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“Minimalism sure does suck you in,” she said. “Life looks easier. It seems like your skin will be dewier and your hair shinier — a happier, healthier version of yourself.” Today, Ms. Bertelsen believes that she’s struck the perfect balance, living in a well-edited space with expressive touches, like the stand, built by a friend, in her dining room that displays one of her riding saddles, a memento from a sport she loved as a child and young adult. But she also kept her backyard chickens from her Dwell phase and maintains that she’ll always be a little bit of a minimalist type inside, too.
Sensationalist article title aside, I thought this was a really good article. I think that some people get as obsessed with purging and take it to the extreme as much as the other side of the coin with hoarders who can't discard anything at all.
I have been trying to find my happy medium and I think this quite really nails it. I can live without clutter but that doesn't have to mean a home stripped of the things that make it *my* home and not some tastefully decorated but impersonal hotel-style abode.
Most notable, some studies have linked crowding-related stress to increased rates of domestic violence and substance abuse; experts worry in particular about the growing trend of micro-apartments in urban centers. To combat New York’s housing shortage, for example, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration held a competition to design the city’s first affordable residential tower of micro-units — single apartments of 260 to 360 square feet — which opened in 2016. While everyone’s tolerance level for small spaces is different — there’s no agreed-upon formula for square-footage-to-person ratio, Dr. Kopec said — each of us can handle only so much crowding in our intimate quarters before it takes a toll. At least in a tiny house or an R.V., as opposed to a micro-apartment, people can retreat outdoors for privacy.
So true. When we lived a few years in town, we went minimalist and stayed that way, not for lack of space but because it felt calming to have lots of open uncluttered room inside as a sanctuary from living in a densely populated area. Sometimes it felt like going INdoors was the retreat, which was very strange indeed.
Now that we live in a rural area I am actually looking forward to adding more personal touches, even though the home will be smaller. But our LAND will be, oh, 320 times as big, with even larger properties common all around it.
Bottom line for us is that the buildings should be somewhat small, but the private space around it needs to be enormous. I never, ever felt my mind was uncluttered when we lived in town, a distinct contrast to where we had lived before that which was miles away from town and developments.
The reality is that convenience ultimately does not override personal needs that require some inconvenience.
pikabike, I agree, I find that a more uncluttered environment is more calming and less stressful for me. We all have to find the right balance of that calmness and the personal touches that make a home a home. I don't need lots of personal space like you, I am much happier in an urban environment, but my house needs to be my oasis.
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