the happy living Blog

spending hiatus #2

Starting today I am on Spending Hiatus #2.  This time around I am not following anyone like I did last time. I am trying it out on my own.  We will see how that works.  If any of you did not participate last time and want to  this time feel free to do so and let me know so I can follow you.  Either way I will do the same as last time and post each Monday (or Tuesday!) and re-cap.

So far I have a few exclusions such as two toilets, one refrigerator, paint and some other building supplies for our bedroom make-over.

I am committed to three months of this: June, July and August.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the spending hiatus exercise, I am committing to not buy anything that would be deemed non-essential for three months.  For me non-essentials means clothing and accessories, home and decorating items, specialty personal care items (it is amazing how much money I can spend in one trip to Walgreens), magazines that I don't already have a subscription to, books (thank goodness for the library), electronics and itunes music.  This list is not exhaustive and I think it would be different for everyone.

Like last time I am going to use the next three months to do some more de-cluttering and organizing my two favorite activities.

Wish me luck.

spring cleaning

Does anyone really do spring cleaning anymore?  It was more of a necessity back in the day when fireplaces were the main source of heat during the winter and the rugs and drapes needed to have the soot shaken out.  But spring is still the most popular time to do a deep-clean around the house, purge and organize (my favorite things!).  And after the 3-month spending hiatus, I feel some major purging coming on.  I did a bit during the last 12 weeks, but not nearly enough.

Martha has a nice Spring-Clean Your Life gallery which is based on the book Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear Your Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke.

photo from Martha Stewart

decluttering magazines

For a long time I have been a magazine junkie.  It all started with Seventeen and it was down hill from there.  Until recently I had baskets of partially or unread mags strewn about the house.  Over the holidays I went through most of them and they went out with the recycling last week.  I have also started canceling a few of them as they come up for renewal.

I consider this a decluttering of the mind as much as it is of the house.  I truly believe there is only so much information and inspiration that one person can absorb in any given amount of time.  I spend so much of my time on the internet these days where I feel as though I get most of what I need there.  As I write this, the rumors of Domino's closing have come true today.  I wonder if it is just a sign of the times.  Something is happening with print media.  But I digress.

Having a few subscriptions to the magazines that I really delve into when they arrive means less baskets around the house to trip over.  They can be displayed in fun ways too, really showing off the gorgeous covers each month.

I like this display and photo taken by Mika.

 

Mika has a lovely blog!

the spending hiatus : 2 week update

I'm a little tardy due to being a little under the weather but here goes.

Things I (we) bought: contact lenses, groceries, chinese takeout on Friday (limited to eating dinner out once per week), I had lunch with a friend on Sunday so that was a non-essential, although spending quality time with friends is essential, and we (the boy and I) ate lunch together yesterday here and the new rule for that is once per week for eating lunch out.  Today I brought my lunch.  Cosi has been calling my name.

It has been neither easy nor difficult.  Somewhere in between I guess.  On one hand, it is freeing as Joslyn said, but on the other I do notice my small internal battles that go on when I am feeling the 'need' to shop either brick and mortar or online.  I found myself thinking about going into stores as I was passing by them on the street but then reminding myself that not only am I on a hiatus but I also DO NOT NEED ANYTHING.

I would say, online shopping is probably where I have the potential to struggle more.  It is soo easy.  I have an email account where I get all the shop emails, coupons, flyers, etc.  Anthropologie has some nice stuff on sale, did ya know?  And I got a coupon from Hable Construction.  I have actually started unsubscribing to most of the emails I get just so I don't have to look at them (which is a lot harder than one would imagine!).

I have been surprised at the snippets of time that I have seemed to gain by not shopping, even online.  But my mind is also clearer and that might be why I feel like I have more time.  The other benefit of doing this is my rate of bringing new stuff into the house is going down so that when I start bringing things to Goodwill (you should see the pile of crap in my basement) I will be able to see the difference at home.  Before I think my rate on 'in' and 'out' were pretty close.  I am looking forward to some winter/spring decluttering!

Big Picture:  For the last couple of years I have been longing more and more to live a simpler life, not because it is enviromentally friendly or politically correct or trendy to talk about right now, but because I believe it will be beneficial in countless ways for my little family.  I haven't defined for myself exactly what 'simple' means yet, but I think this exercise will help me in many aspects, mainly in identifying what is really important to me and that being happy comes from inside.

I'll leave it at that for now. ;)

decluttering furniture

I finally bought a couch for our living room.  I have had this couch on my list for awhile and just needed time to think about it and also wait for our budget and the department store sale to converge.  We haven't received it yet as it is on backorder.  Waiting doesn't bother me that much.  It just gives us more time to figure out what to do with the frat-house-futon that the new couch is taking the place of.

Yea, it's musical furniture in our house.  The boy doesn't like to throw things or give things away too much.  It is a constant struggle between us.  I have been accused of taking some items to Goodwill that I was not given permission to.  I admit, it is a possibility.  When I get to bagging things up, some things just get swept up in the frenzy.  In all fairness though, I have brought some random pieces of furniture into our home over the years.  Sometimes they stay and sometimes they don't.

We have a mish-mash of furniture: a dining room table and chairs that was my great grandmother's, a living room set from Strawbridges (now Macy's), bertoia chairs from ebay, heywood wakefield and lane tables also from ebay, a little roll-top desk that belonged to someone in my dad's family, a $10 chair from a strip-mall antique store in Rehoboth, DE and of course some Ikea pieces.

