Hunter Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Many of you love threads on minimalism. Does anyone have any minimalism updates to share? I found a new book. Best Fairy Stories of the World. http://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Stories-World-Marcus-Clapham/dp/1907360034 It's teeny tiny and has all the best stories in just one volume. It's smaller than an average paperback novel, but it's a hardcover. It's red cloth with gold letters under the dust-jacket. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 In this video, you can see what Collector's Library books are like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 Sample of the inside, including a table of contents http://www.collectors-library.com/CRW/media/CRWMedia/Books/pdf/9781907360039-Best-Fair-stories-Clapham.pdf?ext=.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I've decided to do as much as I can with PDFs and Kindle. I love stm's 7Rs. Religion Recitation Reading Read alouds aRithmetic wRiting aRts 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Strawberry Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I am packing to move cross country. I'm shooting for 6 boxes shipped and whatever we can fit in our minivan and small car. Our school stuff fits in a small tote bag. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmpmelmack Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I am packing to move cross country. I'm shooting for 6 boxes shipped and whatever we can fit in our minivan and small car. Our school stuff fits in a small tote bag. WOW. I am also packing for a cross country move, I have packed 17 boxes of books, I am not done, and I leave tomorrow, do will finish packing for me, I expect to have 30 or so boxes of books! You amaze me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 At my peak, I think I had 17 bookcases. No bed except a piece of foam on the floor and nothing else but folding tables and chairs, but walls lined with books, and piles more on the floor. I've been downsizing and downsizing and downsizing. This is what the living room looks like now with even the bookcases gone. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gentlemommy Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Over the summer, I'm trying something. I bought small pretty notebooks, the size of a paperback but not as thick. On one side of the page, I am writing copywork from songs, poetry, literature, quotes, and the bible. I'll use these to point out grammar, spelling, and I'll tie the character elements to what is relevant to each particular child. On the other, I'm writing a series of math drills. I'm planning on having the big girls (10 and 7) do these two things first thing in the morning. It should only take five minutes between the two. We will be going through several of Langs fairy tales, as I found a beautiful leather bound edition. That book makes me so very happy to hold.😊 We will still continue with our 'regular' math, Miquon for the younger and Beast Academy for the older. We will be incoorperating Brave Writer ideas daily-poetry tea, free writing, projects. Those will also go into small notebooks. We will have daily reading hour, where everyone reads or looks at picture books (for the 4 year old). I am aiming for another hour of my reading aloud, between the fairy tales, audio books in the car, and bedtime chapter or picture books. And that's it. 😳 I've been listening to audio lectures, reading articles, and immersing myself in the Circe thread and its many many links. I do not feel equipped or intelligent enough to fully grasp it, but I feel a sense of wonder and beauty and peace when I read about that educational model. It's what I desire for myself and my children. I'm not sure what will happen come fall, I'm sure I will have a freak out and start adding in 'stuff'. I'm not a confident person and I second guess everything. I definitely want to add in history, and I have History Odessey for that. Science will be through our coop, they use Apologia, which I do not like, but I'm thankful that she does, and that the coop is really wonderful. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quietchapel Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 We are getting ready for another move also. I greatly reduced the amount of clothing each of us has. I didn't get rid of the rest, just packed it away. Each child has three play outfits, three better outfits, and three church outfits. Two pair pajamas. This has helped so much. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Strawberry Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 WOW. I am also packing for a cross country move, I have packed 17 boxes of books, I am not done, and I leave tomorrow, do will finish packing for me, I expect to have 30 or so boxes of books! You amaze me! We are donating all of our books that are not in actual use. 2 of the boxes will be books. D and I both have Kindles. Aries has a tablet. Sagg prefers paper. We use the library extensively. We buy used and donate back. I just don't see a need to collect books when we have such ready access to used, borrowed and digital books. I will be ordering our curriculum after we arrive. We use a lot of free online stuff, but I'm trying to move away from that to more hard copies. So this isn't really everything. It's just everything we have right now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellifera33 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 We recently decluttered and had a yard sale, with all remainders going to a local thrift store. Today, I looked around and thought, how do we still have so much stuff? We have a long way to go. