Ever since I moved out, I always had a clean and clutter free space. Which was actually kind of surprising for my parents, because all through adolescence my room was a huge mess.
Laundry, books, school papers – everything in piles on the floor. But as soon as I had my own space to take care of, that changed.
I often wondered why that was the case, and for the longest time I thought it was a part of growing up and being more responsible. Or maybe due to the fact that when I threw the freshly washed laundry in a heap on the bed where it would slowly make its way to the floor to mix with the dirty laundry, it was a lot more work for me.
But interestingly enough, none of that was the actual reason.
Now not to go all Mari Kondo on you here, I am far from being a minimalist, but I realized along the way that a cluttered (and, even more, a dirty) room makes me feel unhappy.
Cluttered space, cluttered mind they say, and while I don’t think that is true for everyone, it definitely is true for me.
Now why was that no big deal when I was still living with my parents? Because back then there was my space and then many other rooms. The living room, the kitchen, the dining room, lots of places I could sit and relax without having to worry about my own messy bedroom.
After I moved to my own space, I couldn’t escape the mess. If I didn’t clean it, no one else would, and I was slowly running out of places to sit.
The whole out of sight, out of mind thing stays true though. I am not that tidy when it comes to places that I can close the door to, places like the basement. Or, far worse, places like the garage.
See, we have one, and while it needs some substantial rebuild for us to be able to park our car inside, it had over the course of the last year(s) slowly become the dumping ground for everything broken and dirty. And for the occasional gardening tool.
With summer here, I need my gardening tools, and I also need a place to store them, best without the need to free them from underneath a broken down cabinet. Which lead to project number two with our fixer upper (read about the first one here) – a massive garage clearout!