The Beginning of The Great De-Stuffing!

Today is the day I undertake the beginning of The Great De-Stuffing!

This is probably the most daunting aspect of Tiny Living for me.

Here is what my living space looks like right now:

Oh dear. I wonder if I should share this photo. My space looks like it
should be on a Hoarder Intervention TV show. Yikes. Well, I guess it's a
good "before" shot. It gives some indication of the enormity of me
deciding to move in to a Tiny Home.

As you can tell, I'm not the most organized person in the world. I've lived most of my life in the midst of chaotic clutter.

It's all made worse by the fact that I used to live in a three-bedroom home. I was a yuppie. I had lots of stuff. Not too much conspicuous consumption kind of stuff. Mostly art-related (fabric, yarn, musical instruments), plus books and lots and lots of disorganized paper.

Then, I left that three bedroom home and went to live in a tiny urban 1-bedroom apartment. I got rid of a lot of my furniture, but kept most of my stuff. I was attached to it. And I figured the 1-bedroom apartment was temporary.

After three years of living in a packed-to-the-ceiling-apartment, I moved from Toronto to rural Nova Scotia. A friend offered me a lovely loft space in the upstairs of his home (which as you can see above is now terribly cluttered).

I downsized quite a bit for the move (especially my heavy, heavy books!), but since arriving home three years ago, I've been accumulating lots and lots of stuff. People kept giving me things on the understanding that I was planning to set up house-keeping on my own. Every time someone moved house, they gave their extra stuff to me and I took it – thinking I would soon have a house of my own and that this or that widget/book/record/piece of furniture would come in very handy. And so, the boxes have stacked up to the ceiling. And the books and bookshelves have staged a successful coup in my loft.

And then, I decided to buy a Tiny Home! All at once, a couple of weeks ago. And now I'm looking at fitting myself and my possessions into about 200 square feet of gorgeous converted-trailer heaven.

And so begins The Great De-Stuffing.

I'll be posting about it here. With after photos to take the sting out of the scary before photo above. With descriptions of my precious things and disclosures about what I decide to do with them. Stay tuned!