"If you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get it." That quote (I think it´s by Somerset Maugham) is perhaps the epitome of what minimalism is about. Accept, in your life, nothing but the very best.
But what can that mean in a world where, as my Grandma used to put it, "there´s more make-doers than well-livers"? All too often we have to make do with what we have, and then, the makeshift, suboptimal solutions we chose become permanent because we never take the time to check whether they are still appropriate, or whether there would be a way to improve on them.
This permanence of the provisory does sometimes cause us to live in surroundings we would not chose if we had to make the choice for the first time.
Case in point- both DH and I had, long before we met, built our respective households, complete with cutlery, cookware, bed linens, furniture, and what else is needed for living. And, as we were both poor students when we started our own households, we both had a fair share of hand-me-downs and extremely cheap items that were sometimes barely doing what they were supposed to do, or were just ugly. At a time when we had no alternatives, these things had to suffice. And, being extra frugal, we kept them even though their inadequacies were glaringly obvious.
About two years ago, the plastic tablecloth we used on our dinner table, which was already bleached-out and dingy, got caught on one of the chairs and ended up with a big tear on the side.
The crazy part is that I was, for a moment, tempted to do a provisory repair on it with duct tape from the underside. On a tablecloth that had been cheap when I bought it, and which would even after the repair look ugly. When I made myself realize that, I took the thing off our table, threw it away and went shopping for a new tablecloth. As luck would have it, there was a sale on table linens at a nearby store, and I found several damask tablecloths in colors that matched our interior.
These damask tablecloths turned out to be the beginning of our journey towards an improved home.
When setting the table with them, I soon found myself choosing the better china or glassware, or taking out the stainless steel design candlesticks that were a wedding present from my colleagues. A little vase with flowers appeared, too, artificial ones, certainly, but still flowers, and very soon I got myself a matching set of cloth napkins, too.
The point here is that I did not have to pay a lot of money to achieve all of this. Some of the items were already there, just not being used because they were kept for some nebulous future occasion, and others were, when compared to the things they replaced, not even so much more expensive. What made the difference was that I did decide that for ourselves, we should have the best, or at least, the best we could afford. And that meant that the crystal goblets that had for a long time slumbered in our cupboard because "that´s something for special occasions only" see the light more often today, and that the mustard glasses I had collected as a student to use as water glasses have long ago gone to recycling.
After all, if I already own something, in terms of frugality, it´s free. By finally using the things I kept for a future occasion, I could improve my surroundings for free.
And, let´s face it, if the said nebulous future occasion hasn´t arisen in the ten or twenty years I have had those goblets, it´s very likely that it may never come. And what, then, are those goblets good for except collecting dust and taking up space?
So, I use them. That may mean they might break, but until then, I have a lot more enjoyment from using them than from having them inside my cupboard.
These damask tablecloths did start a kind of chain reaction, actually. I am, since their appearance in our household, continuously looking for other ways where I can, at a relatively minor cost, improve on our surroundings. The new blinds or the dustbins are just two examples.
But I am not obsessive about it.
There are still plenty of things to improve or exchange for which we have not found a replacement yet. And these we will live with until the right replacement comes along.
What I will try to avoid is settling for less than the optimum in the things I bring into our lives.
If what I want is a leather-padded couch it´s a waste of money to bring in a cheap cloth-covered one that would get thrown out in a matter of years.
If I have a lot of books to store, replacing the plain but sturdy IKEA massive pine wood shelves I´ve had since I was a student (and kept adding to with every new flat I moved into) with MDF or plywood ones that would soon warp under the weight of the books would be plain dumb. So, the IKEA shelves will stay until I find an equally resistant shelving system that is not too expensive.
But, I will only exchange them for something that is as close as possible to my idea of what I need.
And I refuse to waste any more money on things that are just more provisory solutions.
Meanwhile, I keep reducing the things that I would not replace, had I to buy them today.
Oh, that might also mean I´m going to save on the new shelves, if I needed less of them. So, it´s the right way for me to declutter first, because only then will I be able to see how much storage I really need.
Julia
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