Marie Kondo Style Possessions Purge Phase 1: Clothing

[kimberlysteele]

I finally started the first phase of minimizing my possessions here in my Aurora house. As a short introduction, we moved to this house about seven years ago. It is a very small house, about 100 years old, and when we got here, it was pretty dumpy. Thanks to my husband's handiwork, it is much more beautiful and liveable. It's still small though, and that's why I am doing a KonMari style purge of the sort that was all the rage about five years ago or so but has fallen out of favor. In a house this size, under 700 square feet, it's minimalist or bust.

My clothing wasn't all that excessive to begin with, but there was a great deal to purge anyway. This is a Before picture of my loungewear/pajama drawer.

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Here is the Before of all of my tops, which include sweaters, t-shirts, and regular shirts. Underneath is my bottoms drawer, which includes pants and skirts. Mostly I wear stretch pants with a skirt on top of them, though I do own one pair of cargo pants which I am wearing at the moment, so they are not shown.

Below is another Before photo. I have the top hanging rack. The bottom one is my husband's stuff. The door houses my scarf and hat collection.

Here is the Before of all of my clothing in the world piled on the bed.

Now the after photos. I ended up with one half garbage bag of discards -- clothes with holes and other problems. The blue hamper is going to GoodWill.

AFTER

Comments

Joy?

[(Anonymous)]

It’s just begging to be asked; does the stuff you kept give you joy?

I’ve contemplated doing a Kondo style purge (gods know, it would certainly be useful!)but so far the best I’ve managed is to give the book to a person who walks through paths of stuff in her very small house. The book gave me guilt, so I gave it away….

It’s a great idea, but .


Annette

Re: Joy?

[kimberlysteele]

LOL, I don't know about joy, but I do wear the clothing that survived. I'm actually not a fan of Marie Kondo. She seems more than a little bit nuts: in her book, she admits to recklessly purging her sister's possessions in their family home without permission. She also seems quite rigid about her rules, which are not as one size fits all as she seems to believe. Her twee, cutesy, manic pixie dreamgirl schtick gets old fast. I'm not surprised there has been a maximalist backlash against both Marie Kondo and minimalism in general -- basically Marie told people to get rid of all their books between 2014-2019 and then all the libraries shut down and/or forced you to mask up in the car to get your books from a drive thru. That fit right into the Klaus Schwab "You vill own nothing and eat ze bugs!!" regime. As it stands, I have excised the local Theosophical Society from my life and requested they take me off of all mailing lists and never contact me again because they shut down their library for a year and a half about a month after I bought a membership. Then they had the nerve to send letter after letter begging for funding... Nope. That's why I'm hanging onto all my books. I'm still planning on opening a library someday when my financials improve.

Re: Joy?

[(Anonymous)]

Joy or not, there is something to be taken from [Patton's?] "quantity [or lack thereof] has a quality all its own".

One simple find from all my books on deculterring (themselves a clutter) I take as follows: You can only invest meaning in so many objects. Accordingly, have a single location for [a limited number of] mementos or ostensibly-meaningful items, rather than distributing them. In my case, this means my office is waist-level-down a visual mess, but I have three paintings hanging, I face one outside window to greenery, and I have one bookcase dedicated to mementos (books excluded). This bookcase stands as visually distinct, presents as a corner element in my periphery, represents a lifetime of mementos (some remaining boxed), and remains an attractive respite.

JVP

Re: Joy?

[kimberlysteele]

Interesting! Having one place and one place only for mementos makes sense. Seems a lot better than having them stuffed away in drawers and peppering shelves like room dandruff, at any rate.

[(Anonymous)]

Nice! Cograts on your purge and re-organized dresser/closet.

Kondo's books are still in my bookcase. I didn't have much luck with the "spark joy" concept for deciding what stays and what goes. But I love her idea of sorting by category rather than area. Also her folding technique. It made a huge difference in my dresser.

[kimberlysteele]

Thanks! Yeah, as I mentioned in the comment above, I'm not a fan of Kondo herself, she seems too dogmatic for me. But sorting by category and all at once is a smart takeaway.

[(Anonymous)]

Well I like the folding too. My drawers are a little less chaotic.

I’m still happy I gave the book away.

Annette

[kimberlysteele]

Maybe the friend in the small house can benefit... ya never know!

"The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kimberly,

Since you mentioned Marie Kindo, I'm curious if you've ever heard of Swedish death cleaning.

I came across the term from listening to the audio version of Magnusson's book.

-Eugene

Re: "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson

[kimberlysteele]

I keep meaning to buy that book not just for my own collection but for my future library. I have indeed heard of it and it makes a great deal of sense: looking at my possessions through the lens of what happens when I pop this mortal coil and others are tasked with dealing with them.

Good Luck!

[prayergardens]

Looks good! I like your little knitted 9square organizer btw.

I'll put in another vote for the folding method (regardless of opinions about other parts of her work). I also live in a small house and it's the only way we can organize towels and some clothes in the space we have.

I have been getting rid of one-thing-per day, almost everyday for about 5 years. That makes it seem like we're hoarders but we're not! We have a little one who does a lot of 'art' and then we have older relatives who will just dump boxes (and boxes) of household items on us at random times as they downsize. For me, I never have the time to do a dedicated purge so I find focusing on one-thing-a-day, even if it's just one plastic toy from a birthday party goody bag, keeps us from exploding.

Re: Good Luck!

[kimberlysteele]

The one-thing-a-day idea seems utterly sensible and I can see how it would be extremely effective over time. My issue with Kondo (I do hate the portmanteau "KonMari", it's so cringe) is that she's dogmatic and would likely disapprove of one-thing-a-day. Personally, I am going to try it now because it sounds like it works.