My Kondo moment

Do you use tailors' tacks or tracing paper? Both?

Looking at my tailors' tacks today, I recalled the first time I saw one.

My cousin (about 20 years older than me), was sewing a dress for herself. She left mid-project for some reason and I tried to 'help' her while she was away.

I had seen her clip threads and throw away stray bits of thread. There were so many bits of white thread on her dark dress pieces. I carefully picked them all out and put them in the trash can for her. Wasn't I a helpful child?   ;-)

Between the western and lunar new years, I usually do a bit of decluttering and cleaning.  This year, it seems like people have been hit by KonMari fever.  I was always a little bit like her, but not quite so extreme.

Where others read a how-to manual for discarding things, I read a coming of age story of a young girl, finding her place in the world.  The story of her sneaking into her brother's room to declutter it for him reminds me of my misguided attempt to help my cousin.

The story of her spending recess in the classroom to rearrange the book shelves broke my heart.

What did you get out of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up?

While I was walking, sewing and cooking today, I reflected upon my own stuff diet.  Things have not worked out quite how I expected.  Both my parents downsized and I took home a carload of sentimental stuff.

Somehow, we accreted a second home and filled it.

[I feel at peace about this.  Scientists have so few job opportunities in the US today, living apart from spouses who are also scientists is not uncommon.  It's not what we would choose, but it is the our reality.]

I also know that this is a temporary living arrangement.  When DD graduates from high school (only 16 more months!), we will all live together again.  Bad Dad and I have made mental lists of what we will move from LA to Boulder, what we will store, and what we will pitch.  On each of my trips to LA, we sort through a different area of the house.

The KonMari method sounds cathartic, but is binging and purging ever environmentally sound?  Wouldn't it be better to not have over-consumed in the first place?  Supposing one has moderately over-consumed, wouldn't it be better to 'use it up' gradually (stuff diet) instead of throwing it all away (purging)?

Stuff from my parents' and in-laws' homes and our own excess stuff came in handy when furnishing and equipping our Boulder home.  I also frequented thrift and consignment stores in Boulder.  When we merge households, duplicate but not sentimental stuff will go back to thrift stores.

Meanwhile, I'm dreaming of a time when we will take long foreign family vacations again.  When that time comes, these hidden travel pockets will come in handy.

Where do you fall on the continuum?

Minimalism or maximalism?

Are you the type to "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" or to make a clean sweep of excess stuff?

Joan Acocella's take in The New Yorker: Let it go

Behind the walls

Remember this picture from The Pillow Zoo?

In November, Bad Dad helped me mount a television on a column.  You can see it in the mirror.  The two columns looked like this mid-construction.  If you blow it up the picture, you can see the black coaxial cables, blue Cat 6 and white electricity lines snaking through the soffits and columns.

In a concrete building like this, you can't run the electricity through the floors and ceilings.  We had to really think through where we wanted infrastructure, and how to route it.

My contractor asked me where I wanted to put the TV.  I replied that I didn't have one, but might like a wall-mounted one on the column on the right, which contains one of the four support posts in my condo.  They built out the R column to match the size of the L column, which contains the HVAC water pipes and fan.

They knew that you can't hang TVs off an aluminum studs, so they faced the Al studs with wooden 2x4s.  They also put wooden boards between the Al studs in the kitchen soffit, so I can mount pot racks.  I didn't have the experience to know these things, but I'm glad that I worked with people who were paying attention to these details during construction.

Do you want to see more photos of how we built infrastructure behind the walls?

Wordless Wednesday