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ltlfromgardenweb

Sentimentality is the enemy of cleanliness.

ltlfromgardenweb
9 years ago

Happened upon this article today and I read it thinking, YES, YES, YES! Whenever I look at too many perfectly styled homes on Houzz and then click back over here to pics of "real" lived-in homes, the overwhelming difference that jumps out at me is that most people have way too much junk on every surface of their homes and nearly everyone's house would look a million times better if they took a trash bag to every room and filled it up with most of their knick knacks.

You might say those knick knacks are what gives a house personality but I agree with this article that after a short while you no longer really see the items anyway. Anyway I thought I'd share:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/features/2014/rethinking_spring_cleaning/spring_cleaning_clutter_is_the_enemy_of_clean_don_t_be_sentimental_chuck.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Sentimentality is the enemy of cleanliness.

Comments (34)

  • luckygal
    9 years ago

    âÂÂSentimentality is the enemy of cleanliness.â Not always. There is an error in thinking that the âÂÂmore-is-moreâ style of decorating means that one's house is not as clean as one that has less decorative accessories. That is a POV that is often heard here but it's simply not true. Some of us like more decorative accessories and we still have clean houses. It does, without a doubt, take longer to dust and clean when there are more items but it's still possible to have a clean house. I love my Swiffer! However even before Swiffer was available and I used a damp cloth for dusting I still had a clean house, just took longer.

    Who is to judge that an item has âÂÂno decorative contributionâÂÂ. Not everyone may know the provenance of other people's items but it might be a valued family heirloom that for the owner greatly contributes to their enjoyment of their home.

    Why do those who dislike the âÂÂmore-is-moreâ style so often criticize the style? I could not live with minimalism but I will defend anyone's right to decorate that way. I expect the same respect with my choices.

  • lucillle
    9 years ago

    I dislike a lot of clutter, but do appreciate meaningful, beautiful decor. I have a small house and I envy the beautifully put together cottagey look with fabrics and decorations, I look to GW for inspiration.
    I think the enemy of cleanliness is lack of cleaning, so if you have a collection of 'stuff' either set aside time weekly to dust it or hire someone to do it for you.
    I do spring cleaning and throw away stuff, but my favorite items remain.
    A little dust is not an archenemy either. Lived in doesn't mean those awful hoarding stories full of saved tv dinner boxes and whatnot, but it doesn't mean a sterile germ free living area full of shiny item-free surfaces.

  • ltlfromgardenweb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Well okay, probably he should have said, Sentimentality is the enemy of a slick looking house, or a sleek looking house, or a house that you'd see on Houzz. I guess I can appreciate this article because I'm guilty of keeping and displaying too many things that were given to me or that I picked up on some trip and I no longer truly look at them, appreciate them, or dust them--they just all add up to a cluttered look that's not doing anything for me or for my house.

    Oddly, my father and my father-in-law are two of the worst offenders in my house--they both like giving gifts of home decor type items that I then feel compelled to display, forever.

  • ltlfromgardenweb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Okay I have an example that are similar to those in the article. In my bathroom I have several lotions that were given to me as part of gift sets. They're not the kind I like, so I don't really use them, but I don't feel that I can throw perfectly good unopened bottles of lotion in the garbage, and plus I think: well, maybe one day I'll have a "lotion emergency" where I run out and these will be good to have on hand. I can't regift them because by now they've been sitting in my bathroom so long exposed to steam and whatnot and maybe I've opened them and used a tiny bit... I don't move them to the vanity cabinet because then I know for certain I'll never use them and when I'm dead my daughters will have to deal with throwing out what will by then be crusted over, dried lotion. :-)

    Yes I'm overthinking this, but that's kind of what clutter does. It sneaks up on you one item at a time until you have so much of it's embarrassing.

  • anele_gw
    9 years ago

    Believe it or not, I have very few knick-knacks, and my house does NOT look like a Houzz-house. In fact, I am on the hunt for more display items, because (for me) it is part of what transforms a house into a home. But, I know that I won't have many ever, just because I have so little room for display items. (The shelves we have in our LR are filled with book, mostly ones for the kids, though I read them, too.) Likely, I will just stick to items for the wall (have next to nothing), and being sure that what I have that is useful/needed is also what I think is beautiful or at least my taste.

