A Minimalist Lifestyle

This picture is of our bedroom. Yes, we have a dresser and a closet, but this is basically it.

I have had a few small bouts of living a minimalist lifestyle, like living in a 200 square foot studio apartment in South Korea, but not until this year have I purposely wanted to live that lifestyle. Since getting married, (about 3 years ago) Andy and I have moved apartments or houses roughly 10 times. That means that on average, we have moved about every 4 months for the last 3 years. What can I say, we like to keep things interesting!

After Andy and I eloped for our marriage, we had a wedding party for all of our friends and family to help us celebrate. When we invited people we specifically said 'no gifts', we didn't want to acquire more things. It was a simple start to a marriage with plenty of kitchen utensils and not much else. That was how we liked it though. I mean, what else do you need in life?! With each move that we made, we acquired more "stuff". Building a life with another person quickly adds up to a lot of "stuff".

Society tells us we need a couch to sit on, a TV to watch, fancy serving trays for parties, and a bookshelf full of books. This is all consumerism and marketing at its best. Society has marked holidays, weddings, having babies, and birthdays as times that you should BUY and give. There is less emphasis these days on just enjoying each others company and being together. We are addicted to buying and owning things. With tv, newspapers, magazines, and society norms all telling us to buy and accumulate more, we are not only wasting our money, but our time. "Things" require maintenance. Maintenance takes away from time and enjoying life. The more you have, the more of your time it takes, the less you enjoy and appreciate other people and life itself. However, the less you have, the more you can get out to enjoy life and loved ones. (My soapbox speech of the day.)

Moving to California at the end of December was our 10th (or 11th, I can't remember) time moving since we were married. It was our largest and most stressful move yet. We moved all the way across the country, from Virginia to California...right through a Midwestern snow storm none the less. We also rented the largest moving truck, 16 feet long. As we drove across the country, I stressed about our stuff getting tossed around the back of the moving truck. I stressed about how we were going to unload our moving truck up 3 flights of stairs into our new apartment. I stressed that our apartment wouldn't be large enough (2 bedrooms) to fit our stuff. It was one stress on top of another, all brought on by our "stuff".

Despite my stresses, everything worked out. It was not fun though! We parked our moving truck in the middle of the street all day while just Andy and I moved our belongings up 3 flights of stairs. We ended up hiring some guys to help us and by the end of the day everything was successfully in our apartment. I was so stressed and tired of all the "stuff" we owned, that I just about lost it. I told Andy I was at the end of my rope and that if we didn't get rid of at least half of our stuff I was going to lose it. So we did just that.

Andy and I spent the first week in our new apartment sorting through our stuff. We quickly discovered that the majority of our things were either useless, or duplicates. So out they went! We were able to whittle our things down to half the amount of what we moved with. And...we are still getting rid of things. At the end of each week, we have another bag or box of things to go. With each box that we get rid of I feel lighter, more positive, and more happy. It is wonderful! We are also discovering that the less we own, the more we get out and do things. We have adventures and truly enjoy life because nothing is keeping us at home.

I hate that it took us 3 years of accumulating things and 10 times of moving to discover how wonderful it is to live a minimalist lifestyle. I am happy however, that we have finally reached this point, and we will continue to have even less in the following months. What a sigh or relief. It has been the best stress reducer that I have discovered yet!

In a future post I will give tips on how to become more minimalist.

From VA to CA

Last week was a crazy and busy week. Andy was hired by a California solar company a few months ago and has been working remotely with them until we had a chance to move. The holidays gave us a nice large time gap where Andy wasn't working, so we did the big move! Here is a quick rundown of our move from Virginia to California through Instagram pictures.

Our moving truck all loaded up in Virginia. You can't see our car attached to a toeing hitch on the back, but it's there. Our speed topped out at about a whopping 60mph!

 Our first bout of traffic around Pennsylvania. Holiday traffic was horrible.

 Mr. Buckles did so well, he was a trooper. He worked nicely as a lap warmer too. Andy was also a trooper, though you can't tell in this picture. :)

 Mmm, breakfast on the road!

 Christmas morning. I wasn't too thrilled to be on the road, but I was happy to be making progress.
Yeah, I drink coffee through a straw...I'm cool.

 This was our Christmas dinner on the road. We couldn't find any open restaurants for dinner, not even fast-food! The cookies in the bag are peppernuts...have you had them? They are awesome!

 I made this road sign from the Krispy Kreme box while bored on the drive. It got quite snowy.

 We hit some VERY snowy mountains in both Wyoming and Utah.

 We stopped at the Salt Flats in Utah to throw the ball with Mr. Buckles.

The end, the final destination!! Our apartment in Oakland, California. We were so happy to have arrived safe and still in one piece.

Coming up for air and a moving update!

