Summer decluttering – the hidden (?) costs of hoarding

Posted by louisa on Friday 6 August 2010 in anti-consumerism | 3 comments

If spring is for cleaning, summer seems to be the time for decluttering: a number of unconnected bloggers I read have been having clearouts of late. I guess it makes some sort of sense: in the winter, you want things around you to make a cosy nest but in the summer, you want to pare it down, strip it back, carry the bare minimum with you. Tidy cupboards are the household equivalent of hotpants.

Like Damn The Broccoli and his good lady, John and I are many-hobbied hoarders. John’s lucky in that a lot of his hobbies take place on the neat containable space of his laptop but mine spill out everywhere. For example, on my desk, my work desk where I’m supposed to work not play, I currently have: five bags of sawdust for smoking food, some broad beans I’m saving for seed stock next year, ribbon, gaffer tape, felt (from making a rat costume for drama), patterns for said rat costume, my sewing box, a tshirt I dyed, Ramie top for spinning, cabbage seeds, two books, some drawing pens and a staple gun (lasted used for lining homemade wooden planter with plastic compost bags). I’m not kidding, look:

(The eagle-eyed will notice John’s desk is largely clear save for an ice pack (??), work things and a shiny silver kazoo.)

I like having a lot of different, varied hobbies – especially since nearly all of them are productive in some way, shape or form – but they do result in a lot of clutter. We also keep a lot of quote-unquote waste materials for reusing & upcycling – I’ve got box files upstairs filled with flattened drinks cans & reclaimed wire for crafting, glass jars are stacking up in the kitchen for jam season and (mostly due to John’s dad not us) there are a couple of stashes of salvaged building supplies around the garden – all very good from a green & frugal point of view but at the same time, it’s more stuff just hanging around.

Since moving house last autumn, we’re lucky to have, by and large, enough space to put things (we’re just too distracted to do it sometimes – hence my desk stash) but as we try to remind John’s dad when he carries concrete paving stones down the garden, hoarding things has a price.