    I absolutely agree, however, that, for some, the knick--knacks are just clutter, and like some of yours, LongTime Lurker, many are just obligatory items for display. By the time I was in my early 20s, I'd amassed many such items as gifts from family and my then-boyfriend. (He liked to shop.) I broke up with my boyfriend, and eventually gave away most of what he (and others) gave me . . .much to my mom's dismay. The thing was, I didn't have much room then and I thought that I'd rather get things for MYSELF that were meaningful. Almost 20 years later and I still haven't found them!

    I also agree that having a lot of stuff does make cleaning harder. Doesn't mean a house will be messy, but for people who are sort of on automatic when it comes to decor (obviously, not GW people, haha!), it's something they might not think about.

    Thanks for posting!

  • lakeaffect
    9 years ago

    Some of us, like YT, think cleanliness is the enemy of fun.

    sandyponder

  • writersblock (9b/10a)
    9 years ago

    Hmm, while I don't have much in the way of tchotchkes myself, I think it would have been more accurate to say that "Sentimentality is the enemy of sterility". There's always an odd tendency to confuse a blank slate with a hygienic environment during periods when sparse rules the decor biz. Funny how that goes right away the next time a busier look comes back in.

    It's possible to be just as unclean in a sparse environment. Sometimes easier because you just don't think about it as much as when you have many surfaces to maintain.

  • PRO
    Whitelacey
    9 years ago

    ...after a short while you no longer really see the items anyway...

    The trick is to rotate items on and off display. I have many collections but there are only a few items of each on display at any one time. No clutter, no forever cleaning. And, a fresh look on a regular basis.

    Linda

  • patricianat
    9 years ago

    Any of you wish to dispose of that dirty old money, I have a repository awaiting your sterilization.

    Slate, often the friend of bird cages everywhere.

  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    Did you mean to say, "in my opinion ... most people have way too much junk on every surface of their homes and I think that nearly everyone's house would look a million times better if they took a trash bag to every room and filled it up with most of their knick knacks."

    Because what I read was a sweeping pronouncement from someone who is not paying for my decor not living in my house.

  • madeyna
    9 years ago

    I,m torn on this . I love to go to someone elses home and read their life and see their interest threw thier stuff. On the other hand I cann,t stand clutter in my own home. I have to make a point to not over edite my home because I don,t want it to look like the sterile envirement my grandparets lived in.

  • dedtired
    9 years ago

    I disagree. I think sentimentality is the enemy of closets, drawers, cabinets, basements and attics. That's where I have all my sentimental can't-part-with stuff. In fact I have been dealing with a shelf full of boxes of photos, many of which should be tossed.

    I don't have a lot on display. I really can't stand those graveyards of framed photos people have on a table. You can't even see them.

  • ltlfromgardenweb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I'm sentimental about really silly things. The clock radio someone gave me when I was in high school. It's plastic with a fake wood grain, haha. It doesn't even work anymore! But I can't seem to part with it. So it sits on my dresser, silent and dark (and dusty). Someone please tell me I'll never even notice it's gone.

  • Oakley
    9 years ago

    Longtimelurker, can you define "junk" for me? I would definitely call all the bottles of (old) lotion in your bathroom as being junk, but not pretty accessories in a house, which is a huge part of decorating. IMO. :)

    I suppose if I threw away my junk, I'd have to get rid of my decorative shelves (not bookshelves), tables, the hutch in my kitchen, sofa table...and on and on.

    Oh, and the mantel would have to go too. It would serve no purpose if we didn't put our "junk" on it.

    I'm one of those who has lots of knick knacks. My pretties (figureines and special sentimental things) are in my curio cabinet.

    But I really do want to know how you define junk.

  • ltlfromgardenweb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Not just my opinion, Lazy Gardens -- If you look at the most "favorited," most liked, most popular photos on Houzz or elsewhere, there's plenty of carefully curated decor items but not much of what you'd call clutter. Of course this is all subjective! But there must be some consensus otherwise a great many people wouldn't all tend to prefer and "aspire to" certain looks.

    Actually maybe that's the difference? Haphazard assortments of stuff that tend to collect without much care versus items that are more thoughtfully chosen?

  • iread06
    9 years ago

    "Cleanliness is the enemy of fun."
    sandyponder

    My new motto!

  • SunnyCottage
    9 years ago

    I don't even know what "Houzz" is. And now I think I'm glad that I don't.

    **off to dust my mantle - filled with sentimental, haphazard treasures that I wouldn't DREAM of parting with because someone else thinks I'd somehow be better off without them**

  • Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
    9 years ago

    Oh Sunny, it's amazing. All those decorator magazine pictures at the checkout all online for you to save to your folders.
    Like white appliances, vintage kitchen, washing machine in kitchen...so you can get ideas. All free.

