I love looking at houses, which is why I spend too much time on the Real Estate section of the New York Times web site (time that could be better spent reading the news/engaging in self-edifying activities/maintaining this blog).
So I appreciated that my husband forwarded me this video, in which a Danish woman named Jennie gives a tour of the five room apartment she shares with her husband and two small children. Jennie says she made the video to correct what she felt was a misimpression (created by Oprah) about the size of typical Danish homes.
Jennie’s apartment is homey and definitely has style, and she manages to house what looks like an amazing book collection. But where do they put the stuff they’re not using day-to-day, I wonder? I had the same question when reading about an American family of four’s intentional life in a one bedroom apartment. Where do they keep their seven years of tax records? Their photo albums? Sports equipment? Seasonal items?
But I know what the answer is: if you decide you don’t need something or you don’t have room for it, you get rid of it (or don’t buy it in the first place). Do I really want to keep three plastic bins full of decorations to celebrate an annual event which fills me with as much anxiety and ambivalence as it does nostalgia? For now, yes. Do I want to keep three hardbound books signed by people who claimed we were “Friends 4ever” and about whom I stopped thinking in 1990? No. (High school yearbooks? Gone.)
And that’s how it goes. The bigger your space, the bigger your “keep” pile. It’s one more reason I’m glad we’ve reduced our living and storage footprint.
Simplifying at Home 