Any serious minimalists on here? - Page 2

[doubledutch]

no, but i love this blog and it might give you some good inspiration, ideas and encouragement!

http://mnmlist.com/

[Mulvah]

I think it's great to experience living that way if you can, even if just once in your life. 

Edited by Mulvah - 10/16/11 at 5:41pm

[physmom]

Does moving abroad with 7 suitcases+ carseat+stroller count for a family of three?

I admit, I do have a few things at my parents house still but most of that is just because last time I was there I didn't have a chance to look through it all.  I also have a ridiculous barbie collection (both from myself and my mom still in boxes... ) that I need to sell at my parents house.

But beyond that we've ALWAYS lived in small spaces.  When DH and I first lived together we were in an extremely small studio.  When DD was born we were in a 1-bedroom that was probably well under 400 sq ft.  We recently moved to a 750 sq ft 2-bedroom and it feels like a mansion to us! We still don't even have a dinning room table or bed frames... we'll see if that happens any time soon.  The one thing that we do have to have are kitchen supplies.  I like to cook (and we're working on eating healthy here too) so not getting too annoyed in the kitchen due to lack of utensils is important to me.  Beyond that we're really struggling to fill up all this space here.  Oh, and we have a lot of books.  I think we had 3-4 suitcases just full of books when we came here a little over 2 months ago.  We would've had more but DH got me a kindle awhile back for a Christmas present (and for these minimalists that was VERY necessary!!).

Oh, and this was our third international move so we haven't really had much of anything for awhile now!

[maptome]

I used to be before marriage in kids.  DP is not on board. =)

I used to own:

mattress on the floor with bedding

2 each, mug, bowl, fork, spoon, knife, plate

sauce pan, saute pan, cooking spatula, chef knife, 1 kitchen towel

water filter

1 towel

5 outfits, 1 pair of shoes, 1 backpack

broom

car

luxury item: coffee pot

When DP and I started dating, he made me get a sofa and table to eat on. can opener. computer. swimsuit. etc. until it spiraled and now we have a 2200 sq ft house fully furnished. with tables! and chairs! and rugs! and bookshelves!

There are probably some things that I had that I don't remember.  We're anticipating a move into a 550 sq ft 1/1 so we may be heading towards minimalism again.  I've even gotten DP excited about it.  And of course, I am as well.

[Tradd]

This is my FAVE minimalist blog.

http://www.missminimalist.com/

[Tumble Bumbles]

Agreed -- love it!
 

Originally Posted by Tradd 

This is my FAVE minimalist blog.

http://www.missminimalist.com/

[MiniMum]

Well, I want to have even less... We have relatively little, compared to most western families, but I just wish we had still less. I love our bedroom and wish our whole apartment (well we only have a one-bedroom apartment anyway) was as monastic and austere ;) Then of course some toys for DD.. I think we have still too much furniture and TWO desks for our computers, egh.. I just know that DH will want to hold on to both having our own. Also there is some stuff that I wish was gone but it's not up to me decide. The good thing is that I'm finally  quite happy with the amount of stuff, it's not constantly making me irritated and suffocated. But I still yearn for a more minimalistic home. I think I will try to think very hard about MY things and things that I mostly use, and pare down further, and then maybe ask DH what he thinks we could still get rid of.. (Lots of pics of our home in the "post pics of your clear, clean home" on pg 46...

[Tradd]

Originally Posted by maptome 

I used to be before marriage in kids.  DP is not on board. =)

I used to own:

mattress on the floor with bedding

2 each, mug, bowl, fork, spoon, knife, plate

sauce pan, saute pan, cooking spatula, chef knife, 1 kitchen towel

water filter

1 towel

5 outfits, 1 pair of shoes, 1 backpack

broom

car

luxury item: coffee pot

When DP and I started dating, he made me get a sofa and table to eat on. can opener. computer. swimsuit. etc. until it spiraled and now we have a 2200 sq ft house fully furnished. with tables! and chairs! and rugs! and bookshelves!

There are probably some things that I had that I don't remember.  We're anticipating a move into a 550 sq ft 1/1 so we may be heading towards minimalism again.  I've even gotten DP excited about it.  And of course, I am as well.

