On December 16,th exactly one year will have passed since Sunnybank House was rammed by an SUV. Between then and now my home has lost an enormous amount of excess weight.
After the last workmen left in early July, I studied the big pile of bed frames, mattresses, cabinets, upholstered chairs, lamps, linens, framed pictures and lots of other stuff that patiently awaited repositioning. Then I gazed at the empty, renovated bedrooms on the second floor, cleared out in February to allow the months-long plaster redo of ceilings and walls that had suffered from impact damage. For the first time in twenty-two years I could view these cleaned, vacant rooms with a fresh eye. They looked so airy, with only their freshly laundered, sheer white curtains rehung.
I pictured all the usual bits added back, and felt- unsettled.
Hmmm…
Here was a unique opportunity to purge what had too often become fussy filler, or worse, invisible.
Frankly, my home was two decades too fat.
First, I put back all essential items, such as beds and bedding. Then, before reinstating anything else, I drew up a guideline to help me decide the fate of ‘thingies’ I hadn’t been ready to prune five years ago during my first big purge (mostly of attic stuff, clothes and documents).
I found a big sheet of paper, a fat-tipped pen, and my resolve.
Here’s what I wrote.
.
Goal: To eliminate items that can’t justify the spaces they’ve occupied for so long.
- Select an item. Really look at it. Would the room be happier without it? *Would your daughters keep it?
- When was the last time you noticed/used it? When was the last time anyone else did?
- Think creatively. Example A. Could that dresser fit inside the closet? Does it hold clothes you rarely wear? OK. Eliminate everything in it you rarely wear. Is it still a keeper? How about downsizing to a smaller dresser? Example B. Consider a hanging lamp, instead of that floor lamp, which tends to tip.
the transfer make sense?
Question everything (even Grandma’s gimcrack(s), dutifully
sheltered for years).
5.Offer the item to your family. If they decline its charms, ding!!
Take the hint. If they don’t want it now, they won’t
want it later. Sell, or donate.
(Note: If you’d be miserable without it, then keep it. This exercise is about being happier with less claptrap. Thingies you
cherish aren’t claptrap.)
6.Don’t falter. Remember the goal. Your exhausted, upset
family won’t need to make these decisions when you’re
gone. YOU’LL decide, now. Thoughtfully. One room at a time.
Your efforts will be so appreciated down the road!
After Mother and David’s deaths I’d spent months in 2009 going through everything they’d accumulated, renovated, collected or created during their happy quarter-century at Bryngarth Cottage in England. Sifting through it all was a long, painful, often heartbreaking experience. Almost all the things that had defined their home were donated, or sold to discerning buyers. There was no room in my established American home to accommodate what I loved, and the cost of shipping things back to America was unimaginably high.
I had to let them go.
Appreciative British buyers would cherish them anew.
That experience served as a terrific motivator for me now.
I could do a good thing for my family, for the house, and for me.
For example, a serviceable upholstered Laz-Boy swivel rocker, four press back dining chairs, and a dozen framed scenery pictures- some pretty big- were donated or sold. That huge, never used stained glass cabinet in the back bedroom was transported back to Saginaw. A lovely round table with stylish legs, normally positioned in front of the round tower window, was, frankly, an attractive obstacle! WHY, I frowned, had I parked it there for so long? Nobody could look outside! (Fresh looks can be so revelatory!)
A thousand excess pounds were lost in less than a week.
Every time an item was eliminated, I swear the house sighed with relief.
Furthermore, I haven’t missed anything that ‘got the boot!’
What about items I still couldn’t decide about? Well, I’ve carefully stored these in the garage’s loft. Distance and time are great deciders. If I haven’t given them a thought during the next year, they’ll be sold, or given away.
Love means never having to say I’m sorry for hugging too much clutterstuff too close for too long for no reason, save shopworn sentiment, habit or laziness.
****
P.S. Do something extra if you care to: pencil in the approximate value of kept items in a hidden area on their undersides. This could be a huge help to family, who might otherwise look at them with mystification. Add this nugget of information to your will, so they’ll know.