Downsizing???

My husband and I have been talking about a smaller house.  A considerably smaller house.  We discuss the benefits of living in a small space, owning less and paying less for living expenses.  We've been talking floor plans and looking at clever space-saving ideas.  I'm all for it.  I look around the house and think of all the things we don't really use anymore since we aren't raising kids.  We could be comfortable with much less.  Let's do it!

I have made piles on my piles. I hate un-stacking piles of junk.  

Well... I say that till I walk out to the studio and look around.  I open the cabinet doors, slide out the drawers of my flat file and walk past the pile of paperwork needing filed on my desk and turn right back around and head inside.  How in the world will I reduce my studio from a separate and dedicated space to being part of a guest bedroom?  How badly do I want to simplify? Can I live without all this stuff?

The goal is to see if I can fit all that I need into one closet.  So far, the answer is 'no' but where there's a will, there's a way!

Last Saturday I came out to the studio with trash bags, a broom and the determination to sort through what I have out here and see if I really need all of this, um, treasure.  Of course, now the room looks like a bomb went off - I made a much larger mess than I intended to.  Since it's this bad already, I have no other choice than to do a complete sorting/cleaning.  Yuck.  I'd rather have my fingernails yanked out with pliers.

Here's what I found out in my trashing-the-studio-blitz:

• I don't need stacks of cardboard sheets and boxes just in case someone wants me to mail them a painting.  Although the centipedes will be disappointed when that pile of cardboard burns, I may dance around it to celebrate their demise.  Who knew they had taken up residence there?
• The odd sizes of picture frames I bought 7 years ago at Hobby Lobby clearance have not been needed yet, not even once.  If I haven't found them useful so far, chances are I won't.  Sigh...
• The plethora of bags stuffed in the cupboard (which I wrote about a few days ago) are cool, but not something I need to cherish till my poor children inherit them and have to figure out where to stash them.  
• Oil paints, brushes and primed boards are worth hanging onto; empty half-pint jars with odorless mineral spirits and sludge on their bottoms are not.  

I know I am not the only artist who can't seem to throw things away, but why do we do it?  The containers my mushrooms have come in for the past year are not treasures.  I haven't needed those suckers yet.  I think we hang on to junk just in case we will need it, forget we have it and then work around the piles of it because it becomes invisible to us.  How embarrassing.  I'm becoming an art supply hoarder.  The next thing you know I'll have 20 cats and hallways into the studio between neat stacks of empty cardboard boxes.  So, the answer is, yes.  Yes I can live without most of this stuff.  In fact, I will probably feel better with the piles all gone.  Hate this or no, it's time to buck up and do this thing.  Dang it.  

Thanks for stopping by! Alice