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stm4him Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Hmmmm....Sometimes I think minimalism is relative. I can honestly say that our house and life is DRASTICALLY different even in the last semester, but we have been working on this for 1 1/2 years now and still have more to do. We went from a 4000 sq. ft. house to a 2,000 sq. ft house for almost 10 people (due any day with number 8). So for some this doesn't count as a small house, but for others 200 sq. ft per person seems small. It feels just right to me. We have minimal furniture and school stuff and books and toys in the house compared to before, but I am sure for others it would be more than what they would consider minimalist. We have downsized clothes to one laundry basket per child except for my oldest. Hers is still probably about a week's worth but doesn't fit in a laundry basket because she is bigger than me. My husband probably has the most clothes, but he has all of his clothes for the whole year in his three drawers and small closet and I have only a week's worth (all in my closet) but I rotate my clothes out every three months so I don't get bored We have a garage and I think there are about 3 bins of clothes for the five little girls (counting the new baby) that some of them can wear in the fall. There is one bin of fall clothes for my oldest and one bin combined for my two boys for the fall. There is a little bit of Christmas stuff (which I haven't gone through) and some craft supplies my husband got out of storage for the kids recently. There is a section of baby toys and equipment because we had gotten rid of everything after the last baby and I was fortunate that my sister passed on all of her stuff to us so we had to buy very little with this baby (plus I don't feel the need to have much baby equipment anymore). It will come into our house only as needed and will be donated as soon as our baby has outgrown the items. There is some kitchen equipment in there that I need to go through, but I am about to go through our kitchen again this week after having brought "bare minimum" when we moved in December, but now I think we could give up even more things. Once we get rid of what we aren't using in the house in our kitchen cabinets I will look at what is stored in the garage and decide what is coming in or staying out or being donated. But all in all when you walk in our garage now it is clear of clutter and organized. It is so pleasant in there. We have a guest house, however, that has several boxes, though. Most of it is school stuff and books. That is a big project that I will not get to until after the baby is born and I have had time to recover. We have only two bookshelves in our living areas now. One is in the dining room (which is where we do school) and we put only pretty reference books or vintage textbooks and photo albums there so that it isn't unsightly when we sit down to eat. We have one tall but thin bookshelf in our family room that is currently housing a handful of hardback books and some of my books. There is more room on it, but nowhere near what we would need to keep the books that are in our guest house. The books in the guest house are a mix between American history and literature (which is what I have had out for the past year) and books that I would want to stay out all the time (arts appreciation, Bible reference, atlases, etc.) I want to eventually have built in shelving but right now we can't afford to do that, so I don't even know where to begin with the book project. Also, we have a 10 x 20 storage unit that is also full. I don't know where to begin with that either. I recently realized that if we cleaned out our guest house (the floor is dirty because we raised baby chicks in there this spring), we could put our storage unit stuff in there and save the money we pay for the storage. But there is no telling how long it will take me to deal with all of that stuff while having a nursing newborn and I am not sure what my health will look like when this pregnancy is over. I am thinking maybe one box or bin per week or month? Anyway, we are far from done, but our house is very, very manageable and so is our garage so I am happy with that progress. I used to have whole rooms that were covered in stuff on the floor that the kids had gotten out. It took me DAYS to put those rooms back together sometimes. Now I can declutter the entire house in a few days. We use a small fraction of what we used to use before in our regular lives and it is SO healing and refreshing. But climbing out of all of the stuff in storage is the hardest. The decisions about books are the hardest as well. Part of the reason book decisions are hard is that we don't use the library. I ALWAYS rack up fines and I end up having to tell the kids they can't check out a lot of things that I don't think are worth their time to read if not downright inappropriate and I always end up thinking that the books we own are as good, if not WAY better than what they have there. I am happy with anything they choose off of our shelves and there is just so much at the library that isn't worth their time. Plus we have poured soooo much money over the years into all these books that my husband doesn't like the idea of getting rid of them. Curriculum, yes. Books, no. And there are studies showing how important owning lots and lots of books are for the education of kids, so part of me wonders if it would be detrimental to get rid of our home library. Maybe books don't count as clutter? The library also requires driving somewhere at least every week or two so that clutters the schedule. I wonder if it is worth it when we could just keep what we have. I definitely feel that I have made progress in minimizing our school schedule and our number of subjects. Our together time takes 1 1/2 hours (1/2 hour each of devotion, memory work, and read aloud while they draw). They study three subjects independently (or with me for the non-readers), and I check their work at the