But first, an update on our houses: there is no update on the Victorian.  Sadly, it still belongs to us.  And we are still loving the new house.  There is considerably more work to be done than we originally thought, but we’re happy about that; it will be fun.  So far, we’ve just done minor things like paint, but we have been making plans and pricing the bigger projects.  The next post will be introducing the new house.

Several months ago, we visited my parents again.  As our yearly tradition has become, we redecorated a room in their house.  This year it was Dad’s office.

The office was not meeting their needs at all.  Mom has been simplifying over the last couple years, but they hadn’t gotten to the office yet.  So before our visit, she and I got on Skype and made a plan for her to clean it all out before we arrived.

She did an awesome job and we arrived to an empty room that dad had just finished repainting.  The old furniture was sold on Craigslist and new furniture was picked out before we got there too.

Since it’s dad’s office, I wanted his desk in the center of the room as the focal point.  He uses a tablet instead of a PC, so we didn’t even have any cords to try to hide.  Also, since they had gotten rid of most of what was on the bookshelves, they didn’t need nearly that amount of storage space.  I had been looking (unsuccessfully) for new, smaller and better-looking bookshelves for them, but dad surprised me and built the new ones.

The photos aren’t good…sorry.

Yes, that is the same room.  As you can see, we didn’t have enough to fill the bookshelves at this point.  We also hadn’t found replacement office chairs yet.  The drafting desk is from World Market.  (Similar, but not quite as good-looking here if you don’t have a World Market).  While they had the desk in stock, I suggested asking for the floor model at a discount since the surface was scratched.  He did and they gave it to him!  The wood had more green undertones than he wanted, so he refinished it when he got it home to this richer, less trendy color.

We got a long and shallow desk for mom and put it where the old giant bookshelf used to be.  They went for the build-your-own IKEA system with a filing cabinet on one end and two legs on this end.

Dad wanted a comfy place to sit and read, so the comfy chair came in.  They are considering updating it with one that matches better in the future.

The last night we were there, we stopped at a Restoration Hardware outlet store and found the perfect new desk chairs for both of them.  (Didn’t realize my camera was out of focus, and I only got the one picture of mom’s new chair, but you get the idea.)

Here are the before and after pictures together for perspective:

I’ll be back on Thursday with some photos of our new Craftsman!

The post Really big home office makeover appeared first on Little Victorian.

I couldn’t help but immediately ask Carmella of Assortment Blog if I could share a photo of her cabin with you as soon as I saw it.

At 665 square feet, it’s almost twice the size as the last itty bitty home I showed you, but a family of 5 lives in this one.

I didn’t even discover this house because of it’s size, but because the design–it’s so pretty.  (The kitchen shelves look kinda familiar, huh?)

Go here to see the before picture and tour the rest of the house–it’s quite impressive.   Obviously, I love it, and I’d love to live in it.  What do you think?  Would you?

PS: Our dining room hardwood is fully exposed–will share photos next week.

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Last week, after 4 months, the minimalist game we’re playing was finally starting to get hard.  That made me quite happy.  It’s been a major accomplishment and it made me think back to when we started simplifying, exactly 1 year ago.

I didn’t know anything about minimalism until an interview with Joshua Becker, but immediately after hearing it, junk started getting bagged up.  I posted here about it here.  We had this yard sale:

That was the end of last spring.  We continued to get rid of things throughout the fall, and in November, started the minimalist game.  Since November alone, we have gotten rid of 1,700+ additional items.

On average, for the last 12 months, we decluttered 10 items a day.  Our house (and life) has changed quite a bit because of all this.  The basement is usable:

We got rid of our upper kitchen cabinets all-together (and had to bring in decorative items just to fill the shelves):

The wardrobe shrunk:

I posted some tips for simplifying a few months ago, but I have one more today: work in rounds.

Make a list of all the places you could declutter (like the bathroom drawers, a bookshelf, the dresser, etc), and go through the list.  Once you’re finished with the list, start over for a second round.  It’s easy to think after the first round that there is nothing more to get rid of, but by the time you come back to it, you find a lot more to toss.

We’re currently on round 3 of our whole house, and I’m still finding things.  The next 10 days are going to be the biggest yet in our simplifying mission, I’ll tell you why next week.

So who’s getting ready for minimalist game in April?  I’m keeping the Google+ community open.  Leena did a whole month of the game with us, my mom has completed a few months, Alana is about to finish March, and my friend Maryanne is about to finish her second month.  Join us!

The post Another tip from one year of simplifying appeared first on Little Victorian.

12 years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to go to South Africa.  Everything about it was awesome.  I brought back tons of treasures.  So many, in fact, that my friend and I had to stop at a luggage store on our way to the airport to buy additional suitcases to get it all home.

One thing I brought back was this hand-carved chess set.

I purchased this in a tiny second floor studio in a little town.  I purchased it even though I don’t (and don’t have any desire to) play chess, because it was gorgeous and full of character, and from South Africa, and very affordable.

