Your knick-knacks, picture frames, and other chachkas

[justmeandmybrood]

I have a very uncluttered friend who has no knick-knacks in her home...even with having children! I try to contain mine - in the china cabinet, in glass-in cabinets, on a mini shelf here and there. However, my glassed-in cabinets feel overfilled!

Here are my 3 types of trinkets that I have trouble with:
1) treasures made by our preschoolers - I truly treasure these pieces (i.e., a painted piece of pottery each year since DD was 2; Christmas painted tiles from DS, etc.)

2) collections - I have a collection of about 8 antique coffee grinders collected in German flea markets; I also have a collection of mother/baby figures (have widdled this down to 2-3 now)

3) smaller trinkets from various places we have traveled - not huge, but several things in each room it seems like, lol!

So what is your policy on frames and knick-knacks in your home?

[hteb83]

I have quite a lot of pictures / items on the walls (not taking up much space and don't need dusting too often!) and one hanging cabinet. There are a few things scattered about on shelves, but I try to keep things minimalist! And it means there's less that can get broken accidentally.

Keep the things that you love and have sentimental value - I've found that the trauma of decluttering for declutterings sake is just too much. The childhood treasures etc are what makes your home yours, rather than an ikea-catalogue show home.

Collections make me anxious, so I don't have any! - 2 or 3 figurines sounds entirely reasonable. I have a relative where every possible surface / wall in the house is covered with animal knick knacks (2 or 3 thousand in total), and it makes me want to cry every time I visit, but I know it's just down to personal opinion!

[lmbjer]

Unless you count books, I do not collect knick knacks. On the whole I am not much attached to souvenirs. I have saved over the years a few precious antiques from family members, but they stand alone as part of my decor - not as part of a collection.

We have very little storage, so I have one small rubbermaid bin of treasured items I cannot part with. This is where items go if they cannot be displayed. A clear surface just feels cleaner and makes me feel better so I have self imposed limits of one item per surface (stands) or one item per bookcase.

I have also made it my personal house mission to never display anything of value within the "potential for destruction zone" created by having children and a husband! I never want to be upset with them for accidentally breaking them.

It goes without saying also that less items on display, the less cleaning needed. And I don't like cleaning!

[justmeandmybrood]

I am so torn! My little collection of very small (1" up to about 2.5" in height) is shut up in the china cabinet - a little Eiffel tower, a little Coliseum, etc. - they hold so many memories for me and I feel like I should let go of them and declutter.

The other items I have out include a few special books with a book end on the kitchen counter, an antique trinket from DH's g-ma in our bdrm, a couple of special things on the bedside tables, nowhere near excessive, yet I wonder if just clearing it all would be better.

Darn sentimental fool is what I am!

[Magelet]

yeah, I'm a packrat early in my decluttering/simplifying journey, however, I think that if you still have a lot of sentimental memories on the eifell tower and coliseum, keep them.

by all means, keep the special books, and for goodness sakes keep the trinket unless it's horribly ugly and you hate it. It's from your kids great grandma. I guess I really treasure the few things I have from a long time in our family, and love love love, the idea of having a few family heirlooms (even if they are completely useless trinket heirlooms. obviously, useful heirlooms are preferable, but even so). It's continuity. Maybe get a special safe box that your trinkets can live if you don't want to display them, but it sounds like you aren't ready to get rid of them right now, so don't.

[marimara]

I started a thread about this a couple of weeks ago. We just downsized to an apartment from a house and I had to get rid of a LOT of stuff. In our apt. there aren't a lot of surfaces to even put things on AND and I don't like a lot of stuff. I couldn't say it's minimal in here, but being in a smaller place I've had to downsize a lot. Here's what I did and my rules:

For knick-knacks (dh has traveled a ton and we had LOTS of things from his travels, as wells as some stuff from me): They had to meet at least 2 out of 3 of these criteria:

1. Is it useful? Does it get used regularly, does it have a distinct purpose?

2. Sentimentalality: Do we get flooded w/great memories when we look at it (very sentimental), is it something we'd grab if we had to leave in a hurry?

3. Is it beautiful? Would we pay 100 times more than what we paid for it to have it back again, should something happen to it? Is this something we want in our lives right now, does it fit our current life philosophy?

I wanted my house to be filled with only beautiful, useful, or extremely sentimental items. I come from a family of hoarders and they give me tons of stuff. I liked some of it, and wanted to keep it, but I had to tell myself, "keeping these crystal glasses that we haven't used in 12 years is not going to bring my mom back or erase my memory of her". "Keeping these __________ doesn't mean I don't love my family members" I don't have to have a photo of ALL my kin on the walls of my home.

I kept 4 large frames of my immediate family, dh, me and dd. on one wall in the dining room. There are exactly 2 other small frames on the bookshelves, in front of the books, and I am actively looking for another place to put them. I plan on getting a digital frame so that I can have ALL my family members and friends on display, but only for about 30 seconds a piece

We reduced knick-knacks to only a handful of items that met these criteria. I stored only 3-4 items, that we don't have room for right now but I didn't want to part with. I kept mostly my artwork, gifted artwork from a friend, and other wall art that we LOVED on the walls. Other than that the only clutter I have is houseplants!

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

I have a salt lamp candle on top of my TV, but not other knicknacks. I do have a few framed pieces of handmade art on the walls. I let all the knicknacks go a few years ago when we moved.

[RollerCoasterMama]

I grew up in a very knick-knack kind of home. All really interesting, eclectic things picked up on my parents' or grandparents' travels. Displayed in interesting ways, kept neatly etc. So that was sort of my baseline of "normal". When I got my own home, I initially started reproducing that. But as I moved over the years, I started leaving more and more of those little things in the boxes to be stored. I liked to see them, but I didn't want the bother of having them out. I finally got pretty hardcore with decluttering things. Nothing I had was particularly precious. The things I liked, I kept. Everything else found a new home!

I agree with a PP that I don't want to put my family in a position of breaking something, so in my house, I tend to stick with very simple things if I feel like putting something out on display. Things that my 3 yr old can look at and/or play with, but still look nice. Ex: a big wooden bowl (was once a salad bowl my mom got as a wedding gift!) full of felted balls, or those vine balls you can get anywhere. Or a small seasonal display my son can add to or rearrange. In my current house, there just aren't a lot of surfaces for display. So right now, I just keep surfaces mostly clean except for that big wooden bowl. It's just easier on my sanity!

[justmeandmybrood]

What great posts - thank you for your input! I fee like every room has something and I need to rethink...even worse, I notice my kiddos (4 and 7) also like their own little knick-knacks. I do not want them to be as painfully sentimental as I am, lol! I am taking all the great info and suggestions to heart and am re-evaluating what it is I treasure, what it is my kids might want when we die, and what is just yet more stuff to have to pack every 1-3 yrs for the next 10-20 years, yikes!

Thanks!!