end: math, writing, and one other language arts skill, which currently is spelling for all of mine. That takes 3 hours (or less for the younger ones). In the evenings they read for 1 1/2 hours (1/2 hour each of Bible, nonfiction, and fiction). I get far fewer complaints about their schoolwork because they don't feel overloaded. I can spend my mornings and evenings going about my chores or reading or whatever I feel is healthy for me to be doing and I spend 4 1/2 hours total sitting at the table in the afternoon either leading devotion or memory work, reading to them (which I love to do), or working one on one with someone. I truly enjoy our school time now, not just in the theoretical sense or hit or miss sense, but in a daily, consistent way. I look forward to our school time and am rarely disappointed with how it turned out. I cannot say enough about what a difference this makes from before. So, everything is a process and takes time, but I am really happy with the continual move to simplicity. If it were a prettier sounding word I would name this baby simplicity! But instead, we are naming her Joy, as I feel it. I am a person who thrives on productivity, but I have found that abiding in the Vine has been sweeter and more fruitful. The pruning has been painful at times, but has produced more abundant fruit in my life. And knowing me, I probably would never have chosen it myself. Perhaps these health issues have been more of a blessing than I realized in the long run. And I have not given up hope that health can be restored, too. It seems, though, that health is easier to restore when the excess is cut from the schedule and from the physical realm in which we live and time is purposed for soaking in beauty and letting out sighs of gratefulness. There is one thing about minimalism that concerns me. And that is that many times when I see homes that are minimalist, they lack beauty. The minimal that is there is often not pleasing to the eye. Sometimes this is out of necessity, and I am the last one to talk as I would buy books over decorations and furniture any day. But one of my goals after we finish purging and working on health, is to replace the things we actually use with items of beauty. I want to look around and see beauty inside my home. I see lack of clutter now most of the time, but not necessarily beauty. I sit on my front porch and look out at the beauty of our land, and I see the beauty in my children every day, but I want to give them a home of beautiful items from the past which bring a sense of comfort and nostalgia to their childhood. I may need help to do this because it does not come naturally to me, but for now I am content that we are headed in the right direction in so many areas. And I will never be the same. I only wish that I knew more people in real life who were seeking the same simplicity in their lives, too. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostintheCosmos Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I have decided to stop listening to all the people who say the key to creative kids is having LOTS AND LOTS of art supplies ALWAYS available and that the ensuing mess and chaos is just part of the process (or that you wave your magic wand and train your kids to always put everything neatly away when they are done). So now we have one set each of colored pencils, markers, watercolors, and crayons, each stored in its own lidded box with its own stash of paper. One box may be checked out at a time (period, not per child - no loopholes!). There is also sidewalk chalk for the driveway. I haven't noticed a decrease in anyone's creativity, yet. I ran across this blog post on "planning minimalism," which I found helpful. I think I've been overcomplicating the degree of planning we really need at this stage - I'm probably better served putting that time into studying what I want to be teaching rather than charting out day-by-day plans that we won't be able to stick to. I've finally accepted that I need to seriously simplify our food somehow, although I'm not sure how that's going to work exactly, yet. I have been using the crockpot more for dinner, which is definitely helping, but I also really need to streamline our other meals and snacks. Ugh. stm4him, I share your library issues, and that's one of the big things holding me back from further shrinking our book collection. Our library system does let you request items off the shelf to be held for pick-up, though, which is one way of circumventing the problem of kids browsing and picking out junk that I then have to veto. Now if only they'd come pick them back up from my house, too, so I could avoid fines... :laugh: 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Hmmmm....Sometimes I think minimalism is relative. I can honestly say that our house and life is DRASTICALLY different even in the last semester, but we have been working on this for 1 1/2 years now and still have more to do. We went from a 4000 sq. ft. house to a 2,000 sq. ft house for almost 10 people (due any day with number 8). So for some this doesn't count as a small house, but for others 200 sq. ft per person seems small. It feels just right to me. We have minimal furniture and school stuff and books and toys in the house compared to before, but I am sure for others it would be more than what they would consider minimalist. We have downsized clothes to one laundry basket per child except for my oldest. Hers is still probably about a week's worth but doesn't fit in a laundry basket because she is bigger than me. My husband probably has the most clothes, but he has all of his clothes for the whole year in his three drawers and small closet and I have only a week's worth (all in my closet) but I rotate my clothes out every three months so I don't get bored We have a garage and I think there are about 3 bins of clothes for the five