates and 2 medium plates that were in good condition, and only 3 bowls. Lots of small plates and cups. I kept them stacked up on a table for a couple of days. When looking over the row of cups, five of them just seemed to be too many. Kind of a gut reaction. So I removed one. The four cups did seem to be the right amount to me. Not really based on anything but a feeling. So then the rule became “no more than four of any one thing”. The result is a nice small collection of usable dishware that I can probably repack into one banker’s box.

Now I have to find a buyer for the excess. Maybe at an antique store? Craigslist?