I like a tidy house, in general. Now, you mustn’t assume from that statement that I always (or even often) HAVE a tidy house. I don’t. I have three small childten, three cats and a giant goofernut of a dog. Cleaning the house in such a situation is rather like brushing ones teeth whilst eating Oreos. Usually, the tidiness lasts about 7.2 seconds.

A few years ago, we began to foray into the world of minimalism. We decluttered and destashed and donated vanloads of things that had been collecting dust for years, so much a part of the furniture they weren’t even seen anymore. And we discovered that while we are not capable of a fully minimalistic lifestyle, we both felt very much better for having reduced the clutter around us. The mental clutter went away, too.

When we began the journey toward selling our house, and planning to downsize to a smaller, more rustic home, we destashed and removed and sold and donated even more things. Our goal was to reduce our posessions by half.

One might assume that such a decision would cause anxiety, but we we found the opposite to be true. The more we pared down, the more we sold, the more we sorted and removed, the more free we felt. At the end of it, we still had far more than truly necessary.

In the time since, we have been living tiny. First in 2 small guest rooms, and then in the 12×24 tent, and now the bus. We have had very few of our belongings with us. And we haven’t missed them all that much. Some things, yes, but certainly not everything.

Now, the tent and the bus have both been difficult to keep tidy, owing largely to having nowhere to put things away. The eventual house has been designed with a LOT of storage options for that reason. There is no such thing as too much storage space. We do manage tidiness for a brief period every once in a while.

Today, we were tidying up the barnhome. It was still cluttered with ladders and tools, trash and wood scraps. Hard to get a good idea of what will fit where when there are all those things in the way. We spent a few hours, putting away and tidying up, rearranging the furniture that is already there and making mental notes for what is yet to come in. And sweeping. So. Much. Sweeping. There is always more dirt, it seems. Someday, maybe we’ll have it all swept up.

There is much to be said for a tidy nest. It begins to feel more like something that could be called ‘home’.