little girls (counting the new baby) that some of them can wear in the fall. There is one bin of fall clothes for my oldest and one bin combined for my two boys for the fall. There is a little bit of Christmas stuff (which I haven't gone through) and some craft supplies my husband got out of storage for the kids recently. There is a section of baby toys and equipment because we had gotten rid of everything after the last baby and I was fortunate that my sister passed on all of her stuff to us so we had to buy very little with this baby (plus I don't feel the need to have much baby equipment anymore). It will come into our house only as needed and will be donated as soon as our baby has outgrown the items. There is some kitchen equipment in there that I need to go through, but I am about to go through our kitchen again this week after having brought "bare minimum" when we moved in December, but now I think we could give up even more things. Once we get rid of what we aren't using in the house in our kitchen cabinets I will look at what is stored in the garage and decide what is coming in or staying out or being donated. But all in all when you walk in our garage now it is clear of clutter and organized. It is so pleasant in there. We have a guest house, however, that has several boxes, though. Most of it is school stuff and books. That is a big project that I will not get to until after the baby is born and I have had time to recover. We have only two bookshelves in our living areas now. One is in the dining room (which is where we do school) and we put only pretty reference books or vintage textbooks and photo albums there so that it isn't unsightly when we sit down to eat. We have one tall but thin bookshelf in our family room that is currently housing a handful of hardback books and some of my books. There is more room on it, but nowhere near what we would need to keep the books that are in our guest house. The books in the guest house are a mix between American history and literature (which is what I have had out for the past year) and books that I would want to stay out all the time (arts appreciation, Bible reference, atlases, etc.) I want to eventually have built in shelving but right now we can't afford to do that, so I don't even know where to begin with the book project. Also, we have a 10 x 20 storage unit that is also full. I don't know where to begin with that either. I recently realized that if we cleaned out our guest house (the floor is dirty because we raised baby chicks in there this spring), we could put our storage unit stuff in there and save the money we pay for the storage. But there is no telling how long it will take me to deal with all of that stuff while having a nursing newborn and I am not sure what my health will look like when this pregnancy is over. I am thinking maybe one box or bin per week or month? Anyway, we are far from done, but our house is very, very manageable and so is our garage so I am happy with that progress. I used to have whole rooms that were covered in stuff on the floor that the kids had gotten out. It took me DAYS to put those rooms back together sometimes. Now I can declutter the entire house in a few days. We use a small fraction of what we used to use before in our regular lives and it is SO healing and refreshing. But climbing out of all of the stuff in storage is the hardest. The decisions about books are the hardest as well. Part of the reason book decisions are hard is that we don't use the library. I ALWAYS rack up fines and I end up having to tell the kids they can't check out a lot of things that I don't think are worth their time to read if not downright inappropriate and I always end up thinking that the books we own are as good, if not WAY better than what they have there. I am happy with anything they choose off of our shelves and there is just so much at the library that isn't worth their time. Plus we have poured soooo much money over the years into all these books that my husband doesn't like the idea of getting rid of them. Curriculum, yes. Books, no. And there are studies showing how important owning lots and lots of books are for the education of kids, so part of me wonders if it would be detrimental to get rid of our home library. Maybe books don't count as clutter? The library also requires driving somewhere at least every week or two so that clutters the schedule. I wonder if it is worth it when we could just keep what we have. I definitely feel that I have made progress in minimizing our school schedule and our number of subjects. Our together time takes 1 1/2 hours (1/2 hour each of devotion, memory work, and read aloud while they draw). They study three subjects independently (or with me for the non-readers), and I check their work at the end: math, writing, and one other language arts skill, which currently is spelling for all of mine. That takes 3 hours (or less for the younger ones). In the evenings they read for 1 1/2 hours (1/2 hour each of Bible, nonfiction, and fiction). I get far fewer complaints about their schoolwork because they don't feel overloaded. I can spend my mornings and evenings going about my chores or reading or whatever I feel is healthy for me to be doing and I spend 4 1/2 hours total sitting at the table in the afternoon either leading devotion or memory work, reading to them (which I love to do), or working one on one with someone. I truly enjoy our school time now, not just in the theoretical sense or hit or miss sense, but in a daily, consistent way. I look forward to our school time and am rarely disappointed with how it turned out. I cannot say enough about what a difference this makes from before. So, everything is a process and takes time, but I am really happy with the continual move to simplicity. If it were a prettier sounding word I would name this baby simplicity! But instead, we