S&B Minimalism / Kondo support thread

[FrugalFashionista]

Are you interested in decluttering, organizing, or downsizing? Or just being more mindful how you approach clothes, shoes, jewellery, makeup or any other objects in your home. Perhaps you are already Kondoing your belongings or are thinking about 333...

I'm a newbie, I've been decluttering our home for a couple of months now before and during a major house move. Is anyone else interested in sharing experiences, goals or ideas or just chatting with like-minded people? Please join us!

It sounds like you two are doing an amazing job Frugal. Dh tends to hoard clutter, especially anything to do with the kids. When I say 'ok, if we keep it then where does it live?' he just looks blank! Then I sneakily throw it out and he finds it and it ends up back in the kitchen.
Sigh.
It's not all bad, he's been a DIY star so far. What we need is to go to ikea and get some amazing storage. Not easy though with work and 2 kids and the nearest ikea being a 3 hour drive away

Help me fellow minimalists. I am having a heart stop over a beautiful Stella sweater. It would cost me 200 heavily reduced. I would love it but I couldn't wear it every day, it would be ruined with the preschoolers! It's a fantasy-me wobble. I will be strong.

Totally identify with the urge to declutter. I'm 34 and single and have basically been hoarding clothes and knick knacks my whole life. My dad passed away in December and having to go through and sort his belognings has made me realise that I want to streamline my life - it's just baggage at the end of the day!!

So I've been sorting out clothes and trouble areas - finding all sorts of crap that's been so cathartic to chuck. Now looking for ideas for organising the bits and bobs that I want to keep. Lots of art and crafts supplies, make-up and beauty products, ornaments and lots of fabric! Any ideas?

Sorry about my earlier post re capsule wardrobes - I realised it might seem like I was being sceptical about the whole minimalism/capsule wardrobe thing, and I'm really not!

It's just that I'm kind of coming at it from the opposite side, of having to rebuild an almost bare wardrobe (and have been in this position since having DD (3) pretty much... ). I keep looking for visual inspiration for a minimalist wardrobe, but only seeing the same style. Itscurtains, agree that it should be about choosing a particular palette, but it seems difficult to find the colours that suit me right now - so many cool neutrals in the shops.

Anyway, whinge over!

I agree that there's certainly fewer warmer colours in the shops at the moment. I've been buying khaki/moss green and some camel when I see it, I've also seen that there's more brown in the autumn/winter ranges though, which is good news for me :-)

Hurrah!

Greenstone we've been to Ikea three times in the past week They do have some great storage systems, we managed to make the most of the tiny cupboards we have here, but I have no urge to go back anytime soon...

DH goes back to work on Monday and I the week after (starting with travel, yay!) - to rest, I feel We have moved many times, this is our fifth big move to another country (= involving a shipping container and the fun of living without furniture for a few weeks), so we have developed some routines, but it is exhausting anyway. Hope you will get some time to focus on the rest of it soon!

LadyCaroline I've dedicated one shoebox (or similar - NAP and Matches boxes too) per item category so I have a shoebox of soaps, another of skincare, a NAP black box of sewing supplies, another of knitting supplies.

With arts and crafts stuff, think about what you will realistically need. You can donate the rest. When I was younger, I received a couple of boxes of threads and buttons from someone. I used them a lot back them, much less nowadays, and it might soon be time to let go of them.

Babs and Itscurtains I have the opposite problem, in that I am cool skin toned, and keep seeing khaki everywhere! My palette is navy, grey, with raspberry pink and sea foam green as accents.

Frugal, I love ikea more than life itself!

I can't wait to get moved into my new house. It shall be all laminate, wood, glass and steel. No soft furnishings unless they are utterly essential. All beautiful and closed storage from Ikea. A place for everything. Those amazing sectioned wardrobes. And the kitchen and office will be kitted out from Muji. And nothing will be allowed over the house unless it is either beautiful or useful or both banishes self

I got the most amazingly perfect jumper from Oasis in the Spring, navy with white stripes up to armpit, then deep raspberry across the shoulders, wish I'd bought two!

I'd love a hot pink or raspberry pink jumper for Autumn, but not found any in several years of looking for the 'right' one.

This is a gorgeous colour, but the M&S ones are too short for what I'm after. I want slouchy.

Hi everyone, just checking in. No huge progress to report here on the house-decluttering front as DH and I have sort of hit a wall of exhaustion and are just taking a step back to recover from last month's move. I'm dying to tackle the cheap and ugly plastic drawer sets that currently harbour all kinds of toiletry clutter and figure out some kind of decent bathroom storage for our two tiny bathrooms.

At some point during the move, my bronzer exploded all over my make-up bag, meaning that everything inside it is now brown and dirty. I want to scream. Does this happen to anyone else? If it's not bronzer, it's eyeshadow or something else. I try to be vigilant with caps on everything and ziplock bags where no caps are available, but this kind of thing is always happening to me and I haven't got the heart to deal with it just now.

