The Messy During
Take two pictures: the Before and the After. Entire articles can be written from those two. Tiny houses can look neat and trim, efficient and well-ordered. Between Before and After is During. During is a mess. During is real.
I hadn’t expected to write today, but During was what was happening. Today was the day for the big things, the few big things, that were added.
A futon/sofa, that I’ve owned for so long that I forgot how to put it back together. That would’ve been a good comic video, back and forth time-lapse as I tried to somehow make the pieces fit, and move, and do so in a room that only has inches to spare on all sides. My original intent was to donate it and but a new smaller Murphy Bed, but all of the potential recipients had to decline. Queen-size it is! And I’m amazed that ibuprofen wasn’t required - so far.
A chest of drawers that was a simple addition to my previous bedroom no manages to commandeer the closet, but only after removing the doors. Otherwise, the drawers wouldn’t open. More haphazard maneuvering as I avoided dinging walls, windows, and mirrors.
The surprise was that, with those things out of the way, I can reach all sixty-ish bankers boxes in the storage unit - and realize that almost all of them can stay in storage. They’re full of valuable stuff, but nothing that is necessary for daily life. That stuff is in the other storage unit: curtain rods, trash cans, dinnerware, cookware, …
This is very intentional living. It is the same set of questions about every item that I’ve been asking while decluttering. Why do I have this? Will I ever use it? Is it replaceable, or not? How much time and money am I willing to spend keeping it?
Already, boxes are heading back into storage. I’ve opened a few where, instead of unpacking all of it, I selected a few things, and put left the rest in the box. I foresee another lightening of my load, literally and emotionally.
Blink. Blink. It was a gorgeous day, which I spent in grubbies. That bed took two hours to re-assemble. A friendly neighbor saved me about another two hours by helping move the mattress. One person dancing with one floppy mattress is a long, slow dance. With two it wasn’t exactly swing, but it did move along.
Tomorrow, I hope to get those essentials that I packed far too early. They’ll infill the local storage unit, with selected pieces making it into the house. You know it is a tiny house, right? That’s definitely true, but it is also just about right - except between the before and the after.