are naming her Joy, as I feel it. I am a person who thrives on productivity, but I have found that abiding in the Vine has been sweeter and more fruitful. The pruning has been painful at times, but has produced more abundant fruit in my life. And knowing me, I probably would never have chosen it myself. Perhaps these health issues have been more of a blessing than I realized in the long run. And I have not given up hope that health can be restored, too. It seems, though, that health is easier to restore when the excess is cut from the schedule and from the physical realm in which we live and time is purposed for soaking in beauty and letting out sighs of gratefulness. There is one thing about minimalism that concerns me. And that is that many times when I see homes that are minimalist, they lack beauty. The minimal that is there is often not pleasing to the eye. Sometimes this is out of necessity, and I am the last one to talk as I would buy books over decorations and furniture any day. But one of my goals after we finish purging and working on health, is to replace the things we actually use with items of beauty. I want to look around and see beauty inside my home. I see lack of clutter now most of the time, but not necessarily beauty. I sit on my front porch and look out at the beauty of our land, and I see the beauty in my children every day, but I want to give them a home of beautiful items from the past which bring a sense of comfort and nostalgia to their childhood. I may need help to do this because it does not come naturally to me, but for now I am content that we are headed in the right direction in so many areas. And I will never be the same. I only wish that I knew more people in real life who were seeking the same simplicity in their lives, too. When you're ready to decorate the house, go big. Instead of a bunch of little paintings cluttering the wall, get one big painting. Instead of a bunch of plants on a table, get one big or dramatic plant. This way, you can decorate and have things of beauty that don't look lost in the empty walls/tables, but also don't clutter up the walls/tables. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs. A Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I love the idea of minimalism, but like stm4him said, it's somewhat relative isn't it? We have more stuff than we need, and I'm slowly working on getting rid of what I can, but with a bigger family there is much that needs to be saved to pass on to the younger kids as they grow and so I sometimes feel like as much as I'd like to just toss everything because I hate the cluttered feeling, it's not wise because we can't afford to replace things. But on the whole I feel like we do ok. We have tons of girl clothes which were given to us, but I'm only pulling out 4-5 day to day outfits for each girl per season because that's all they really wear. Then I'm getting rid of the extra clothes we have in each size as the youngest goes through them. Same for ds and the new baby (due any day). For school we use SWR, Ray's Arithmetic and Treasured Conversations for our daily base. We have plenty of good books around and we do a morning basket time rotating content subjects, but the core of our school work revolves around those things and I'm pleased that I really don't have to buy curriculum every year because those three programs cover our needs for quite awhile. I may add in Latin sometime this year, but not quite sure yet. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 I think these are the bookshelves that cover a wall of my bedroom. They are $35.00 each with free shipping. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ameriwood-5-Shelf-Bookcase-Multiple-Finishes/17480012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 Sometimes minimalism IS a LOT of books. Extreme minimalism punctuated by LOTS of books is beautiful, and grounding, and causes people to take notice and give lots of compliments. And if you collect REAL books that others covet, rather than textbooks and curriculum, you can get rid of a LOT of books FAST. The key is not to collect curriculum. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 I found this picture online. No this is not my apartment. :lol: My shelves are white like the walls. But this is minimalism with lots of books. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stm4him Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Make the furniture antique /English cottage /country and I will take it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy to monkeys Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I found this picture online. No this is not my apartment. :lol: My shelves are white like the walls. But this is minimalism with lots of books. I'd love this with white bookcases/furniture and minus the flowers. I'm one of those crazy people that doesn't like plants in the house. I've been slowly doing the 2015 challenge from the Nourishing Minimalism blog (getting rid of 2015 things this year). I flew through our first 1,000 things but have really slowed down. I think I just needed a breather. My kitchen desperately needs to be pared down. My tupperware is suffocating me. I'm not ready to say goodbye to anymore books, though. I love the look of empty space but with books. