Recently we found ourselves in a situation where on paper we needed to move to a significantly smaller apartment. We finally managed to cancel it so we are still living in our current apartment but before we could cancel the move I had the following thoughts, we need to declutter a lot because we will be significantly reducing the apartment from a large living room to no living room, from a large kitchen to a medium-sized kitchen, from a room for my son to no room for my son more than a small space and from a fairly large attic storage room to no storage room at all. I started to reflect and think about what we could declutter.
The fact is that I came up with quite a few things I could get rid of and I'm a already a minimalist today. Our sofa has done its job and is both worn out and broken, I want to update it to a smaller sofa. The living room table is not really needed because it is just a storage area at the moment for things we can't (or want) put away right away. All the things in the attic storage, do we really need to save all these things that I don't even want in the apartment. I actually want to get rid of all the Christmas things but I'm keeping them for the sake of my children who don't want to take Christmas away. A bookshelf I have standing in the hall that is really just storage for things I've decluttered out before, the rest of the things that are there can find other places. A lot of little things that are just littering around the home, for example decorative items that serve no other purpose than collecting dust. Flower vases that are never used because no one ever gives me flowers. A broken chair on the balcony that is certainly usable but is broken in its very shape.
I think you understand what I mean when I say that if you think about it, you could declutter more than you think. It's all about the space and how much you are comfortable sharing a small space with all your things. When we arranged so that we could stay in our current apartment, which is significantly larger than the other apartment we were considering, it was like my head put away all the things I had previously thought I would declutter. It was like the size of the apartment made it possible to keep the things. I also think that if I remove the sofa now that we have a large living room, it will look extremely empty, whereas in an apartment without a living room you won't notice it very much. Having said that, I still want to raise the thought that some things we save we do it only because we have the space for them but don't necessarily value them as highly if we were to move to a smaller place. So my question is, is it possible to declutter all the things we absolutely don't need and still stay in, or will we automatically control our decluttering according to the size of our apartment? Let me know your thoughts on the post by leaving a comment. I will respond to all messages that do not contain advertising.
I can't write a post like this without writing a little about clothes. I just decluttered my clothes so I knew that was an area I could skip before the possible move. I only have what I love to use. In the small apartment we might have to move to, there was 1 wardrobe per person. Here in Sweden, a wardrobe is about 60 X 60 cm. Would you have managed to store all your clothes in an area of 60 x 60 cm? I could have managed it with the amount of clothes I have today, which I'm happy about.
When I think of my parents, I think of their big house and all the things they have accumulated over the years, and I can't help but think how many people live big just so that their things can fit in. Being retired and not having time because things at home take up too much time is scary to me. With those reflections comes the thought that if it's as I've just described to you, that I could declutter more if we moved to a smaller place and that I still think the cost shouldn't be high because of the things, then maybe I still made the wrong decision to stay in the big apartment we have today. Maybe it was the idea to restructure and reevaluate life right now. Maybe it was time to let go of possessions that only took up space in my head but didn't really serve a valuable purpose. Maybe now is the time to think about what's important in life. Maybe it's now.
What are you thinking? Do you have things that you keep thinking about in your head that you would declutter if, for example, you needed to move to a smaller place. Or, conversely, do you think about things that you would absolutely never let go of because they mean too much to you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Best regards