Decluttering but leaving some personality in your home

monnagran

I'm with you valkscot. I was given a Kindle for my birthday. Great for taking on holiday, no more excess baggage charges for the half a suitcase of books I take with me. But get rid of my books? Noooo! The occasional judicious weed-out is fine, although they have to be passed on pretty quickly before the regrets set in and the cast offs mysteriously find their way back on to the shelves.
My old books are like old friends and I need to hold them occasionally.

LameWolf

GreyQueen wrote: »

I think the question to ask ourselves is, do I love, need, use this thing?

I think GreyQueen has hit the nail on the head. I used to have 20,000 books. No, that's not a typo, I did say twenty thousand!:D I had to get rid of them when I divorced the XH, though, as I moved into a tiny bungalow, which was already occupied by the man who became Mr LW.;)

There's stuff around here I'd chuck out in a heartbeat, but it has meaning for Mr LW, so we keep it - we did cull our book collection a while back and charity-shopped the ones we knew we'd never bother to re-read. We keep the ones by authors we really like (Terry Pratchett, PG Wodehouse to name a couple) and reference books; and we don't (yet) have Kindles.

Justamum

Citygirl1 wrote: »

someone at work has one and says she is going to get rid of all her books.

:eek::eek::eek:
Now I'm going to have to go and lie down to get over the shock :eek:

crumblepie

I have a kindle and mainly use it for downloading all the free books that are available. I have also bought 6 or so real books in the past two weeks. Don't know why but I don't want to pay money for a book for the kindle.

There is stuff on my walls that I like looking at. My spare bedroom is where all the books/cd's/clutter and junk live as downstairs is minimal more through the fact it's small and there's not a lot of space to put stuff.

Saying that when I moved into this house I decluttered lots. There was a skip full of stuff, lots to charity shops, lots to recycling, some in the bin and I haven't missed any of it. My home is still cosy and reflects me and my personality - I could never do minimal.

Cat501

LameWolf wrote: »

I think GreyQueen has hit the nail on the head. I used to have 20,000 books. No, that's not a typo, I did say twenty thousand!:D

:shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked::shocked: I'm speechless!!

lostinrates

I can't consider books ''clutter'' usually. If I've got a ''woodburner fodder'' type book (bought or passed on) I pass it on to friends/clients. I put a samll box full out for clients to rifle through when its full and any lack of takers then they go to a charity shop. The next step up of books....the pleasant read, will never read again, I hang onto for weekend visitors who can pick one up at bed time and take it home if they haven't finished it. Children's books I hang onto, despite not having kids, because friends do, and siblings will, and what nicer than when visiting a boring aunt to discover there is a shelf or few of books to while away the time with Others...the rubbish but beloved or decent, or those gifted can never ever be replaced by a kindle.....I love hard copy and while I see the worth of a kindle for those commuting or travelling, I like a book in the bath, or in bed, and I like to turn pages and smell it...and sometimes even to annotate!

We haven't yet unpacked our books, but we have two rooms set aside for them.....plus I plan a full heigh book shelf for cookery books and a bookcase in the bedroom for those that can't squeeze in.


One of the things we did for the preparation for our house reno, is sit and rifle through magazines and books on beautiful homes. Without fail we chose ones that had an indication of who lived there, that had ''loved'' looking things, and piles of books or shoes, over ones which were immaculate but

I'm not keen on too much pointless stuff...ornaments..but they arrive anyway, usually as gifts,, but something loved is beautiful, whatever it looks like.

Ben84

I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff in the house, lots of books, fossils, house plants, records, newspaper clippings. I'm no minimalist, but I could part with it all if needed. I have had to do it before and have become more convinced that we should own things rather than be tied down by them. Parting with things can be liberating too.

PixieDust

you can annotate on a Kindle :P

valk_scot

LameWolf wrote: »

I used to have 20,000 books.

I now have this weird urge to go and count ours. It will pass.....

I don't "do" ornaments btw, like little bits of china etc. I have baskets of pine cones by the fireplace at Christmas, or a bowl of decorative squash on the kitchen table, or textiles. Being a spinner and knitter and weaver and liking sewing, I'm really into textiles. I have throws and blankets and cushions, wallhangings rather than pictures and photos on the wall, bits of fabric that I like used as tablecloths. That sort of thing. I like charity shop furniture too and there's several spinning wheels cluttering up the place too. Shabby Chic? It's shabby all right, but it's not chic at all and I hate the chintzy look anyway. Maybe the inside of a yurt occupied by a demented Sleeping Beauty type old crone that reads a lot? I've even got cats.

Rummer

I love my kindle for ease of travel and I read all the free classics on it. However I am also an avid library user and have pile of fiction books from the library around the house. This leaves all my pennies free to invest in those amazing non-fiction books that I love so I buy lots of them to fill my home!

When I have decluttered I have removed the things that I do not truly love leaving far more space to display all my treasures!