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gentlemommy Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Those pictures are beautiful. I can be severely minimalist with everything but books. My wardrobe consists of three pairs of jeans, three pairs of shorts, and ten each short/long sleeved, solid colored shirts. I buy them all at once, when they go on sale. In every color they carry for my size. I do not think about what I will wear everyday. I wear jeans, t shirt, and one of three pairs of shoes. Everyday. I can live with little to no furniture. We have a couch, but it's usually a prop for fort building, since we don't watch tv much. A few high quality kitchen things-my knives, pans/pot set, coffee maker, and vitamix. I don't need a bunch of other things. I keep my pantry bare, and I prefer my fridge that way. We only own eight place settings. We each have only two towels, and they are color coded. We each have two pool/lake towels, again color coded. Each bed has one sheet set and two blankets, a lightweight and a heavyweight one. I used to keep a ton of clothes from each girl(we have three) because they could be passed down. Then friends with girls would also give us bags of clothes. I was drowning in clothes. I finally gave most of it away, decided to just have faith that somehow, we'd get clothes when we needed them. And you know what? We have. Many times over. I'm blessed to live in a place that has several thrift stores. I'm lucky that most, if not all, of my friends buy second hand and they get excited about it and let me know when the thrift store has kids clothes marked down to $.30 a piece. Books though. Sigh. I just can't. We have kindles and we have iPads. There is nothing like the feel of an old leather or cloth bound book. I love older books. I bought myself the entire Britannica Great Boooks hardcover set for Mother's Day at the library book sale. At just $1 a piece, I couldn't pass those up. And a kindle would not even come close to one of those. We have a total of 11 bookshelves, most are Ikeas Expedit series. The books are arranged and orderly. Most of the school books live in our library room, which is really a 10x10 closet in the finished basement. I love it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Make the furniture antique /English cottage /country and I will take it. I'll take it as is. I'd spend the entire time hugging the walls anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 Yup, for the longest time, it was minimalism for everything except books, but now I can't even handle the books. I just can't. I had several boxes of spirituality books in the closet that I just didn't want to throw away, and the right person came along and took them all in one day. Now those boxes are full of curriculum for an ultra-conservative homeschooling family, and I'm just really feeling like the person that they are for is just going to show up soon, so I'm trying hard not to stress over it. I'm okay with a certain amount of books in the bedroom, and few cookbooks in the kitchen, as long as they are titles coveted by average people. Looking at curriculum makes me feel ill, though. I feel swallowed and trapped when I look at it. I feel so much guilt about throwing books away, but it's expensive to ship, and the post office I prefer to ship from is over 1 and 1/2 miles away, and I need to either carry it all that way, or squish onto a smelly and crowded subway and trigger my PTSD. And then pay the shipping fees. I think I'm just going to have to throw some more books away. It's just paper! But I feel SO guilty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizaG Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 We have some of the Enki books, and while the author is in favor of simplicity, she suggests that wide-open rooms tend to be overly stimulating for a child. I'm sure we've all seen how they like to cram themselves into small spaces! And conversely, when you try to do group activities in a gym or church hall, there are always a few children who run around and around aimlessly. Adults might see this as "having fun," but she believes that they're overwhelmed, because the stark environment isn't meeting their needs for security and a variety of heights and textures. If you have little ones and are going very minimalist, it might be necessary to include one or two child-friendly features, such as a raised platform or low loft bed, a table big enough to play under, a piece of fabric to make a "dropped ceiling," one of those cocoon type swings, or even a tent or refrigerator box. :001_smile: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostintheCosmos Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 We have some of the Enki books, and while the author is in favor of simplicity, she suggests that wide-open rooms tend to be overly stimulating for a child. I'm sure we've all seen how they like to cram themselves into small spaces! And conversely, when you try to do group activities in a gym or church hall, there are always a few children who run around and around aimlessly. Adults might see this as "having fun," but she believes that they're overwhelmed, because the stark environment isn't meeting their needs for security and a variety of heights and textures. This is so interesting and makes so much sense! We have a big, lovely sun room that runs almost the entire length of our house, that I have yet to figure out what to do with. I'm truly terrible at furnishing and decorating, so I've really just put off dealing with the whole thing - it's like a bowling alley! Moms who come over always comment on how nice it must be to have a big open space for the kids to run around in when the weather is bad, but that hasn't been exactly my experience. :laugh: For a while we had half of it set up as our Montessori-at-home room, but we packed all that away when the new baby arrived since I wasn't going to be able to supervise in there all the time, and since them I'm totally rethinking all those materials and they haven't been brought back out yet. And this gives me something else to consider. Hmmm... