How hard is it for you to get rid of sentimental stuff?  It’s really hard for me.  I might not even like something but because it reminds me of someone or some experience in my past, I want to keep it.  Luckily, my dad taught me a little de-cluttering trick:

Take a picture.

It’s the easiest way to part with something that you truly love because in some small way, a part of that item is still with you.  It’s perfect:  a picture takes up less space, and – this is my favorite part – it doesn’t have to be dusted.

Here’s one of the items I took a picture of last May before we moved to Germany.  I remember making these bookends out of red clay in my grandma’s basement as a young girl.  My dad helped me hollow them out, and we fired them in a kiln.  Over the years, I just couldn’t part with them no matter how hard I tried.

So I took a picture.  One year later, I couldn’t be happier.  I can have my old bookends with me wherever we live, and I don’t have to pack them into my suitcase.  I just pull them from our digital file system where we keep photos, movies, and paperwork.

If you have more tips for de-cluttering sentimental items, I think we might all love to hear.

Sometimes Martin and I get a little nostalgic for our home in Berlin.  We’ll flip through pictures.  And when we’re video chatting over iChat with our family that’s taking care of the place, we’ll try to peek over their shoulders to see our little home.  So when Steph wrote to me with a few questions about our apartment, fine.  Go ahead and pinch me.  Make me look back on those good old days in the land of beer and bratwurst.  Here’s her kind question:

Hi Katie, I love your blog, it’s amazing how in north america we waste so much.  You’ve made me stop & think do I really need this or will I end up just throwing it out , your blog also shows how much we need to change things here in Canada especially with recycling.

Anyways I was wondering how much storage space do you have in Germany for storing clothes, do you have closets, & did you have to downsize the amount of clothing & linens that you had?  Just curious:-)  -Steph

First off, Germans don’t have closets.  I’ve heard of a dozen reasons why – from taxation to efficiency.  You name it.  All I can tell you is that about everyone from North America thinks it’s nuts.  Then you get used to it.  Germans generally prefer to buy furniture like this wardrobe to keep everything organized in:

You can probably guess: we don’t have room for something like this in our 480 square foot house.  True to our nature, we learned to improvise and focus on the things that can add more to our home.

Storing our clothes.  Martin and I share a dresser that’s smaller than the one I grew up with.  We each have a space that’s just under 2 x 2.5 feet tall and just deep enough for a folded shirt or pair of pants.  Then we have about 25 hangers for work clothes, coats, and my dresses.  I actually have to flip the bottoms of my dresses into the hangars since our hanging space is only as tall as Martin’s long sleeved shirts.  We have five little drawers for things like socks and undergarments.

Learning to cut back on clothes. Think you could fit all of your clothes in that much space?  We sure couldn’t in the US before we moved.  We probably couldn’t have fit all of my things in that much space.  I think we were really lucky that our move to a small home was also an overseas move.  We maxed out on how much luggage we could check into the plane (200 pounds); we didn’t want to pay for shipping.  It meant only our favorite clothes went with us.  We stopped hanging onto all of those things that we never wore and never really liked.  Then we only bought what we absolutely needed in Germany – like a few sweaters when it got cold.  We wash one load of laundry in our half-size washing machine every week.  If we get behind, we run out of clean clothes.

We didn’t have to create challenges like last week’s mention of our No New Clothes shopping challenges like we’re doing this summer in the US.  When you don’t have extra space, you find yourself putting a much different value on everything you own.  It’s the same if you’re a person who moves a lot.  The only things that stay are the things you absolutely want to (or need to) have.

Stashing the sheets. We expect a lot of guests over the years.  You know how it is.  Move to Europe, and family wants to visit.  So we have three fitted sheets: one for us, one for the fold-out couch, and an extra.  We only have one top sheet for in the summer because we use duvet covers, which are sheets that wrap around a puffy blanket that Germans adore.  Those all get stuffed into this big drawer that we built into an alcove in the hallway:

The space used to be white and completely empty.  By building a drawer and bike rack above it, we snatch priceless storage.  It also means our bicycles – which get us everywhere – don’t have to be parked in the middle of the hallway.

