Tag Archives: Marie Kondo

We Must Use the Tools We Have: doing more with less

Posted in Architecture, Uncategorized by
Things can be both utilitarian and beautiful. The window seat hides the duct work.

I know lots of folks have been talking about what they have missed and what, perhaps surprisingly, they have not, during this pandemic. As Americans, consumerism seems to have been gifted to us as a birthright, encoded in our DNA as surely as our hair color, skin tone, and propensity for language, music or math are. Perhaps gifted isn’t quite the right word. Maybe the word in fact, is cursed. It robs us of our creativity, and creativity, surprises and delights. Why ever would we want to go without it, for the opportunity to use an avocado cutter, that you’ll probably forget you have, or have difficulty finding in your cluttered kitchen drawers when the time comes to use it? I can tell you how to do it with a knife and you’ll be just fine.

Custom outdoor cushions are super expensive. I did want to make this seat look more nautical and with the help of my good, and incredibly talented Interior Designer friend, Helen Baker of Helen Baker Designs, we used a little painting tape to give us the nautical stripped look we were attempting to capture.

A couple of side tables I picked up from a second hand shop and repainted. New life – $15.
A couple of dishtowels make fine place mats.

That’s what this pandemic has done for me. I’ve discovered that I have been limiting myself to the purchase of food, something that I would not be just fine, if I didn’t have. It’s made me Marie Kondo my decisions in a way I hadn’t before. Oh I always organized the way Marie says one should, before I knew it was a thing to fold, roll, tuck, and line ones drawers with our belongings, in the way Marie says in her soft gentle voice, but as for the part of loving and cherishing them, I don’t think I was really down with that philosophy, and yet I find myself asking, will that sandal really add a new rich texture to my life? Henry David Thoreau said: “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” That’s pretty profound. I know I still pick pennies up off the street, understanding that someone exchanged their time for that little piece of copper, but I am not sure that the purchases that I’ve made have been framed out so prosaically as to beg the question – Is that $300. swim suit worth the amount of your one single and precious life you exchanged for it? Now maybe it is, but this pandemic has provided a new perspective for me. I am still going to appreciate beauty. As a write this and look over at the craftsmanship of the window seat that Eastward Companies built, with it’s deliciously thick, Sister Parish fabric covered cushion, and two Farmhouse Pottery grid patterned pillows, I can say that that exchange was worth it to me.

If this is what …”for the birds” looks like, count me in. A collection of carved birds, gathered over a lifetime, find their final roost. All Photography Copyright: Cutrona

I can live without my avocado cutter. It’s still never been used. Maybe I could sell it on Craig’s List.

Happy Sunday.