  • SunnyCottage
    9 years ago

    Afraid I'm not following, Bumblebeez. Then again, I HAVE been away for quite some time ...

  • anele_gw
    9 years ago

    Unwanted lotions and a broken clock radio?

    Watch an episode of Hoarders and you will toss those without a second thought.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Hoarders

  • patricianat
    9 years ago

    I don't think every man's trash is my treasure but a lot of what you treasure, so do I.

    Do the masses not understand the houses on Houzz are staged, most of which are brand spanking new and never had a dirty diaper or (God forbid) sanitary napkin inside much less a nonworking faux wooden radio with a dust collection.

  • work_in_progress_08
    9 years ago

    Coming out lurkdom status, this post peaked my curiousity.

    I totally disagree with the premise presented. My home is clean, but I do have decorative items commiserate with my interests, taste, personality, travels, etc. Everyone has a different level of tolerable decorative items. Clutter drives me nuts, so I will never qualify to appear on that show with the hoarders.

    However, I do have an acquaintance who's home has not one decorative item visible in the common areas of her home. Not a piece of artwork, vase of flowers, table lamp, nada. The acquaintance has several younger children (elementary age & younger) which may be the answer. Maybe it is just easier to have nothing at all decorative? The home, at least to my eye, seems so stark, so much so that it seems that there's no personality beyond the bones of the house. There's nothing but the requisite pieces of furniture one would need to not be sitting on the floor, and really leaves visitors wondering if anyone actually lives in the home, save the flat screen tv mounted over the fireplace.

    Said home is totally void of a spec of personality other than an "in" grey color paint on most of the common room walls. I have a feeling that it was the color on the walls when purchased. The LR furniture is leather, has a what looks to be similar to a reclaimed-type wood coffee table. Not a thing sitting on a kitchen counter or any other horizontal space in any public space in her home.

    When I first visited the home, I thought perhaps she was in the middle of a move that I hadn't heard about. Nope. I'm all for editing when it comes to having too many decorative items. This home has the feeling that the family of more than 5 could vanish in just a few very short hours. Every last thing could fit into their SUV (including personal items like clothing and such). Now that, just seems odd to me.

    While I believe tasteful editing is a good thing, this home reads cold and totally lacking any.single.item of interest for the eye to land.

    This isn't a matter of lack of means by any stretch, but I cannot imagine living in a house that in no way feels like a home.

    JMHO

  • lucillle
    9 years ago

    " I'm all for editing when it comes to having too many decorative items."

    I don't know that anyone can say how many decorative items are too many, for themselves or for others. Even in one's lifetime, one may want to display more stuff at one time than another time.
    In the Spring I do spring cleaning and get rid of stuff, but never my fave cherished items.

  • Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
    9 years ago

    I find Houzz extremely helpful, for instance, I typed in black dining room chairs and pulled up hundreds of images. Many were normal rooms, not over the top, and gave me ideas of how to style my chairs in a room,
    Same with black kitchen cabinets, etc. Farmhouse table,
    Or laundry closet....
    Most rooms are staged for pictures, of course, but don't we all do that anyway?

  • brit5467
    9 years ago

    LTL (the op)....I totally 'get' you and what you meant. I, too, have the pretty gift bottles of lotion that are too pretty to use or I don't like, yet continue to have a home in my bathroom for fear of a lotion emergency....lol. That one made me laugh.

    And I have a dear friend, my neighbor, who loves to thrift. To the point that she is a hoarder. So she's begun to buy me things that she thinks I will like (mostly cats.....cat plaques, cat statues, cat ashtray, etc.). Funny thing is, I don't decorate with cats normally. Yet I feel obligated to display them.

    In her defense, I must say she did just bring over a beautiful cat mirror that matches perfectly with my color scheme in rememberance of my kitty who I just lost. But mostly, her taste just isn't mine. What to do, what to do?? LOL

    I have small beach cottage and beach decor and love old and found things, as so you can imagine....EVERYTHING I have procured for myself has some sort of sentimentality attached to it. But my house is neat and most people call it comfortable and homey.

    Yet, no one ever seems to notice the collection of antique aqua bottles on my shelf, or the antique glass insulator on my dresser in the LR.

    I found two really nice faux mercury glass vases after Xmas, also on my shelves and as of yet, no one has ever noticed them.

    Why? Because they're mixed in with too many other knickknacks. It's just way too busy...and I know it. (I agree with a prior poster who said you need to rotate your collections....I just don't do it because I have no place to store them without them getting put away and forgotten....lol).

