apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

One of my fave topics (btw, love "apartment on a diet" concept!). I've blogged about "moving in together" and how to do that harmoniously. It's really about honoring the other person and the relationship.
Katy
http://fengshuibyfishgirl.com

I think the key is balance. Anyone normal (not a millionaire with 5 homes) needs storage. Of course there is a long way between practicality and hoarding/excessive clutter.

I agree with balance. You have to do both. So many times I see people do one or the other.

hey - did i sell you that lamp? the turquoise one...

I sold the same one to someone in LA - but never knew where it ended up. I always thought it was such a great lamp.

It depends on whether I'm willing to put in the extra money for additional storage. If I'm not, then the 'stuff' is excess and should be gotten rid of.

moepong-

I'd love to know where you found that lamp

storage is bad. sure, your off-season clothes, christmas decoration and extra towels need a place to live, but everything else can live at goodwill. Once you start buying more stuff to put your stuff in, you're in trouble, friend.

not to sound like a hippie, but purging that stuff is a truly cleansing process. you will feel better.

i just helped some friends do a "clean sweep" style purge and they worked on it for a week. in the end, they were glad to have it all gone and said it brought them closer together. win-win!

seems like on a lot of these storage posts people are promoting the minimal lifestyles, but those kinds of people might not be artists (not saying you aren't just a generalization). I say this because as an artist you end up with so much stuff to work with. I have boxes (and boxes!) of paper stored behind clothes in the closet, 1 tub of screenprint stuff, 1 tub of drawing stuff, 1 tub of block print stuff, markers, pencils, it goes on and on. No, i'm not going to throw that stuff out because I will need it at some point in my artistic life, and actually am using most of it actively. Plus, staying at home working on art isn't what i do, i am a graphic designer and just work on art in the free time.

I just always see those kinds of comments and it made me think, and that is what i kind of came up with.

I found it in Palm Springs at a garage sale. Its vintage and super awesome. I was a little sad to sell it...but I just couldn't find a place for it in my house after three months.

I'm a purger.

Wow, I'd like to know where the coffee table is from -- incredible.

I agree with nikki moore - almost everyone has to have some storage. It's very normal. But there is lots of furniture for sale that can pull double duty and you can hide some storage - like under the bed boxes, etc. Don't let anyone guilt you into getting rid of something just because you have to store it.

That left-hand image is lovely. Is it from the apartment with the band of upper-wall shelving? I wish I could find that house tour.

Henrieta,

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/house-tours/house-tour-polly-bens-sherman-oaks-shangrila-los-angeles-029198

I keep it bookmarked, it's one of my favorites.

There's storage and then there's STORAGE. When I hear about things like in-the-stair storage... Unless you have some serious constraints [houseboat, your apartment/house is ridiculously tiny for the number of people living there, etc], why would you need that?

But I think part of that is just the inaccessibility of it. If you have to store it in odd places, you can't get to it easily, so you don't use it often, so what's the point of having it?

But on the other hand, storage such as a closet for clothes, or a bookcase, or some cd & dvd racks - that's something useful.

Ana,

Thank you!

This is very timely for us as we are just wrapping up a massive clearing out and reorganizing effort. We concentrated on clearing out first and managed to get rid of about two dozen bags of clothes and household stuff as well as numerous bags of garbage - and many old textbooks from college - and also three pieces of furniture that I had always hated. Then we acquired a new shelving unit and boxes in different sizes, both from the Container Store, and reorganized the stuff we wanted to keep. It felt divine!

Good work, Emily the Cat.