If it were the only thing I had purchased to bring home in South Africa, I would be keeping it.  But it’s not.  Yes, it will be the latest victim of our simplifying.

Don’t get mad at me.  It will be going to a better home, where it will be appreciated and admired and hopefully on display and used.  Here at our house, it sat in a box.  While I would love to have it on display, the pieces fall down too easily, and can you imagine dusting that regularly?!  I’d settle for using it occasionally, except, I don’t like the game of chess.

So, instead of putting it back in the game chest where it will be neglected and take up space, we are donating it to our church’s silent auction.

The decision was easy.  But following through was not.  We set it up one last time and admired it and waffled a little bit, but we packed it up.  It will be handed off this weekend, and it will be hard.  But we have no reason to keep it.  I’d much rather someone have it that is going to enjoy it.

Besides, I do have other beautiful, hand-made treasures that I brought home and still use all the time.

This decision had nothing to do with our simplifying game, by the way.  But you can be SURE that I am going to count it.  Now the only question is, how many items does this count as?  Normally I’d say one, as it’s a package deal, but I think I should get some bonus items since it’s so special.  What do you think?

The post Simplifying: the hard things appeared first on Little Victorian.

Can you believe it’s February already?  January got away from me in regards to a few things I wanted to do–like set up a way for you to join me in the minimalist game.  In November and December, mom and I played, and got rid of a combined total of 1,922 items.

I wrote about the first month here.  And shared this picture of 465 items.

Here are 496 more from December:

We took January off so we could actually donate and/or sell all the items (that may or may not have happened…January just flew by).  But today is the 3rd, so it’s past time to start again!

I wanted to start a Flickr gallery that anyone could upload their photos to, but the logistics weren’t working out, so I started a Google+ community (click here to join!) instead.  I’m not too sure how to use Google+ yet, but adding the photos is pretty simple.

We’d love to have you join us!  We’re not strict or anything…it doesn’t have to be on the exact day (ours are sometimes a day or two behind), and you don’t have to finish the month if it’s too much.  You don’t even have to share pictures if you don’t want, you could just leave a comment and mention how many things (or what things) you got rid of that day.

It’s a challenge as the month goes on, but the results in our home have been priceless: each room is so much more relaxing and organized and easier to clean.  I’m guessing you’ll have more to get rid of than you thought, and as I’ve mentioned before: it’s addictive.

The post February’s simplifying game appeared first on Little Victorian.

An awesome side-effect has popped up from all this simplifying we’re doing over the last six months: I’ve lost the desire to buy stuff.  I had no idea that would happen.  But it’s pretty fun now to actually walk around stores now and enjoy looking at all the pretty things without being tempted at all to purchase them.

This wasn’t something I had to make myself do.  I still took my regular trips to Target to pick up household supplies and browse all the cute things, but right from the beginning, whenever I was tempted by something, the first thing that came to mind was how much daily effort was being put forth at home to get rid of excess stuff, and then there was the realization that in a few months, this item would likely be another thing to get rid of.  Every item was put back on the shelf–and happily!

Pin it for later!

So here are a 5 tips from our experience these last 6 months:

1. Try to get rid of one thing every day.
   Even one thing starts to change your mindset about things. Once that starts happening, you begin to naturally lose the emotional attachment you have to things that are not actually valuable. You may not be able to get rid of that old sweatshirt tomorrow, but in a month or two, you’ll probably feel differently.
2. Realize the current value of things.
   We often keep things around because “I paid $XX for this!”  Sorry, but the money is gone, and it’s not coming back.  What value does it have in your home right now?  Is it adding something to your life besides clutter?  Peace of mind from a cleaner space is always more valuable.
3. Don’t buy anything you don’t love.
   You won’t use it as much as you should and sooner or later, you’ll want to replace it, which will end up costing you even more.
4. Don’t buy anything you wouldn’t pay full price for. 
   (That means you don’t love it.  See above.)
5. Don’t save things that you only use once a year, or less.
   Unless, of course, it would cost a lot of money to replace it.  These are the items that hang out on the top shelves, or in the attic and garage.  Is it something you could borrow when (if) the time comes to use it again?  Is it something you could pick up off Craigslist or at the thrift store and then re-sell or donate once you’re done?  I had a great big stock pot for 5 years that I used to make chicken soup twice.  It took up an entire shelf in the pantry. It’s gone now and if I ever want to make chicken soup, I’ll just see if I can borrow a pot from someone.

Here is an infographic that sums up the cost of clutter pretty well:

Infographic authored by Married with Luggage, helping you achieve whatever you’ve always wanted to do.

Here’s a great article to go along with that too: How Much Money is Your Clutter Costing You?

So those are the 5 things that have really helped me the most.  But different things work for different people!  Do you have any tips that have helped (or you think will) help you simplify and declutter?

The post How to simplify your home: 5 easy ways appeared first on Little Victorian.

