8 Simple Truths About Stuff to Remember in 2018

Stuff. We spend a lot of energy and money acquiring it…and we spend a lot of time looking around our homes and wondering “How the heck did I get all this stuff?” If you are tired of the push and pull of stuff in your life, consider these simple stuff truths by a design expert who absolutely aces storage, stuff and style in a small studio apartment.

When asked what she’s learned since living in a small home and what advice she has for someone about to make the small space plunge, Amelia of Urban Cottage NYC had these seven stuff truths.

1. Be honest and purge ruthlessly before you move.

2. Don’t pay to move things you don’t truly love.

3. I’m not big into guilt. Someone once told me “don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you.”

4. Live in this moment and with things you love. Once you have your belongings pared down to what truly matters, you will find a way to store them.

5. Have patience. It takes a while to get to know a new home and come up with systems.

6. Editing once a season keeps it all working as it should.

7. And it’s okay to be messy — just know where to put things away when it’s time to pull it together.

I’ve got my own to add to Amelia’s list, something I’ve learned about stuff in the past year: 8. It’s totally okay to like the stuff you do have.

In recent years, Marie Kondo, minimalists, and even those folks who purge their belongings down so much they can fit in a tiny home have left me feeling pretty guilty about all the stuff I have. (I need to remember truth #3 of Amelia’s from above!). I’ve known I could never be a minimalist, but I thought I could at least be a medium-ist. Nope, I’m totally a maximalist at this point in my life, and that’s totally okay. Like Amelia says, just know how to pull it together when it counts.

→ See all of Amelia’s gorgeous 490 square feet Hell’s Kitchen studio apartment in her house tour.

→ Read about how she entertains in such a small space: Entertaining Tips from a Small Space Studio Dweller.

→ Or find out about how she manages to store all her stuff successfully.

→ You can follow Amelia on her design business website and Instagram.