I'm continuing to rotate a pared-down wardrobe and feel I'm doing well. I'm so glad I got rid of all I did before the move. Earlier in the thread I posted about wanting a new red sweater of some ilk. Well, after trawling through shopstyle's numerous £££ options, came across this boyo from Zara. It's certainly not going to be good quality, but it might do for what I want. I'll report back. I have bought some Maje jeans for half-price in the sale, and will likely invest in a couple of the merino Uniqlo sweaters linked by CoastingIt above thread. At some stage I'd like to find a printed or patterned long heavy-knit cardigan but not in any immediate rush.

Despite the shit summer here (Ireland), I have worn my Birkenstocks almost every single day. I'd love to find a winter equivalent pair of trainers that I can just wear and wear and wear (I'm OK for boots, and I have a pair of brogues). Any suggestions?

Finally, I've come to two conclusions:

1. Like a pp, I'm more or less done with costume jewellery from high-street stores. I've gotten rid of almost all of mine and now just wear only gold jewellery. I was lucky enough to recently inherit a beautiful antique gold necklace with a sapphire pendant which I'm ridiculously chuffed with. Such an unexpected treat.

1. I'm going to spend money I used to fritter on clothes on getting my hair regularly cut and coloured instead. I have fine crappy hair (worse after two dc) and it's time to start getting it looked after by the professionals.

Happy Friday!

Greenstone the makeup mess sounds really tough. For me, it's the stinky, slippery or sticky stuff that always explodes... I had a Travalo perfume bottle that leaked and another time everything was coated in shampoo.

I can recommend Ikea Godmorgon bathroom wall cabinets. They take very little space, are relatively easy to assemble and can contain and keep organized an awful lot of toiletries

My vacation is over and DH and I have Kondoed almost everything in our apartment. I didn't tackle a few drawers in the kitchen and my desk drawers are still a mess but will do them sometime soon. I still have too many shoes, t shirts and sweaters and DD's room is a tip but overall it has been a huge success.

I'll try to limit my S&B spending for the rest of the year and focus on using up and not replacing certain items.

Greenstone that jumper looks beautiful in the pics, I'd be worried about the acrylic / viscose mix though. I wish the Uniqlo merino one came in that beautiful red though. I am tempted to get the Zara one but have wasted so much money on cheap knitwear the past few winters it is one of my key resolutions, to only buy good knitwear. The shape is perfect though...

I'm a bit sad, I've kondo'd everything. :) what will I do now?

Catsy I don't know about your house but ours is an entropy generator - maintaining the results takes quite a lot of effort... My MIL and a friend have both been very impressed with my clearouts, I've promised both that I can help both with their clearouts. (Kind of like an antithesis of going shopping together.) If you have any friends or relatives who need help, you might be able to spread the good word

I was thinking about becoming a declutter consultant frugal I enjoy it so much! How much can I charge an hour do you think?

Loving the 'entropy generator' metaphor, it's perfect! No matter how hard I kondo, komono (MK speak for random crap) keeps spawning everywhere. I think I'm done with the first round of clothes Kondo-ing, although I'm sure there's a second round coming. I also did a stationery cull, which revealed a total of FIVE staplers, and several stashes of birthday / sympathy / congratulations cards (not quite sure whether to keep them all).

I too have got rid of l the cheap costume jewellery, but have a few pieces with semi-precious stones etc that aren't 'fine jeweller' but make for great accessories. If anyone's interested, the blog 'the Vivienne files' is a great read for thinking about how to build a colourful capsule-ish wardrobe.
My style isn't very minimalist - I tend to gravitate towards layers and a boho look nothing else works with my curly hair but this blog has helped me see how a few well chosen accessories can double your wardrobe.

My greatest kondo success so far: I eBayed a Mulberry Bayswater! Probably S&B sacrilege but I found it heavy, it kept falling off my shoulder, and it was being left in my cupboard not bringing me joy. So out it went!

TheWombat I think if I didn't have preschoolers I'd be interested in the boho capsule wardrobe idea. That's kind of how I dressed before babies. Now though I seem to be really stuck on the sort of French capsule wardrobe look which is a bit done to death but seems to be the only thing that works for me at the minute. Knowing that I like everything in my wardrobe and that each piece pretty much goes with the next in whatever combination I happen to pull it out of the tumble dryer or pile of clean laundry. Which brings me to:

Coasting I made that vow about only good knitwear a couple of years ago after dd1. It was an interesting experiment: I liked all of my fancy knits and wore them a lot, but often the quality was not as expected for the price. And where it was (Jack Wills cashmere, who knew?), it eventually ended up the same way as all the others, thrown into a hot wash and tumble-dried by DH

So now I'm not so strict about only wool jumpers because I really do need to be able to machine-wash for the foreseeable.

Anyway, I'll report back about the surely gross and staticky Zara sweater!