  
******** Text and photo heavy.....have another cup of coffee******



PART 1-  (written a few days ago very early am)

Hello.....wow I must admit I had a few moments (or hours) not long ago when I started to think I might never get my energy back or enough time to put together a post I could be proud of. But alas here I am. Now lest you be thinking that I am so together, so organized that I am already back to my blogging schedule translates to endless hours of being footloose and fancy free on my comp . I feel obliged to tell you you are wrong. Way wrong. For here I sit in my small but cozy office  which at the moment, is a complete and utter mess amidst heaps of bags, boxes, books, pictures, torn out pages from design mags, fabric and paper swatches,etc..... But we all know you need to know when to listen to your body and when its time to put everything down, and just take a deep breath and do something for yourself. Hence my being here right now. Trust me, me writing this post has as much to do with my being near done unpacking and 'setting up shop" as going au natural is for Joan Rivers. (sorry Joan but you are an easy target). So here's the lowdown.....

I am beyond thrilled to finally be home. Just ecstatic. My favorite times of the day are when I get up around 5:30 up until 7:30 when the chaos starts raging, that means driving my son to school and the workers that are still working here (less every day) start knocking on the door. I dream about when the end of the day comes, and when I can really enjoy the house to myself again but truth be told by that time, I am wiped and utterly exhausted beyond description and I have been going into bed at the ungodly hour of 8:30! By that time I truly have expired. Moving is seriously exhausting in more ways than one.
About 30% of the house is still being worked on so the kitchen, the breakfast room and family room and bedrooms are only rooms bearing any semblance of being "done" (and when I say done I mean a room having a few chairs to sit on or the beds). We have moved some of our previous furniture into the house which looks pretty good, but for the family room we have ordered new furniture, bedding is on order for bedrooms, wall to wall for  master backordered,  etc......mind you this is all in a temporary state and excuse the mess but anyone who has moved knows what its like! So enough talking, come have a look........

Beautiful new chandelier for vestibule off foyer

Don't pay attention to our Chicken pox walls, this is the last area still to be painted

Chandeliers in living room hung!

Love them.....

Love this antique Chinese bowl 

Love my little french men fruit bowl, looks great in this kitchen

Breakfast room

Close up.....

Slowly slowly, paper is coming off the stair railing!

Love starting to find a place for my little treasures

Forgot how much blue and white I have!

And some more.....

And more.......

Yep I think this is a good start!

And we are starting to unpack my crystal, silver and china for the pantry

A work in progress.........

Love the breakfast room on a sunny morning, and of course a cozy rainy morning and forget the snow....it was so beautiful!

Love a pop of yellow against the white and black in the kitchen

That big bowl over to the right is an antique Chinese bowl, its huge 2 1/2 feet wide and so beautiful.....was thinking it would be beautiful to fill with orchids. The beautiful tulips someone dropped off yesterday

Missed my crystal

And all the little pretties......

Temp display of blue and whites, will have to "play"

For now putting my pillows on the sofa...the colors work

PART 2- Update as of 2 days ago, who was I kidding? As soon as I took a deep breath 5 days later I actually was foolish enough to start thinking, except for that first day or two, this really wasn't that bad. Then..........(jaws music here), the second round arrived yesterday! Oh boy, I had forgotten just how much I really had. How much had been stored away. It was such an exhausting day that by days end I literally could not walk, it was bad. My feet fell like they were literally detaching from my body and I was spent. The only bright side was the  opening up of some of my boxes revealed forgotten about goodies, like all my blue and white, and some beautiful collectibles that I love even more now that they are in their final resting place. So bear in mind this is a major work in progress and will be for a long, long time but below are some more recent highlights........

Coming back from other house to find a newly arrived orchid from a friend was a sight for sore eyes!

A pretty pair of French chairs hubby bought at auction will probably eventually end up in living room

More boxes.........

My beautiful painted chest we bought in France for my bedroom

Bedroom with my old furniture, got the new chandelier up! 

Beautiful french desk...we have to figure out where we are going to put it

Seating area in family room

Looking into breakfast room

Full view of the room.......

Another shot

Love the night time lighting.....

Just realized the Charmin kind of detracts...oops!

A beautiful French chest in guest room

Art waiting to be hung, they might be waiting a while!

More boxes!!!!!

Our lone pair of Winterthur chairs needs a home! These are very special chairs and one day I might just do a post on these chairs. 

Only furniture in living room so far, our pair of two French chests from our previous house

Close up....sorry for the grainy pictures

Photo quality not so great.....blame it on the iPhone and my lame photography skills

So folks, that's a brief recap on whats been happening over here this last week. Its been one helluva week, my calf muscles, feet and back are so sore. Today I think I am going to christen my bathtub with a long soak. Fun, exciting, exhilarating, titillating, and exhausting all rolled into one is how I would describe moving. But make no mistake, it is great to be home at last!!!!!!!! Will be back when I can, wishing you a wonderful Sunday!