Today I’m showing you the family room. But I feel like I should admit that I’m only doing that because we are still working on everything else. I cannot even believe that we still have so much more to do. Maybe it’s because now I’m getting used to less stuff, so it feels like more even though it’s a lot less? I don’t even know if that makes sense at all. But that’s how I’m feeling right now.
I should be jumping up and down with glee over how much BETTER everything is. Except I’m having a hard time because all I can seem to see is how much stuff we still have. If I had to estimate, we’ve eliminated at least half of our household contents. And I’ve already identified more that needs to go. But it takes so much freaking time and energy to dispose of it in a responsible manner that it just seems to take FOREVER.
Anyway, on to the family room.
I tried to hang the pictures of my kids. And I broke a couple of picture frames. Shattered glass, friends. So you’ll see a big, gaping hole over the entertainment center. I’ll fix that. Eventually.
Oh and the ginormous mirror? That used to be over the dressing table area in our bedroom. It got removed when we painted the bedrooms. I have to decide whether I’m going to rehang it or find it a new home. I haven’t decided yet. And that desk chair? Stephen uses it when he works at the desk. We have to get a different chair that actually works for him and that doesn’t sit there in the corner. Oh, and the printer sitting on the entertainment center? It’s going in my office, which I’ve been working on. And it’s too heavy for me to pick up and move . So, it lives on top of the entertainment center. For now.
Someone mentioned in the comments on the dining room post that it feels dark in there. And it does. The floors are dark and the furniture is dark. A lot of the furniture was either inherited or purchased a long time ago when we didn’t really know what we wanted. So, we live with it. I want a new sofa in the family room. Something lighter. And I want some pops of color everywhere. I’m thinking aqua, but we’re still decluttering so it makes absolutely zero sense to bring in MORE stuff just for the sake of adding color. So for now, we continue eliminating the stuff. Then live with a house that isn’t crazy for a while. And breathe. And then figure out what we want to do.
And by figure out what we want to do, I don’t just mean decorating. We still talk regularly about downsizing. But we simply don’t know what to do about that. The real estate market is crazy right now where we are. Older, smaller homes are being torn down and huge houses are being built in their place. It’s too complicated to describe here in this blog post, but suffice it to say that if we sold our house, which we could pretty easily do, we’d be priced out of the area on the buy side. It’s crazy.
I wanted everything to be done at the end of our simple year. Tied up in a pretty package. With a bow on top. But life isn’t always so neat and tidy. It’s messy. And sometimes incomplete. So, these pictures are the unfinished truth.
But, I’m proud of the unfinished truth. Because it represents hard work and soul searching and complete and utter honesty. So that’s all for today. More to come.
I feel you on the downsizing thing. Our area is also full of cute little houses that are getting bulldozed and then two HUGE million-dollar places are put up instead. The room still looks nice though. I think that waiting until it’s more or less finished (though these decluttering jobs never finish) to pick out colors, throw rugs, etc.
Thank you Zoe. We typically get a 1 to 1 ratio (home to lot);however, we recently got a 1 to 2…BAH (big a$$ house). She has done a fabulous job!
“Maybe it’s because now I’m getting used to less stuff, so it feels like more even though it’s a lot less?”
It so makes sense! Congratulations on having reached that point. From now on it will only get better and better, but the progress will be slower, because you have already come so far.
Cheers from Helena in Sweden
Congratulations on getting rid of so much stuff! You’ve definitely been an inspiration to me, and I hope you’ll come back and post some even after your year is over. Life is a journey, and you’ve made a lot of progress this past year for sure! I’d really like to hear how the journey continues…
I don’t know that you, or any of us, will ever be finished simplifying our lives. It is an ongoing process. You have been an inspiration to us all!
Decluttering/Simplifying … It really is an ongoing lifetime process as one adjusts to different stages in one’s life. I feel you on the real estate front. Same in the area we’d like to be. I hope you will continue to let us know how things go once your Simple Year is over, because I’ve really enjoyed your perspective and “voice” in this era of “less is more”.
You’re so right about the energy involved in disposing responsibly of things. I find it’s much more draining than making the decision to part with things. But we’re getting there, aren’t we ?