The Joy of Less, a Minimalist Living Guide (11 page)

Because of its public nature (and proximity to the front door), the living room can be a dumping ground for clutter. Therefore, you’ll need to be particularly vigilant that every object in the room actually belongs there. Remember, it’s a
living
room, not a storage room: only those things that are used by you (or your family) on a regular basis should reside in this space. If you think of the room as a stage, is there enough space for everyone to interact (in other words, is there enough space for actual
living
)? Or is the action stifled by the presence of too many props?

Walk around the room, and name the reason for each item’s existence. For example: the couch is here because we sit on it to talk, play games, and watch TV. The coffee table holds our drinks and food, and provides a surface on which we can pursue our hobbies. The DVD player allows us to enjoy movies together. The clock on the mantle is a cherished family heirloom. The end table holds a pile of magazines that no one ever looks at. (Hmm…we might have to do something about that one.) As you evaluate your living room’s contents, don’t just gloss over the DVD collection or bookshelves. Consider each item individually, and question whether anyone still reads a certain book, watches a certain movie, or plays a certain game.

Be similarly thorough with your décor, considering each knickknack in turn. Do the decorative items in the room really bring you joy to look at? Or did they just accumulate over the years, and do nothing more than take up space? Try clearing the room entirely of non-functional pieces—sweep them from the shelves, the mantle, the console, and the side tables. Store them away in a box, and live without them for a week. Sometimes extraneous items can stifle our enjoyment of a space without us even realizing it. When they’re gone, we feel a wave of relief—like we finally have the room to stretch out and move around (without hitting or breaking anything). Notice how family members and guests react to the decluttered space—are they more relaxed? Do they move around more freely? Are they more enthusiastic to engage in activities?

Of course, if you truly miss an item—like a souvenir from a special trip, or a beautiful artisan bowl—feel free to retrieve it from the box and restore it to its rightful place. If its presence makes you genuinely happy, it has just as much reason to be part of the room as the practical stuff. The key: selecting and highlighting just one or two of these treasures, rather than turning your living room into a gallery of them.

Since the living room sees so much action, it’s particularly important that everything has a place. Otherwise, things can become truly chaotic!

Therefore, establishing zones or activity areas is especially useful. Define the regions where you watch TV, store movies, read magazines, play games, and use the computer. Make sure that the objects involved with said activities are housed in their appropriate zone, and do everything you can to prevent them from straying into another. DVDs shouldn’t be piled on the coffee table; they should be on their own designated shelf or in an assigned drawer. Likewise, magazines shouldn’t be stacked on top of the television, and playthings shouldn’t reside on the couch. Involve all household members in the process of defining the zones—then everyone will understand the system, and share responsibility for maintaining it.

If the living room also functions as someone’s office or craft space, restrict the activity (and its accessories) to a well-defined area. Set up a desk or worktable in a corner, against the wall, or in another space as far removed as possible from the main action of the room. If it helps, use a standing screen or floor plant to evoke a visual (and psychological) boundary. The reason is two-fold: first, you want to keep the office supplies from spilling over into the main living space. Second, you want to keep the office area free of clutter and distraction—you’ll be much more productive when you don’t have to clear toys from your desk before using it.

After dividing the space into zones, assign your stuff to your Inner Circle, Outer Circle, and Deep Storage. As you recall, your Inner Circle items are those you use on a regular (daily, or almost daily) basis. They should be kept in easy-to-access locations, such as mid-level shelves and drawers close to your activity zones. Candidates for your living room’s Inner Circle include the remote control, current magazines, frequently used electronics and computer peripherals, and favorite books, CDs, DVDs, and games. Your Outer Circle should house items used less than once a week, like certain hobby and craft supplies, reference books, and items for entertaining guests. Store these on upper and lower shelves, and in less accessible drawers and cabinets. Seasonal decorations, and pieces you treasure but can’t currently display (in an effort, perhaps, to toddler-proof the room) belong in Deep Storage—preferably in the basement, attic, or other out-of-the-way place.

If a neighbor dropped by at this very moment, could you set refreshments on the coffee table? If your kids wanted to play a game or work on an art project, is there any place to do so? Or would either scenario be delayed (or forsaken) because you have to clear off too much stuff? If you felt inspired to do a little yoga, is there ample room on the floor—or would you get more of a workout moving around furniture and other contents to make some space?

Our living rooms are for living. If we treat them as makeshift storage units, and fill them to the brim with stuff, we’re destroying the functionality of the room—and cheating ourselves (and our families) out of very valuable space. The surfaces in particular—like the coffee table, side tables, worktable, or desk—are of supreme importance. If they’re haphazardly piled with magazines, junk mail, toys, books, and unfinished craft projects, they’re useless for our current activities. Likewise, if they’re used as display space for innumerable tchotchkes, knickknacks, and other decorative objects, they bring the “living” in the room to a halt. Family room surfaces shouldn’t be reserved for a lifeless parade of ceramic figurines—quite the opposite. They’re meant for four-year-olds to color, teenagers to play games with their friends, and adults to enjoy a cup of coffee.

We should keep the floor (our largest surface) as clear as possible, too. Children in particular need space to roam, frolic, and explore; they shouldn’t be cramped into a tiny play area, barely visible among wall-to-wall furniture and mountains of clutter. Adults also benefit from a serene, uncluttered space. When we come home after a long workday, we need room to unwind, both mentally and physically. If we’re tripping over objects on the way to the couch, or looking around at a jumble of stuff, we feel stressed, stifled, and irritated. By contrast, when the room is spare and tidy, we have plenty of space—and peace of mind—to kick back, relax, and breathe. Therefore, make an effort to corral loose items and keep them from underfoot.

