Saga Update 7/22/13

I have spent a fair amount of my downtime this week fantasizing about different ways to arrange this room. For those of you who come in late, I now live in a single room, and share the bathroom, kitchen and laundry with my roommate.   The Saga is about me trying to get this one room looking good and feeling comfortable.

As anyone who has ever known me IRL, you know that I live with boxes.  Boxes of books.  Boxes of art supplies.  Boxes of finished art that I don’t know what to do with.  And then there are boxes of just plain Stuff.  Recently, I counted over 100 boxes that I need to look into and decide what to do with them.

Now, boxes do not add to my comfort level.  In fact they stress me out.   They are not beautiful and are less than useful – except that they hold my stuff.  But I have too much stuff.  I don’t need all this stuff.

Recently, I have been exploring the tiny house movement (http://tinyhousesgalore.tumblr.com/). It’s about living green.   It’s about leaving a rather small footprint on the Earth.  It’s about saving money and not having to work many, many hours at a job just to pay the mortgage.  It’s about freedom from materialism.   It’s about not having to spend a lot of time and money cleaning and taking care of the place where you live.   It’s about being in charge of your own life and not having things (and paying for them) rule you.

Sounds great, yes?  Well easier said than done.  Some of those folks in the Tiny House Movement live in homes that are less than 100 square feet!   Yup, the entire home.  100 square feet.  In fact, 84 square feet seems to be a very popular size for a Tiny Home.    Me?  I have around 280 square feet in my room, so I ought to be able to do something cool with it.  And remember, for me, that does Not include the Bathroom, kitchen or laundry.

But although I want a small place (and a lot less stuff), I do like to rearrange things – often.  Since AD (after disability), I have had to cut way back on lots of things I used to do.  Like rearranging everything.  I still want to be able to do it, but not quite as often, perhaps.  Because I like to re-arrange things, built-ins are problematic.  And built-ins are the lifeblood of the tiny house movement.

Meantime, I have too much stuff to even move around in here, much less re-arrange.  So my Saga is an on-going struggle to pare down belongings to just what I need and love. 

Wish me luck.