Becoming a Minimalist

A minimalist.. What does that mean? Over the past couple weeks I’ve been going through nearly every room in the house to try to reduce what we own..
This isn’t always easy because we have kids right! I have a bag full of non used toys, clothes and other bits and the kids are taking them out the bag quicker than I can put them in!! Very time-consuming.
The reason why I’m going through every room in the house is for our upcoming move. Yay! Yes our house is nearly finished being built and I can’t wait to move.
So to become a minimalist – living with less stuff and more time I needed some help to get my head around what direction I should be heading in..
I found some great tips in this area..

1. Look around your home, it’s filled with items that you do not need. The foundation of becoming a minimalist is to get rid of all of that clutter and mess. You must let go of the stuff you don’t need. Think about what you need to survive–shelter, water and food. You also need clothing, furniture, and anything else that you actually make great use of on a regular basis.
2. Start in your wardrobe. Many people allow clothing to pile up in their closets and it can get increasingly worse when nothing is done about it. One person should be able to live off of at least ten outfits total. Choose this many and get rid of the clothing that doesn’t fit you, or that you no longer wear. Get rid of any shoes that no longer fit or that you don’t wear anymore. If you haven’t worn a piece of clothing in the last year than you probably won’t wear it in the next year to come! Take all your unwanted clothing to a charity close by.
3. Consolidate your furniture. Every piece of furniture should serve a purpose. I looked at my lounge room and had a lamp table sitting in the corner – with nothing on it! It was taken away.. Simple usable furniture is best.
4. Think Survival.. When you move from room to room, look around and put aside all the essentials when thinking about survival..Everything else goes!
5. Check the floors. The more of the floor you can see the better. If there is piles in corners and the stuff doesn’t have a ‘home’ get rid of it!
6. The Junk drawer – Oh no.. Everyone has one and things just keep piling up until the drawer can longer shut properly… Take the drawer out, empty it on an open surface and go through it all. Only keep the essential things. Pens, Notebooks, Phone charges etc..
7. Walls and Windows. In looking through a lot of pictures its common for most minimalist to have little wall hangings. This is fine for some people, but I need to have at least one picture or photo hung on a wall in each room of the house. One is plenty. Window furnishing such as blinds, curtains and shutters can make a home feel smaller and can sometimes cause unnecessary stress due to the upkeep of the curtains or blinds. Consider removing all curtains and blinds from windows in living areas if they aren’t necessary.
8. Patterns & decorating. If you have a house with stripes, spots, chevron and floral patterns throughout, it’s going to cause chaos in your mind, not to mention your visitors. Consider streamlining your decorating. Simple is smart and is more versatile.
9. The kids room. This would have to be the biggest hurdle for my house. Clothing is easy because once they out grow a piece of clothing it gets handed down to the next cousin in line or taken to the charity shop. Toys,books, dvd’s and other stuff that the kids are given for their birthdays. I started a rotation of the kids toys back a while ago and only left out the toys they regularly played with. This has helped now in getting rid of the unwanted stuff.. The children haven’t even missed it. Another post coming up on the amount of toys children need!
10. Everything has a place. If you can’t find a place or ‘home’ for each single item in your home, perhaps it isn’t a needed item.

If anyone else is thinking about being a minimalist or downsizing I would love to hear from you.