Some things we will always have and others served a purpose at some point but I am looking forward to upgrading, getting something more useful or just making a better choice this time around and getting something that I love that will be a classic to me.  I am slowly becoming more thoughtful about what I spend my money on, although I do have my moments of what I call Target-induced unconscious spending. Fortunately they are becoming rarer (and I also live further away from big box stores than I used to).  Two other things have happened to me (us) over this past year.  First, we moved into what we consider our long-term house.  Second, I think it has just been over the past couple of years that I have really developed a sense of what my own style is and more importantly come to an understanding of my lifestyle as a wife, an architect, a house-keeper and all the other roles that I play in making a home.

All of the things above are just now coming together and it is causing me to pause everytime I think "Oh, I want that piece of furniture".  And if I buy said piece of furniture does something else need to leave?  We are lucky to have ebay and craigslist which enable us to in essence recycle our unwanted things.  At least they are not going into a landfill.  But do I necessarily want my house to become a revolving door of tables and chairs?  There is always a bit of rotation and editing in decorating.  But with the major pieces I want some permanence.

I think I have rambled on long enough and will end there.  All this came about because I wanted to buy this today, but did not.  I still haven't decided on whether or not to get it.  I'll let you know. ;)

food for thought :: decluttering

I am a huge fan of everything Sarah Susanka does from her architecture to her books to her blog and newsletters.  I hope that as I think about developing my own architecture practice someday that my work can reflect a lot of the ideas about home and living more simply that she has brought to us.  I clicked through to her blog after receving her latest newsletter and was so moved by her blog post about her process of decluttering her office.

She says, "I see now that the real lesson of my decluttering task was not that I needed to throw everything out, but that through the process of sorting, reviewing, and culling I was able to render down the important ingredients of my life into its particular and unique flavor, just as one would do in the kitchen with a fine sauce. It’s all there already. We just have to take the time to let it simmer, and then after decades have past, to taste the results. I highly recommend it. I’ve learned a lot."

There are a lot of ways to look at what she said.  What I took from it is that in the process of decluttering whether it be our spaces, minds or lives in general we can let go of old ways, old habits, old things, and make way for new ideas and refreshed thinking.

I have not read her latest book The Not So Big Life yet, but if her previous books are any indication, I am sure that it is excellent.  I am putting it on my library list!

house guests

We are getting ready for weekend house guests. We live in a 3 bedroom house but right now the boy and I have the two extra bedrooms taken over by office functions so we do not have a formal guest room.  This works fine for us since, with the exception of my SIL, our family lives within driving distance as do most of our friends and the ones who live more than a hour away come to visit maybe twice a year if even that.  We decided that we'll surrender our beloved sleep number bed for one night and camp out on the futon in the family room.  My friend is prego and there is no way I would subject her to a night on that wafer.  As you may recall I have been shopping for a futon replacement.  We have gone back and forth about whether or not to get a sleeper sofa, but for our limited guest accomodation needs I can't see spending all the extra money for one and haven't been happy with the choices.  I am picky enough.  Jeez.  Once the futon is gone (and I can't wait for the day) we will use an aero bed.  I've slept on them enough times to know they are great for a weekend stay and very easy to set up, break down and store.  I just picked one up a a great discount at smart bargains. 

There are lots of web resources suggesting ways to prepare ones home for guests and ways to make guests feel more comfortable.  My main concerns are always that house is clean, especially the bathrooms and the bed has clean sheets on it.  I also like to make sure I have food staples on hand and some healthy snacks too.  Luckily my friends and I are pretty down to earth so you won't find me making up spa baskets or tieing my guest towels with linen ribbon.  I did like the idea pictured (idea and picture from Martha Stewart) above of a way to put out some drinking water if you don't have a carafe.  Use two different sized drinking glasses like a DOF and a highball.  Simple and thoughtful.  When friends and family come to stay, it should be about the time spent together catching up and less about whether your guest accomodations rival the Four Seasons'.  I think.

should my 200th post be something really profound...

...or should I just show you my closet that I am about to purge?

What I really miss about our other house are the closets.  We installed closet organizers in all the closets and it really helped maximize the space we had much better.  I am using this one closet you see above.  The boy is crammed into another horrible closet on the other side.  We need to share this one and use the other one for less frequently used things like dresses and heavy winter stuff.

More importantly, I want to just simply have less clothing and from now on make smarter shopping choices.  I have a lot pieces that I never wear.  I have also thankfully lost about 15 pounds over the last several months and have a few things that are too big.  I usually give my good cast-offs to the Salvation Army but I have quite a few things that I think I might try selling on ebay.  I could use the extra money. :)  So over Christmas and into the New Year this will be my project.

a way to get less junk mail

reduce the number of catalogs you receive: https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS or http://www.catalogchoice.org/
opt out of those annoying pre-approval letters: https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

via Design Milk

Both good for the environment, less paper wasted, less paper to be recycled, but also good for you.  Think about how much time and energy you spend each week going through junkmail.  I try to do it quick but I still end up having to open about half of our junkmail to make sure it does not have any private information on it.  Such a time and space waster!  Arrr.

ps.  I must have done something bad, because Typepad has not let me insert images for the past few days.  Hopefully we'll be back to normal soon.

fabric box storage collections

So versatile, so pretty and so organized...for every room of a home.  I kick myself every time I think of how I passed up all those marked-down boxes that Hold Everything was selling off when they closed up shop.  But I have three favorite go-to online shops to buy beautiful fabric covered storage pieces.

Not in any particular order...

CB2
   

west elm
 

and KOLO (more specifically for photographs, but their boxes can be used for all sorts of things)
 

I know I've mentioned KOLO before and probably will again.  west elm's collection is now 20% off!  Right now, CB2's colors are my favorite, but how great is that west elm red?  These pieces are great for rooms that have shelving instead of cabinets to keep items together and looking great.  I do consider this type of storage as an investment because they are not the least expensive option...but worth it, I think for a long term solution.