Minimal by choice

Without even looking at my place right now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a very good minimalist.

This weekend we purchased a sofabed, both in preparation for hosting some guests and to use up a difficult space in our flat. The floor plan shows that this was originally intended as a closet, complete with accordion doors and built-in shelves. The previous tenant correctly surmised that having such a large closet is useless, ripped everything out, and turned it into a home office. We have kept the same arrangement largely because that’s how it was when we got the place. Then we realised that it gets no natural light in the day, which makes it quite awful to be cooped up in there for more than several hours. With laptops it’s become much easier to work in other, better-lit areas of the flat. So the area devolved back into a closet where we stashed junk and paperwork that we promised we would do tomorrow.

Now it’s a guest room, with a bed and the future promises of shelves and place for our guests to hang up some clothes.

However, we still have the challenge of throwing out or selling several pieces of furniture, some of which I purchased as recently as last year. That “awesome” green chair will probably go at the next round of purging. I gave away books I’d never read again, realising that I bought them just for the sake of collecting the series. My mother’s drafting desk will be photographed, documented, and then put in the alley with a note explaining its history and a hope that it goes to someone who will love it as much as we did.

The desk is probably the most difficult item because I’ve grown attached to it. But with the understanding that I’m not attached to the object but rather the feeling of having it, it’s much easier to let go — the sentiment can be replicated using a simple photograph. The actual object, unused and unloved, can and should go to a better place. If nothing else, the desk deserves it.

In this exercise, I’ve found that minimalism is a mindset and a feeling that translates into deliberate acts. Once the mind has changed, the rest follows easily because the actions are all within my abilities. Throwing things out was never my forte, but I can do it in the face of, well, a desk sitting in the hallway and several boxes filled with unused junk. And I can keep doing it even if I had enough space to accumulate junk.

The resources I’ve found most useful are the Zen Habits blog, mnmlist, The Very Small Closet, and an article on self-reliance at the Art of Manliness.