You're my hero with your premarriage minimalism!

I'd let it go for a while, but I'm working on some serious decluttering here. Feels great!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[MiniMum]

I just read "Material World" (and looked at the pictures with DD2) and now I definitely feel like we have too much stuff still. I am SO going to pare down even more and donate to my neighborhood charity. It's only a block away so it's easy to drop off stuff there. The furniture is harder.. but I'm sure we can loose one or two pieces :)

[Tradd]

Originally Posted by MiniMum 

I just read "Material World" (and looked at the pictures with DD2) and now I definitely feel like we have too much stuff still. I am SO going to pare down even more and donate to my neighborhood charity. It's only a block away so it's easy to drop off stuff there. The furniture is harder.. but I'm sure we can loose one or two pieces :)

I so need to read this book! Thanks for the reminder!  I got rid of dishes for 4 today - I had 8 of the same Corelle pattern, which is crazy since I'm single and don't have more than 2 people over at the same time! They're going to my church's kitchen as some people want to be more green and use real dishes, rather than paper. I can't wait until Saturday when I can take all the clothes and such I have set away to the thrift store!

[PeacefulSeams]

Before marriage with 1 child I had 1 large suitcase and 1 small suitcase with our things in it.

*7 outifts for me and 7 outfits for my son

*2 pairs of shoes each...1 for summer and 1 for winter

*1 coat each

*10 books for us both

*shoebox with pictures

*small jewelry box

*1 CD/DVD case

*travel edition scrabble

*small buddha statue

*small suitcase had toys in it

*2 towels

*car

furniture was all included in my apt. dishes and those type of things were all borrowed.

Now with hubby and 2 kids, still pretty minimal but waaaaay more stuff than I would like to have. I would like to get back down to 1 suitcase of things each. I feel so much better when there is less stuff to worry about picking up, stepping on, washing, etc etc etc.

[MiniMum]

Donated an expensive vase and a bag of other misc.stuff. I kinda want to get rid of the inherited crystal chandelier which is a dust collector and annoying to move! I love how the bare light bulbs look in our kitchen and bedroom. Living room has two 5$ rice paper shades. I just want to get rid of more stuff!!

[Piratelady2525]

Yall are so inspiring!  I would love love love to go minimalist in most areas of our life and home!  I really dont think DH would do it, tho.  He is a pack rat.  We had a yard sale a couple months ago, and getting him to part with anything was terrible.  He was second guessing items as I put them out to sell.  We have sooooo much stuff!  We currently live in a 1200 sf house, and its full, along with a storage shed packed to bursting.  My major problem areas are I think "keepsakes" and holiday items.  How much stuff do you keep from your childhood-awards, pictures, yearbooks, etc?  I have several boxes of this stuff, and I feel like I cant get rid of it, but shouldnt just trash it! 

[Tradd]

Got the stuff taken to the charity thrift store two Saturdays ago. OMG, wonderful to get rid of all that crap! I've gotten a few new warm-weather clothes, but I was such in need of some new items, it's ridiculous! I have cute stuff that FITS now! :)

Going through other things gradually. I'm in a super busy time.

[MiniMum]

Our 600 sf one-bedroom feels so roomy that I think we could downsize for the next place ;) We are not planning to move right now and it might be that we won't find a smaller place if we decide that we want a house.. There are some tiny old houses for sale sometimes though, more like cabins. I'm amazed that I feel like this. I love it, it's so freeing to have very little, and to not want anything really, and to honestly not want a bigger home. It seems everybody wants a bigger home. You are not supposed to CHOOSE small. If you have no choice you can live in small but you are supposed to dream about bigger and complain about having too small a home. Perhaps I'm supposed to envy the ones upsizing to 2000+ sf but I feel a little sorry for them for having to deal with such a huge house.

Oh, and I sold the crystal chandelier. It was still sitting on the floor gathering dust, it was obvious we weren't super enthusiastic about hanging it up.

