Can you live a minimalist lifestyle and be a junker?????

You might say I'm "conflicted".

 First and foremost I'm a junker. I love to hunt, find, and purchase unique and fun vintage stuff. I love to decorate and re-arrange. I love the unexpected fabulous mystery piece, that will be just perfect in this spot or that.  But I'm also a very organized, neat and tidy person, who at times, just wants to clear it all out.

Organized but dense 

 How do I possibly combine both of my personality traits?  Well, It's not always easy!

Way too busy!

The organized part of me says...  "Keep it simple" "if it's not useful or beautiful, don't have/keep it"  and  "when it starts to look cluttered, clear it out".

Definitely needs decluttering in here. Photo is old and I've removed a ton of stuff from this space since.

Then the junk lover inside says "but that piece is so special, I just have to have/keep it"

Not so bad, but still a bit crowded.

That's a little bit better

My solution is to have spaces that are "cluttered" and spaces that are "edited".  Basically for the sanity of my marriage, the "edited" spaces are the shared spaces.  The "cluttered" ones, are "my spaces".

This is one of those "my" spaces where I allow myself to clutter things up

And when things get a little "dense" as hubby says, I edit...

This is "after" decluttering, but I've since edited it even more. There are fewer items on the desk now, and on the shelves.

Sometimes I'll go into a room and say to myself "remove just one item".

I'll look around for the item that I'm "over" and move it to my Etsy store.

There are at least 4 items in this photo that have since been moved out

That is the other way I deal with the desire to hunt and gather. As a "dealer" I can find, purchase, and enjoy an item for awhile, and then move it along to the next person. It's a way to feed the sickness.

This space is fairly well edited. If I were to walk in here and try to pick an item to remove, it would be the cases under the coffee table.

And when I feel I'm failing, I just look around at all the Junk, hubby has, and I feel much better. :)

My things don't take up nearly as much space as Cars, Motorcycles and Mini bikes:)