Want to see what 465 items looks like?

For the month of November, my mom and I played a simplifying game together.  On day one, we got rid of one item each.  On day two, we got rid of two items, and up to day 30, when we got rid of 30 items each.  Every day, we texted each other pictures of the items and in the end, we each tossed 465 things.

I’m a little exhausted, but we’re going for it again this month.  After all, I’ve barely touched the attic yet.  The house could probably burn down and we wouldn’t even remember what was up there.

From March (when we began simplifying) to October, we had probably gathered up about 4 or 5 dozen garbage bags full of stuff.  And that was all before the game.  I can say with confidence now, when you think you have one or two things you can get rid of, you probably actually have 1 or 2 hundred.  As always, it feels so good to have that stuff out of the house.  Each item gone makes it that much more peaceful.  Think you could make it all the way through the month?

The post Turning simplifying into a game appeared first on Little Victorian.

The kitchen is almost complete, but I’m going to wait until I have the rest of the room painted (this week) to show you the photos.  In the mean time, we worked from early morning to after 8 pm yesterday cleaning up the basement, installing lighting and rewiring a bunch of poorly done electrical work.

Since we moved in, we have tried organizing the basement (as in a full day of organizing) at least a half-dozen times.  And still, it has been a constant mess.  If it weren’t for the fact that our washer and dryer are down there, I’m not sure there would even be a path to walk through half the time.  So we’re organizing my favorite way: getting rid of stuff.

We do have at least two of most of our tools, partly because we often work on large projects together, and it’s way easier for each of us to have our own.  But often, when we start a project early on a Sunday morning, we spend a good hour attempting to gather all the tools from the basement.  Some of which, we cannot find because tools are all just in random boxes, piled on top of each other.  We end up giving up the search and going to the store to buy the tool again.  It’s terrible.

Then we finally tackle our project mid-day and all the tools we used go into a random box, and then back to the basement to start over.

This is why, when I started learning more about serious simplifying and minimalism, I was really struck by a couple lines from the Organizing post from The Minimalists:

“No matter how organized we are, we must continue to care for the stuff we organize, cleaning and sorting our methodically structured belongings. When we get rid of the superfluous stuff, however, we can focus on life’s more important aspects…Or we could, of course, reorganize our basement again.  Once the excess stuff is out of the way, staying organized is much easier anyway.”

So yesterday, in addition to the re-wiring we had to do, we decided that we were organizing the basement, for the last time.  In order to do that, we have to get rid of stuff.  A lot of stuff.

These photos were taken before our big yard sale, so some of the junk was already gone, but the spots were just filled in with more stuff.  We burned all the random, useless pieces of wood in the fire pit, put a big free sign on the curb and piled loads of stuff out there, and we filled up two garbage cans of trash.  It looks a lot better this morning, but we’re not done.  Hence, the lack of “After” photos in this post.  We’re going to continue this project this week, along with finishing the stairs and the kitchen.  And then, hopefully by the end of the month, we will have a nice, simplified, organized basement to show you.

The post The shameful basement appeared first on Little Victorian.

Another room that was majorly simplified before the yard sale was the kitchen.

When I was in my late teens, I purchased a full set of dishes.  This wasn’t just the 16 piece box with 4 place settings.  This was 96 a piece set, service for 12.  They were simple, white dishes, Martha Stewart brand and the set was on clearance for around $100.

Those are still the same dishes that we use today.

But I finally accepted the fact that two people just don’t need 24 bowls or 36 salad and bread plates.  Or the 12 lovely coffee cups and saucers that we don’t use because we prefer mugs.  So out they went, along with sooo many other redundant pieces of drink and dinnerware…too many to list.

I’d love to jump on the current kitchen trend and replace the upper cabinets with open shelving, but I’m not sure how good that would be for the value of the house, especially in a fairly small kitchen.

We were planning on replacing the cabinets anyway, and shelves would be way cheaper.  What do you think?  Would open shelving be worth it?

The post The cupboards are bare appeared first on Little Victorian.

The more we get rid of, the more excited I get about getting rid of things.  I’ve mentioned a few times the piles and piles of things we’re getting out of our house.

We had a yard sale yesterday.

Can you believe that amount of stuff?!  For 2 people in a 1,200 square foot house?  And that wasn’t even all of it, we were still putting things out at this point.  We didn’t even put out the clothes we had because we didn’t think they would sell.

I’m still not nearly finished simplifying in the house, but it feels so good to have all that stuff out of our living space!

We only sold about 1/4 of the stuff, so the rest will be taken to a group yard sale next month.  At least it will only take us 2 trips to get it all there instead of the 3 it would have been.  So about 75% of the stuff is back in the crawl space.

We are just so far from the city, that I don’t think yard sales are worth the amount work they take anymore.  From now on, we’ll stick to Craigslist.  Especially since we never plan on having enough things in our house to have a yard sale again!

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