In Praise of Clutter...

Full disclosure.   I live with a lot of clutter.  Not "call in the professionals'  level, but enough that a clean ordered house and clear surfaces feel forever out of my reach.  Mostly, I can live with that.

My partner is a builder, and in several sheds, around the garden and strewn through the house are:  planks of wood, nails and screws, half used tins of paint,  leftover pieces of machinery and power tools. Lets be clear - this is junk which is cluttering up the place and really needs to go.

Also around the house, in the attic, and in the bedroom are... costumes and vintage clothes, jewellery pieces and beads, bags of fabric, half finished projects (notably a medieval headdress and a Bridgerton style dress), ribbons, laces, shop fittings, packaging materials and bubble wrap. This is in no way junk.  It's incredibly useful, and cannot possibly be thrown away

So why do some people live happily in minimalist surroundings and others find it hard to ditch anything that may 'come in useful' someday?

In my personal case, I think that growing up without much money comes into it somewhere - it's hard to casually throw something away if you're not sure you can afford to buy another.  But maybe creativity does too.  Every clutterbug knows the thrill of hunting through a plastic tub full of junk and finding the perfect thing to finish a project off - perfectly balanced by the awful sinking feeling when the piece of ribbon or broken pendant you've just thrown away is exactly what you need.  You can visualise how good it would have looked... and there's almost never an easy replacement.  

Likewise, you will always be invited to an 80's fancy dress party the week after your closet clear-out has finally removed anything with shoulderpads.

I tried to Marie Kondo, I really did.  I kept things that 'spark joy'  - babies blanket, pictures from kinder, (sort of) heart shaped stone found on the beach. But I also kept the things that really are useful that spark more of a shudder.  The whole kitchen and the laundry would be empty otherwise...

As someone who loves historical clothing, the idea of cutting a piece of Grandma's wedding gown and framing it with a picture makes me cringe.   There's a wonderful story about some children who found a 'dressing-up box' in the attic - it turned out to be a trunk full of vintage Fortuny gowns and worth a fortune.  And while there are no fortunes in my attic (yet), who knows whether years and years from now someone will be thrilled to find a very valuable half-finished medieval headdress.