Crowded House – Declaring War on Junk

My dad has a saying (and if you’ve known him for any length of time, you’ve probably heard it dozens of times): “Work expands to fill the time available.” This explains why a simple task can take the whole afternoon when you have nothing better to do. But I think this same principle applies to stuff: clutter expands to fill the space available. Which means, put simply, if you have five drawers in your kitchen, you will find things to fill them up with, even though in your previous apartment, you only had one kitchen drawer.

After a few years of living in the same place, you may find yourself asking: “Where did all this stuff come from? And how much of it do I really need, anyway?” This is exactly what happened to us. We’ve been in our semi-detached house (a half house, as our eldest son so eloquently puts it) for four years. Now that I’m publishing my own books, I need to find a place to put them. This is hard when every nook and cranny is taken up by stuff, some of it useful and other bits of it decidedly not. Especially after Christmas and the boys’ birthdays, we find the level of stuff that we have in our house is barely containable.

The study shelves – messy, but not too scary

I have taken a very hardline approach (my poor husband trembles). He remembers the day not long after we got married when I started attacking the mementoes he had been carefully squirrelling away under his bed as a student. There were drawings from his high-school days, architectural designs from university and a whole heap of other stuff which I deemed unworthy of keeping. The poor guy was almost in tears staring at the pile of his precious papers, although I must point out that I did salvage a beautiful pencil sketch of flowers of his which I had framed and which adorned our bedroom wall for years.

(To my husband’s credit, I feel obliged to add that he is much better at cleaning out digital junk than I am. Here I mean photos and videos that clog up your smart phone, e-mails that drown your inbox, multiple hybrid copies of files that you store in Dropbox, etc. Ahem – guilty as charged…)

You see, I have the potential to be ruthless. I get this from my mother and her strong Germanic roots. When I edit, I slash paragraphs and lop off words to my heart’s content. This has got me in trouble before with editors who prefer a gentler approach to copy editing. But I find it quite wonderful, really – quite liberating. And there is something very satisfactory about cleaning out cupboards, organising them, getting rid of unwanted clothes and making room for new ones. That’s probably what I enjoy most – by giving away, I’m hoping to receive more. After all, it’s by giving that we receive. If I have room in my cupboards, then maybe I can get another pair of pants or another shirt. Once more, there’s breathing space in my world. Ahhh…

The garage shelf – messy and scary

Cleaning out cupboards is one thing, cleaning up the garage is another. And that is the formidable task my husband and I have set ourselves this holiday: Operation Tidy-Up in the garage. I have English setwork books from my final year of high school (eek! yes, I too can be a hoarder, given half the chance). Gavin, no doubt, will unearth some more buried treasure from his past. We will have to sift through this all and sort out the wheat from the chaff. There might be some harsh words (although hopefully not too many), some disagreements about what gets chucked along the way. There will be plenty of sweat and dust and discomfort. But I’m excited that hubby used the words “new shelving system” when we discussed our plans for the garage. Doesn’t that sound impressive?

Space, glorious space!

In the meantime, we’ve bought a fabulous new 1.8m by 900cm shelf which is standing in our lounge. It is pristine white wood, a shy virgin in that she has never before been used. All those silky smooth shelves waiting to be filled with books… It’s like the feeling you got as a child before Christmas, looking at all the presents under the tree. But we’re saving that till last. First comes the painful part – sorting, sifting, letting go, giving stuff away. (Hopefully someone will find my 1994 copy of Hamlet useful.) Tidying up, organising, cleaning. And then – only then – can we start stocking the shelves again and laying the books and files out nealty.

That will be our reward – that beautifully arranged, immaculate bookshelf, which proudly declares: “This house is neat. This house is organised. Junk – beware! You are not welcome here.” Let’s hope the feeling lasts – at least for the next four years.