have not read the book; only blog posts & articles about it. having 4 kids & moving alot while my ex was in military has always kept me purging as we went along. AND when my Dad passed, it really hit home. we sorted & let each child & grandchild pick an item they wanted to remind them of him. we had a yard sale, donated to the Am Vets, donated to Hospice thrift shop, and gave away to friends & neighbors. now i look thru stuff almost weekly to donate.

She wrote it from a very Old Age of thinking. She is Shinto and follows that belief system. And yes, it was never intended for English audiences originally.

If you have a tendency to collect thrift store decor, maybe try coming home AFTER you bought things and make yourself get rid of the same number of things you bought. I appreciate the KonMari method but for me, asking myself "what do I hate the most of my stuff" or "what do I like the least" makes it easier to get rid of a few things at a time. And I feel less guilty about making new purchases!

The problem was that it's simply too easy to acquire mid-century treasures. I had vintage Pyrex (way too many nesting bowls taking up space), milk glass, a massive collection of Franciscan dishware, vintage ephemera, a beautiful and unique framed crewel needlepoint from an estate sale, and on and on.

I had run out of space. Also, as the owner of a tiny home (hey, it's Silicon Valley, we all bought $1M+ small, ugly homes with no attics or basements), I have little space to display my treasures and didn't want my place to look like a garage sale.

I could have opened my own Etsy shop or had a stall in a cottage shop! But nope, instead, I did the unthinkable and gave all but my most treasure pieces away to Savers, the Discovery Shop, etc.

Didn't sell on Craigslist or eBay, just made 15 trips to these thrift shops and gave it away. I saw some of my former things at a shabby chic shop nearby the following day.

What remains, I highly treasure and use all the time. Less stuff, more joy! I think I will still hunt at thrift shops but I will be a lot more selective. It's more about the experience of the hunt than it is the bringing home of more treasures to my too-small home.

That'll do it to you 🙂 I once went to a garage sale where the garage was packed to the rafters with all sorts of stuff, yet everything was priced at antique store prices. He told me his wife wanted him to get rid of stuff so she could park in the garage again. I ended up not buying anything there because of the prices, but I saw him at an auction a few weeks later where HE WAS BUYING even more stuff. I'm pretty sure his wife never got to park in the garage!