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellifera33 Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I found this picture online. No this is not my apartment. :lol: My shelves are white like the walls. But this is minimalism with lots of books. Hmm. I like this a lot, but it doesn't look minimalist to me. I think it's all the stuff on the shelves in front of the books. That's what my shelves look like right now, and I think it looks cluttery and like the stuff's about to fall on the floor. :) I'm also imagining leaves and petals on the floor under the droopy plant. lol I guess I'm the pessimistic minimalist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 Hmm. I like this a lot, but it doesn't look minimalist to me. I think it's all the stuff on the shelves in front of the books. That's what my shelves look like right now, and I think it looks cluttery and like the stuff's about to fall on the floor. :) I'm also imagining leaves and petals on the floor under the droopy plant. lol I guess I'm the pessimistic minimalist. It's too much for me right now, too. But minimalism is a larger concept than the radical form I choose to adopt at this time. If a room doesn't echo, now, I feel smothered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy to monkeys Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 It's too much for me right now, too. But minimalism is a larger concept than the radical form I choose to adopt at this time. If a room doesn't echo, now, I feel smothered. See, I do enjoy the feeling of an empty room, but the echo is a definite downside. The echoing voices of 6 small people can unfortunately feel smothering to me at times. Mama likes clean, serene, and quiet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stm4him Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I like cozy. I like English cottage. Like Bilbo's house. Large empty rooms are not welcoming to me. But I still don't like clutter. I would not put things on a shelf in front of books, either. I don't have plants because I kill anything that doesn't tell me it needs to be fed. I like bare minimum vintage furniture in a small, uncluttered (but decorated with a few special pieces) room. Sort of like walking into some historic museum home. Only that isn't what I actually have. It's what I want to have some day. And though I like owning a lot of books, it is starting to bother me visually for them to be all different sizes and colors on a shelf I can see all the time. I want sets of books that look nice/classic and I want doors on the shelves that have all the random books. Even my vintage books that don't look vintage or are not hard back bother me. Like my ILL and NEP that both have shiny covers. I know it is a little ridiculous, but when there are sets or the covers are hardback and matte I like having a lot. When it looks like a hodge podge of modern it feels cluttered. When we do built-ins, I will probably make them have doors. But I am running out of room to display my pretty books and I want to buy several sets of books still: The Book of Knowledge, The Book of Life, and The Great Books of the Western World. And who knows what else..... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I like cozy. I like English cottage. Like Bilbo's house. Large empty rooms are not welcoming to me. But I still don't like clutter. I would not put things on a shelf in front of books, either. I don't have plants because I kill anything that doesn't tell me it needs to be fed. I like bare minimum vintage furniture in a small, uncluttered (but decorated with a few special pieces) room. Sort of like walking into some historic museum home. Only that isn't what I actually have. It's what I want to have some day. And though I like owning a lot of books, it is starting to bother me visually for them to be all different sizes and colors on a shelf I can see all the time. I want sets of books that look nice/classic and I want doors on the shelves that have all the random books. Even my vintage books that don't look vintage or are not hard back bother me. Like my ILL and NEP that both have shiny covers. I know it is a little ridiculous, but when there are sets or the covers are hardback and matte I like having a lot. When it looks like a hodge podge of modern it feels cluttered. When we do built-ins, I will probably make them have doors. But I am running out of room to display my pretty books and I want to buy several sets of books still: The Book of Knowledge, The Book of Life, and The Great Books of the Western World. And who knows what else..... If you're in the mood for a change my books are categorized by color. It's gorgeous. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 I liked English cottage when I was younger, and log cabins before that. Now I actually like cheap modern. The blue camping chair will go on the balcony when I find a black one. I don't mind that my stuff is cheap as long as it matches. Everything else is white, black, unfinished wood, and chrome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stm4him Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Right now we have mostly cheap modern.....think IKEA. We have only a few antique things (the dresser in my room, my boy's twin beds, a bed for my oldest we haven't set up yet) and a few countryish things (our dining table and chairs and church pew looking bench to eat at, a shoe bench, rocking chairs on the front porch). Now I don't want sleek and modern.....I want warm and inspiring. Like a classic vs. a modern book in my mind. It is sort of funny because we are using Saxon and McGuffey, which are a mix of classic and modern too. And as much as I like both, it sometimes bothers me that they don't "match". But when it comes to these I can't decide if I want to continue to not match (if it is what works best), switch to all modern (such as Saxon and Hake), or switch to all vintage (Rays and SU instead of Saxon). For now, just like with my furniture, I'm going to keep what I have because it is working and switching is too difficult/expensive/time consuming. But in a few years, things may change.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.