Some thoughts on minimalism

Recently I watched an indie move on the myriad benefits of minimalism.

I’ll admit, minimalism is something that has always intrigued me. Who doesn’t like the idea of a streamlined, pared-down lifestyle, right? Admit it, doesn’t a small part of you long to own so little that you can throw a few changes of clothes in a souped-up van and hit the road?

But in 2020, when we left our old home and moved to our new, it became abundantly clear we were nowhere near achieving that mythical standard. That’s what comes of having a homestead farm, a home business, an obsession (cough cough) with books, and frankly a life.

Moving was an eye-opening experience in many ways, not least of which was how many possessions we had. Downsizing from a 3600-square-foot home into a 1400-square-foot-home (and then partitioning some of that square footage for Older Daughter’s suite, leaving Don and I with 1000 square feet) was also enlightening. If nothing else, it allowed us to prioritize what we used frequently vs. what we didn’t, what we needed and what we didn’t.

A thousand square feet of living space for two people is more than adequate. For heaven’s sake, that’s luxurious by international standards. We have friends with a dozen children (literally) who make do with 1400 square feet and still manage to have a gracious, welcoming, relatively uncluttered home.

What this downsizing did was allow us to sort our household possessions and delete the unnecessary. We plan to hold a whopper of a yard sale later in the summer and offload the excess. Whatever doesn’t sell will get donated.

But we will still be left with a lot of stuff – not so much in the house as in the barn. In fact, the house is in decent shape, but the barn is still a chaotic mess. Some of these jumbled items are long-term storage things: Boxes of books belonging to Younger Daughter, shop tools and equipment, farm supplies, stored items, etc. But a lot of it falls into the category of, “What we were thinking by holding onto this?”

Additionally, minimalism clashes with homesteading. We’ll always need tools and equipment to garden, raise livestock, preserve food, fix, create, MacGyver, and otherwise, y’know, live.

The truth, of course, is minimalism by itself solves nothing, except perhaps the chore of dusting. My thought is it has less to do with the number of things owned as it has to do with how your time is spent, the focus on career and ambition to the exclusion of family, etc. For that, the minimalist movement is worthy of praise.

Here’s the good news: in cleaning, sorting, and organizing the barn, we are, in a way, minimizing our possessions. Certainly we’re discerning between what we need and what we don’t. Let’s just say it’s going to be a heckuva yard sale when the time comes.

We’ll never have the pure-white, stark, bleak, barren, desolate, austere, harsh, bare, empty home (can you tell I’m not a fan?) which characterizes the minimalist movement.

Instead we’ll focus on making our home cozy and welcoming, with warm colors and comfortable reading spaces and “peace within thy walls,” even if it means we have a little too much stuff.

Once we have the barn sorted and organized, and once have have the things we no longer want or need taking up space, we will have minimalized to the extent we want. And that, dear readers, is the best we plan to do.

What are your thoughts on minimalism?