To borrow a term from the corporate world, we should think of our living rooms as “flex space.” In an office, flex space is a work area open for anyone’s use. When an employee arrives in the morning, he sets up at an available (empty) desk for the day. When he leaves in the evening, he takes all his belongings with him, leaving the desk free and clear for someone else to use the following day. Our living rooms should function similarly: the floor and surfaces should stand empty, ready to accommodate the day’s activities; and when those activities cease, they should be cleared of all items, leaving them open and available for the next person to use.

In the largest sense, each room is a container that holds all the stuff related to its function. However, our living room (like many of our other rooms) serves
multiple
functions—so without some organization, things can fall into disarray. For this reason, we divided it into zones, defining specific areas for specific activities. Now we’ll go a step further and set up modules, consolidating specific items for specific tasks.

In your living room, create modules for your various collections—like CDs, DVDs, and video games. Instead of storing them in a jumbled mess, separate them from each other and designate a specific shelf, drawer, or container for each category. Consolidating like items helps us easily spot duplicates, weed out undesirables, and grasp the size of our collections. It also helps us, and other family members, return things to their dedicated spots—preventing them from drifting throughout the room, or straying into other parts of the house. Do the same for books (on assigned shelves), magazines (on a shelf or rack), and electronic and computer equipment (in a special drawer, cabinet, or container).

Modules are particularly useful for organizing craft and hobby supplies. Instead of housing them in a common drawer or cabinet, separate the materials by activity: knitting, scrapbooking, painting, model building, jewelry making, et cetera. Assign each activity its own container; clear plastic storage bins work well, as do the heavy cardboard boxes in which reams of paper are sold (cover them with fabric or contact paper to make them more attractive). Deep, rectangular baskets will also do the trick. When you’re ready to engage in a particular hobby, simply retrieve its module and unpack its supplies onto a convenient (clear!) surface. When you’re finished, cleanup is a cinch: put everything back into the container, and return it to its proper storage space. By making it easy to cart things away, modules effectively preserve the living room’s flex space.

Imagine this scenario: your family finishes dinner and retires to the living room. The kids, opting to watch a favorite movie, simply pluck it from the DVD module and pop it in the player; there’s no mad search for it under the couch, behind the bookshelves, or among the CDs and video games (and no one accused of “having it last”). Your spouse settles in with a magazine, pulling the current issue from the rack without having to dig through piles of clutter to find it. And you decide to do some scrapbooking, retrieving your container of supplies from a nearby cabinet and spreading your work on the empty coffee table. At the end of the evening, the DVD is returned to its bin, the magazine to its rack, and your craft supplies to their container. With everything tucked away in its modules, the living room is already clear for the next day’s activities!

As minimalists, we want to limit our collections to our favorite items; otherwise, they tend to grow unchecked, and before we know it, we’re inundated with stuff. The limits can be defined as either a certain number, or a certain amount of space. When dealing with books, for example, you may decide to cap your collection at one hundred, or the available space on your bookshelf. Either way, you’re putting a lid on the total amount, and ensuring that your library contains only your most loved, and most frequently read, volumes.

In your living room, put limits on every type of possession that resides there, including books, CDs, DVDs, and games. Once you’ve reached them, purge the old before adding something new. Our tastes change over the years; we grow tired of the movies, music, and pastimes we once loved. Yet for some reason we often hold on to these out-of-favor items—whether from guilt for the money spent, or with hope that we’ll regain interest in them. Instead of retaining them indefinitely, periodically cull through them and donate the ones you no longer enjoy. A fresh, pared-down collection is much more pleasant to browse than an indiscriminate hodgepodge of titles. If you crave novelty, borrow from the library instead of buying; that way, you can enjoy a wide variety of entertainment, without the headache (or expense) of ownership.

In the case of hobby and craft supplies, your modules provide a natural limit on the amount of materials you keep on hand. If they’re reaching full capacity, refrain from further accumulation until you’ve winnowed down your current supply—either by tackling planned projects, completing unfinished ones, or simply clearing out what you don’t intend to use. Imposing limits gives you the perfect excuse to purge unwanted materials (like the chartreuse yarn, chintzy beads, or cheap fabric)—the mere sight of which can dampen your enthusiasm for the activity in question. Pick your favorites, and pitch the rest!

Limit your collectibles as well. I don’t know if the drive to collect is inherent in human nature, but at some point in our lives, most of us have accumulated certain things simply for the sake of it: be it baseball cards, Beanie Babies, vintage teacups, first edition books, movie memorabilia, commemorative coins, foreign stamps, or antique nutcrackers. We enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and the excitement of finding a new item (the rarer, the better) to add to our collection.

Unfortunately, however, the Internet (and eBay in particular) has made tracking down such “treasures” far too easy. In the past, our collections were curbed by limited availability and access; we actually had to scour antique stores and flea markets for new finds. Now a world of “stuff” is at our fingertips; in a few hours online, we can acquire a collection that formerly took years to build! Therefore, we must impose our
own
limits on collectibles—restricting our acquisitions to a fixed number, instead of purchasing everything we can find.

Finally, impose limits on your decorative items. Take inspiration from traditional Japanese homes, in which only one or two carefully chosen pieces are displayed at a time. In this way, you can honor and appreciate those items that are most meaningful to you—instead of making them compete for attention with a dozen others. That doesn’t mean you have to toss the rest of your décor (unless, of course, you want to). Simply create a “décor module” to store your favorite pieces; bring them out for display a few at a time, and rotate them throughout the year. It’ll give a fresh look to your room, and put your treasures in the spotlight.