#trashfreechallenge - 3. declutter

this beautiful image via here

The night after our big day at the Suitcase Rummage, I sat looking at our photographs of the day. At the sea of people, with our lovely clothes, our shiny nicknacks, trinkets and treasures sprawled across the ground, ready to sell... and I realised, "trash" can come in all shapes and forms.
We can be buried by our overconsumption of "stuff" and it's hard to know where to begin to tackle this.
So, today's #trashfreechallenge is Minimalist living, at home. The baby steps to working towards a minimalist home.

...To me, minimalism means living in simplicity. The idea that you can pick up and travel anywhere with a few quality possessions, like a modern day gypsy, is very appealing to me (especially when you've moved homes as many times in the last few years as I have!) The convenience of our many modern day essentials becomes a burden and eventually it becomes easier to live without them. Minimalism may come from many places - from the desire to have less responsibility and therefore less burden, by necessity as a frequent traveller or other reason, or as a conscious decision to move past a particular point in life. While it's not for everyone, I feel like it's a good time in my #trashfreechallenge to tackle what remains of my clutter and become a little closer to minimalism.
Here's what I did...

My five simple steps to minimalism (in the home)

1. One set of everything - bedding and linens, towels, cutlery, crockery. Think quality, not quantity. 

2. Trinkets and treasures and stuff - is it sentimental, a gift or a memento? If so, find a place for it (I love this typeset box idea for displaying trinkets). If not, re-home it.

3. Let it grow - Rather than have hundreds of pot plants, transplant your pots into your garden. You might have to leave them behind when you move but you'll leave something more beautiful than when you arrived.

4. Important clutter (files, documents, etc) Start with hardcopies and if you're really feeling ambitions, tackle the computer files etc. (Here's a good little guide by the lovely Pippa)

5. Clothing - What have you worn in the last 6 months. Take everything else out of your closet and re-home it. Or it you can't bear to do that, put it in a box. If you look for it to wear it in the next 6 months, keep it. If not, re-home it all.   

And when I'm finding it too hard to decide whether to keep or re-home something, I just ask myself this question: What would you save in a fire/flood/other natural disaster, if you could only take what you could carry?

So, that should be a good start to tackling the clutter. It's tough but if feels so good to let go of it all and have only those things that really serve you and things that really mean something to you.
Do you think you'll try it? (Let me know if you find any areas of particular clutter that we can tackle together)

x

*re-home: to re-gift, donate, sell, swap, etc.