via Verena Stummer featured @decor8(photography: Gregor Hofbauer)

 

When I was younger and I thought about my future home, I always thought about what I wanted to put IN my home.  I thought about what I didn’t have or what I wanted or  what I hoped for.  I thought about what I could create and what fun ideas I could come up with and interpret into our home.

Now that I’ve been doing this for 28 years (I’d say I started about 10 years-old with my Barbie houses, I was one of the lucky ones with the Barbie Dream House complete with the pink plastic canopy bed) I’ve learned that creating a beautiful meaningful home with stuff I love to be surrounded by isn’t just about what I put IN my home.

It’s just important to take things OUT of our homes.  What NOT to have.

Maybe more important.

Because if EVERYTHING has meaning then nothing is really meaningful.  Especially if I feel that I must keep and display it all.

If everything is beautiful and I can and must have it all, then it’s just a bunch of piled up beautiful things. And a bunch of things, beautiful or ugly, begins to look and act like a hoard.

If I’m keeping all the beauty piled up on the tables and in the corners and in the holding area, just in case, then the Stuff Manager rears her ugly, bossy head and gets mad because all she does is constantly care for these objects.

Sometimes I ask myself, what’s the least amount of stuff I can have in this space and still have it accomplish our homes purpose and goals? Having a meaningful, beautiful home is a goal of mine, so I consider that with the question, but sometimes I’m surprised at how little it takes to meet my goals and still look beautiful.