    And I didn't think you were talking about not being clean as being dirty. I 'got' what you meant. When a house looks cluttered like mine, I often feel it looks 'messy'. And 9 times out of 10, there is plenty of dust because who has time to dust around all that crap?

    Every so often I do purge my collections. Mostly tho, because I've found something new I want to display. One of these days I WILL get around to really thinning things out.

    But until then.....

    Thanks for the article. I enjoyed it !!

    Bonnie

  • Circus Peanut
    9 years ago

    I thought having kids was the enemy of cleanliness. ;-)

  • peegee
    9 years ago

    Oh Circus, LOL!
    My 2 cents: balance; usually the healthy part is in the middle.

  • selcier
    9 years ago

    I'm in the less-is-more camp. I have many pieces that I love and display. But I try to change these out every now and then with other pieces I have in storage. One handmade piece my father bought me (a gold bust of Tutankhamen) still. Ends to mounted so it can properly shine!!

    But, the article brought up some other good points about general type stuff like shampoo bottles and magazines. That's the kind of clutter that. Others me. Just plain old stuff everywhere. Crowding in the cabniets. Overflowing from closets. Too many c,othes. Too many canned goods.

    When people on tv say "we need more storage!!" I always wonder what exactly they are needing to store. Their basements are up to the ceilings piled with stuff. When was the last time they even used that? Do they still need it?

    This brings up the bigger question of consumerism... Which I'm not even going to touch.

    There is an awesome book (the name escapes me) that profiles average income families across the world. They take all their belongings out of the house and take a picture. The difference between Nepal and the United States and the United Arab Emirates is shocking.

  • ditsyquoin
    9 years ago

    A wise friend of mine told me that "one spends the first fifty years of their life accumulating stuff and the next fifty years trying to get rid of it."

    I'm in the second stage. It's a very time consuming process that I don't know I will finish.

  • tishtoshnm Zone 6/NM
    9 years ago

    On the lotions, see if there is a local emergency women's shelter that will accept them. In my house, living in a windy desert with kids is the enemy of cleanliness. I should just embrace the enemy and stop fighting that never ending battle.

  • vedazu
    9 years ago

    Just want to comment on the "graveyard of framed photos" that no one can see. I happen to like the gathering together of photos--on walls, or framed on the back of the piano, for example. I can glance at a few as I pass, and I'm down memory lane....parents now gone, grandparents long gone, children, grandchildren.

  • palimpsest
    9 years ago

    I think not cleaning is the enemy of cleanliness. We have tons of stuff piled on many surfaces (some are clear for function), and we pick it up clean it off and put it back. Our house is very clean. I'd eat off the floor. And I work full time + including several evenings, design on the side for people, am doing parts of our renovation, and have plenty of time to get eight hours of sleep, to read and to spend on GW. But I don't watch TV.

  • schicksal
    9 years ago

    We're in the same situation with the renovation... I'm getting closer to the end of rebuilding (no exaggeration) about 1,300 square feet of our house from the ground up. Kitchen, formal living room, entry hall, and family room - pretty important spaces. Everything that was in all of those rooms has to go somewhere so the entire place is a wreck right now.

    Between that and both of us coming from a family where parents never culled their stuff + my grandma who hoarded to the extent that it took 3 YEARS to go through everything when she died, it just about makes both of us crazy. But seriously people, go through whatever is out or in your closet/garage/basement/... once a year to get rid of stuff. If you don't use it anymore you won't even notice that it's gone.

    The idea of rotating things that are out on display is a great one IMO. My personal one is pottery that my mom made by hand in the '70s. It's not going to Goodwill but at the same time, the pieces should probably rotate in and out every month or two.

  • Annie Deighnaugh
    9 years ago

    Sentimentality can be an issue. DH is very sentimental and over the craziest things. That's why I have boxes of old linens in the attic that don't fit our beds and a gravy boat he couldn't part with. Go figure.

    Being thrifty or avoiding wastefulness is also part of it...how can I get rid of a perfectly good whatever...that's how I have so many mis-matched glasses and other oddball stuff like a metal container full of elastics...

    But I agree it's not necessarily an issue with cleanliness as much as with clutter.

    Though I do recall, our first year of marriage, we could afford the house, but not the furniture. So for a year, our LR was the town's largest hallway. To clean, all we did was vacuum...I think I had a tall plant and a few throw pillows on the floor and that was it...certainly was easier to clean than after we furnished the place...