Keeping shoes. The hallway is already filled anyway.  It’s home to all of our shoes.  Yep.  All ten pairs.

Martin built this little bench/shoe rack to match the old bookcase after much begging from me.  I didn’t like picking up shoes to clean the floors, and I wanted a place to sit down to tie my shoes (we follow the German tradition of taking off our shoes at home).

Hauling groceries on foot would be a miserable job in flip flops, so we don’t have any.  We have to have shoes that we can do a lot of walking in.  I have flats, dressy sandals, and tennis shoes.  They’re all I need in the city.

I love shoes in Germany.  They are so attractive that I even find myself looking at mens’ feet in the U-Bahn (subway).  It’s probably why I dream of buying more shoes… if I had room.  But even if I had a dozen pairs of shoes, I think I’d still reach for the exact same ones every time.  Would you?

Hanging towels. Is it just us or did you get a lot of towels for your wedding, too?  We were so nervous that someone would come to our house and see that we didn’t have their towels in the bathroom.  (We got over it quickly, though; we had to return most of them to afford dress clothes for Martin.)  Fast forward to today, and we have far, far fewer towels.

We started from scratch instead of bringing towels from the US – not that it took a lot to fill our needs.  We each have one large towel.  When it’s time to wash them, we reach for one of four small towels that serve as guest towels and a hand towel.  It’s all we can fit in our storage-less bathroom.  The crazy thing that we’ve learned is that it’s all we need.  In fact, if we had no guests, we wouldn’t even need as many as we do.

So Steph, I hope that answers your question.  Now everyone will be sure to notice – “Aha!  You wore that same pink shirt two weeks ago, Katie.”  It’s true.  I probably did.  But if I weren’t wearing it, I’d have to get rid of it.

Feel free to shoot an email my way for more Q&As or spout out a few secrets for living with less in the comments.

(First image from IKEA, remainder from Making This Home)

I have a new band to share with you today.  Yippee!

I usually try to share music that Martin and I both absolutely love.  But the truth is that I’m not sure what Martin thinks of this group.  I’ve kind of been playing Honeyhoney’s first cd over and over.  So if he used to love it, he’s probably sick of it now.  

The man behind it all - Ben Jaffe – says that his musical partner - Suzanne Santo - would describe their music as ”Rocktastic” or “Freeky Deeky”.  She says that he’d call it pop.  Either way, I’m a little shocked to discover some awesome musicians before they make their Wikipedia debut.  Here’s their only YouTube song on performance so far:

So what do you think?  Kinda fun?  Totally not?  (I snatched up their music on Amazon.)

Looking for more fun tunes?  We love this fun band that performs with orchestras around the world and this European singer most Americans haven’t heard of.

We love a new piece of clothing (who doesn’t, right?).  It’s just that we’re not so big on cramming our shared dresser with it all.  Let’s face it – you’ve probably guessed that storage isn’t exactly abundant in our 480 square foot home in Germany.  After all, we each only have room for five pairs of shoes in the storage bench we made in the hallway.  The house made of tires that we’re living in offers even fewer storage options.  That’s why we started a new summer resolution:

No new clothes!

The basic idea is that we’re going to challenge ourselves to go the entire summer without purchasing a single piece of clothing – no shorts for hiking, no cute sandals, no anything.  We’ve been on the challenge for a month so far (beginning the day after we scooped up some last minute jeans for Martin).  Things are looking good.

I know what you’re asking: What’s the point in this challenge?

It’s always great to look at the things you already have in a totally new way. You stop thinking about the clothes and accessories you don’t have because you find yourself focusing on the thing that matters – and at least for us, clothing just isn’t it.  It isn’t the brand names or the latest styles.

Taking this challenge means no boredom shopping.  It means the people we see might notice that I don’t have that many shorts, and I don’t have a whole lot of sweaters for when it gets cold.  But geez.  I sure have some clothing that wasn’t being worn that I wasn’t noticing because I was paying too much attention to new things or the idea of new things.

