Downsizing and optimizing
Technical, Media ·Wednesday August 26, 2009 @ 20:12 EDT (link)
Going from a (fully furnished) four bedroom house into a two bedroom apartment is like trying to fit quarts into pint bottles. Right now the living room is full of couches and a few stacked coffee/end tables, and there are piles of books, DVDs, and boxes everywhere.
Minimalism has been one of my goals for a while (ideas from herbalcell): yet we still have more furniture than when we arrived in Duvall. Part of it was due to the tree falling, and insurance only covering actual replacement goods: although I still could have considered a store with more separable (disassemblable?) items such as Ikea. It's somewhat academic when there's plenty of space—do it for the clean look, do it to know you only have things you need and use—but shifting to a small apartment as we are, downsizing is vital. It's also important if we ever pack a truck again for a longer distance move: far more important than this move, where we took advantage of the ability to make multiple trips, since we only moved nine miles.
We always take the opportunity of moving to go through our stuff and see if we still need everything. A few things we've done to help with the clutter:
- gardening items: gave away some topsoil, wood chips, grass seed, and lawn chemicals, and sold a lawn mower (Black and Decker CMM1000 19" rechargeable)
- gave away some other miscellaneous items that had been kept too long and not used, including a damaged wardrobe we were using as shelves
- sold some DVDs: mostly fullscreen versions of ones we re-purchased in widescreen
- DVDs (and CDs) take up a lot of space; DiscSox looks interesting (sleeves or homemade, trays), and they're easier to organize than binders. I liked Case Logic's binders; Amazon carries several:
leather, capacity 140 (also at Wal-Mart) 200 336; nylon, capacity 208 280.
- Honey sold some books: a could we had two of, some her mother had given her to sell, some old textbooks
- may get an Amazon Kindle to replace most books (keeping only a few)… DRM permitting (apparently MOBI format can be converted, but Topaz can't… yet)
- I have a number (20+) of binder photo albums: I'll scan the photos (and index them), and perhaps keep them, but at least give away the bulky albums
- replaced (dead) CRT TV last year with a flat screen (smaller, can lift it myself); I also replaced got a flat LCD monitor and dumped some CRTs
- the old bed doesn't need to be set up: the mattress and box spring can lean against the wall, and it only has rails
- the hand cart we rented from Penske really helps to move large items; with one I hope to be able to load and unload everything we own (if necessary)
- go through our files and thin them out by removing old receipts or utility bills that we no longer need, etc.
- Ikea (etc.) is good: two desks already, and some portable drawers; although our king bed was surprisingly portable: but nothing much could be done to lighten the dresser and drawers
- …
- Primum non nocere: no more bulky stuff (definitely nothing I can't lift alone, possibly with a hand cart); DVDs will have cases removed; reference or read-and-sell books only.
I'm sure I'll think of more things to give us more livable space, and maybe even give us enough room to throw a party or two (or at least have guests).
