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There are many reasons those of us who live a minimalist lifestyle choose to do so. If you have been a follower of our site, you know that I (Denise) live in the country, that I am self-employed, and run everything from our farm. The reason I chose to live a minimalist lifestyle is varied, but most importantly is that I wish to only use the resources I need to use and leave as small of a footprint as possible. A second significant reason is that I like clean and simple interior design, and a side benefit of a minimalist lifestyle is that it is easy to maintain my home, allowing me time to give back to my community. I recently opened a fitness outreach center with one of my friends in a nearby city because the county I live in is actually the poorest county in Florida. With low-income also comes obesity, but this is not what this post is about. Keep an eye on this blog as I detail our progress with the fitness outreach center. But now back to decorating.
So once people grasp the minimalist lifestyle, they often assume that my house has absolutely nothing in it. Or they say, how do you decorate your house? My response is always that “things” are not important to me, especially if they take up time or require maintenance such as knick knacks that require constant dusting and cleaning. I just don’t have the time, or patience for that matter, to spend hours dusting things. I do, however, have a small curio cabinet in my house and what is in it are items that are valuable to ME. They may not be valuable to anyone else but every piece in that cabinet has special meaning and these are the pieces that I have chosen to keep.
The rest of the common area is pretty simple. I have just three things on my walls – one is a picture of my daughters when they were younger. The second is a beautiful landscape print that my mother gave to my family and the third is a clock. That’s it. It is important to note though that I chose these items to keep in my home because I enjoy them. There are no items in my home that I have kept because someone gave it to me, it was an inherited item, or something that I have had forever. The only items that I have are those that I want to have. That is the key – keep only what you want to keep, not what you feel compelled to keep.
Here a few tips to get you started on decorating minimally:
- Get rid of the clutter. This alone will make a huge difference in how you feel when you walk into your home. I walk in my front door and I see an open concept with a kitchen within clean counter tops, a living area with a sofa and a loveseat and a table, and an old pine kitchen table and chairs. Get rid of the things that really have no meaning to you that are just taking up space and time with having to dust them constantly.
- Keep your wall decorations to a minimum. It is not necessary to have something on every wall. To me, something on every available space makes me feel claustrophobic.
- Reuse, recycle and repurpose. My daughter is amazing with this. She has a home based business like I do and converted a space in her home to act as her office. She found an old cocktail table and repurposed it as a desk. Before you go out and buy something, see if you have something first in your home that you can use or see if you can find something from friends or family that you can use.
I love my minimalist lifestyle for so many reasons but I particularly love walking into my peaceful, simply decorated home. Hopefully these simple tips will help you. For more posts on Minimalist Decorating, check out our Minimalist Decor series.
Blessings,
Denise
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