I expected these things to happen.  I wanted to wait a month before sharing our little goal to see what else might come up.  Like with any challenge, I found something I never expected:

This challenge has also made me appreciate myself more. I can ignore the ads and urges to be someone different than myself.  It’s sort of like all the ads are in German all over again, and I can spend my day without worrying if my shoes are fashionable or anything else because I don’t even notice the ads… even if I can understand the language.  There are no more “what ifs” and “shoulds”.

Granted I realize I live miles and miles from an actual mall right now (you have to start somewhere, right?).  A summer without shopping (even for things I think we need) has been so worth it at this point.

The only problem now is the wear-and-tear our pockets have to endure from the cash we’re saving.

(Image from Flickr)

We love tea in the morning; we love another pot at night.  What we don’t love is how our hot pot was starting to look after a couple dozen uses.  Mineral deposits were piling up.  Looking through our pot was like waking up to a foggy day.

Call me lazy, but I wasn’t about to start scrubbing another victim of mineral deposits.  So as you know, we’re loving the green cleaners we’ve been using.  Why not try the same approach with our hot pot?  I filled the pot a quarter full with  3/4 water and 1/4 white vinegar, turned on the pot, and walked away.  A few minutes later, I came back to a perfectly clean pot.

You gotta love a quick clean, so I figured it was worth passing along to all of you if hard water is the bane of your cleaning, too.

We think vinegar/water solutions are also brilliant (and cheap!) for:

The motto now is going to have to be:  when in doubt with cleaning, turn to vinegar!  It’s fabulous.  Just don’t use it on your tile grout.  The two get along like pickles and honey.  Eww.

We’re big on books at our house.  Maybe too big.  The pile has gotten out of control.  Now we’re finally coming to grips with the reality of hanging onto so many books.  They’re just cluttering our life.

I’m establishing a system for parting with our old loves (and making a few bucks along the way!).  Chances are, your shelves are as stuffed as my boxes, so here’s a couple tips for bidding excess books a final bu-bye.

What should you ditch?

First get all of your books together in one or two places so you can clearly see just how many books you have.  How many books do you want in the end?

Second put nostalgic books in one pile, and sort them separately so you don’t end up keeping every one.  I have to assign myself a number of books I can keep before I start looking through the pile.

Third – and this one’s the biggy – get rid of every book you don’t see yourself picking up within the next five years.

Fourth pull out the novels that were ehh and all that nonfiction you’re pretty sure you’ll never need again.  Get that stuff out.  (Like why am I holding onto my old statistics textbook?)  Heck, if you’re hesitant about that novel you’ve had for ten years now, give them to the library, and you can check them out later!

Now what should you do with the books?

Try donating them! As the daughter of a librarian, I couldn’t stress how much libraries could use your books – especially libraries in small communities and elementary schools.  More people get to enjoy your books, and there’s a tax deduction to boot!  Women’s shelters and organizations, overseas servicemen, senior centers, and even your neighbors and expat friends would love a few delicious English books.

Try selling them.

First consider secondhand bookshops.  They’re a great way to get rid of your unused books without a lot of work.  Just be prepared to get a shop credit instead of cash.  The Brits are awesome about opening used English bookshops around Germany.  Danke!

Second try the Amazon Marketplace.  Search for a book you don’t want on Amazon and click on the link that says “Have one to sell?  Sell yours here.”  Pick the book’s condition, choose a price, and add comments about the book.  Then wait.  Note: it’s hard to get ahead with book sales on Amazon if your books are popular because lots of people will be selling them for cheap.

Or a Paperback Swap.  A couple of readers told me about paperswap.com.  Post ten books on the site when you join and swap for new books.  The only expense is shipping.  Nice!  The problem, of course, is that you’re not actually getting rid of books.  You still have the same number in the end.

Or even try selling them on other sites like cash4books.com, abebooks.com, and on and on.  Entering the data of one book at a time and mailing them can be tedious, so it’s your call.

What do you guys do when it’s time to declutter your shelves?  And while we’re at it, what’s your favorite book or author that you could never part with?

(Images from our shelf in Berlin & Flickr)