[ShellieC]

I posted in the small house thread a couple of days ago. We are considering moving from a 2200+sf 5br house with a big garage to a 1000sf 3br house with a tiny garage that may house laying chickens instead of storage. And we are expecting our 3rd child for Christmas. The house is listed at 105k and ours would sell around 370k. I think it would be worth it!!! It's in a small town so dh would commute but he's ok with that & has a fuel efficient small car. It's so exciting to think about! I hope it works out, since it will be such a great chance for us to minimize and simplify our lives. We'd have our mortgage paid off in 2-4 years and then be able to chose what we want to do. The fun thing will be selling our big bulky furniture and making a plan for new IKEA stuff that will make it a beautiful but useful space. I just hope we don't go crazy in it with thee kids running around during our cold housebound winters!!! It's so freeing to think that we'd be able to get rid of most of we own and only replace it with stuff we really need and have thought HARD about. We've decluttered lots since our horribly messy cluttered first few years together, but have a long way to go still. Minimalist threads and sites are a great inspiration for me right now.

[MiniMum]

Sounds good Shellie! I grew up in 1200 sf with three kids and I always thought we had a big house! 1000sf and a yard sounds perfectly doable! With good planning and ruthless decluttering and swapping bulky furniture for light, multifunctional stuff, you should be more than okay!

I'm keeping up, I just sold and mailed DD's snow suit (and made 15$ more than what I paid for it second-hand!). Our old mattresses are sold and waiting to be picked up, as is the chandelier.. Things don't just hang out here for nothing, LOL! 

[Rainey Daye]

We went from a 600 sq. ft. apartment to a 1600 sq. ft. house a couple years ago before having Bug and after a year and a half in the house had accumulated enough stuff to make us antsy (though most people marveled at how minimalist we seemed to be). Then last summer, after having accumulated a bit of debt from complications surrounding Bug's birth and two different changes to my husband's position at his job that required not only more physical work, but WAY more hours and frustration, we made a plan that as soon as we can put our house on the market (which won't be till next year) that we will sell it and buy an RV and become location independent. I am SOOO looking forward to tossing/giving so much stuff away and living in a space where a whole house top to bottom spring cleaning will take less than a day!! :-D

[Panserbjorne]

love this thread.  I'm a minimalist wannabe as is my husband.  We got there by default after financial hardship owing to dd's medical issues as a babe.  WE sold our house, lost our cars, gave away or sold pretty much all of our possessions and were homeless for a bit.  We had very little-and it was great!  In fact I recall having 2 storage units and not being able to pay for them.  We lost them both, and instead of being upset, it was freeing!

We are now 7 years out from that time and have accumulated a lot of STUFF.  Almost none was purchased.  Most was handed down, gifted etc. so it feels tough to get rid of it, but we're working on it.

I'm big into uniforms, and have worn mine for some time.  In fact I just replaced some pieces. 

We have 8 plates, bowls, forks, knives, spoons etc. for a family of 5.  I just replaced my pans and now have 3 skillets, 1 pain, and one roasting set.  Our "glasses" are mason jars that double as food storage.

My big problem is books.  I can't seem to get rid of them.  I'm working on that too.

I just cleared out the downstairs closets and have to move to the upstairs closets next.  After that the basement and then I'll be in good shape!  I don't really have emotional attachments to things, so it won't be too bad.

What helps me the most is pictures.  Looking at minimalist lifestyles, houses, apartments, mobile homes etc. is inspiring as all get out....so keep the links coming!

[accountclosed3]

this is us.

we are currently living in a 1-bedroom apartment in the city (in an old house) where we have our bed, a tallboy dresser, a chair and a bench (still looking for the right table! LOL). 

we will be moving to a beach cottage within the next 6-7 months, though, so we will be picking up a few more furnishings. This is my list: table, secretary-style desk; bed for Hawk's room. If i'm feeling extreme, i'll also look for bookshelves for our books that we will move over and also a loveseat/chair combo (likely cane, which I can get thrifted and then paint white or grey or light blue and then recover white cushions for. :D 

I know, it's decadent.

i have a minimalist wardrobe, minimal toys (doing another clear out of both today!), and the basics for the kitchen. It's a great way to live. Honestly, I am so glad we did this move and downsized. 

I'm learning about my ipod and thinking about a kindle or something similar. but that's about it for me.