Complaining about _The Stuff Cure_

[walkitout]

In the room by room section, some advice about decorating. There's a Papa Bear (large things like a big TV, sofa), Mama Bear (chairs, side tables), and Baby Bears ("accent pieces") theme. Specifically:

"Baby Bears constitute the accent pieces that express your individuality and taste, such as coffee table books, glass, art work, candles, reading material, and family pictures. Add Baby Bears to your decor [she puts the accent over the e in decor) only if they make the room look better. Be mindful of Baby Bears that tend to creep into the room and contribute to a cluttered look. You can return your room to an organized look by counting the Baby Bears and keeping the number of less than seven for the entire room. [authors' emphasis]." Stuff about seasonal changes and flowers.

A couple of points here. They are at least not so extreme that they say No TV in the Living Room, and they advocate finding a use for a formal room if it is never being used. Points to them. Serious points to them.

But _seven_ "Baby Bears"? So you put a couple candles, a vase, one book, a couple family pictures, one piece of OTC art and you're _done_?!? Are flowers in the vase counted as two things or one thing?

Some of the minimalist blogs might go this far, but most of them ban living rooms on general principles.

The authors also advocate for paper towel re-use. Paper towel re-use is a Thing. It is a Thing that I Disapprove Of.

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/reusing-paper-towels.htm

Get a Fucking Dish Towel. Wipe Your Hands On That. Stick It In the Wash Every Evening. Not Hard.

There is also this Ted talk about how to use paper towels minimally.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_smith_how_to_use_a_paper_towel.html

I don't know why I didn't notice I was Losing My Religion in this area years ago. Some of these people are Very Odd.

ETA: Also, it is Blu-Ray, not Blue Ray. And she talks about book storage after covering media storage for music and video, but makes no mention of e-books. She mentions a Nook earlier on in the book -- and I'm reading it on the kindle, it has a 2012 publication date. A little mysterious, but perhaps explained by the pro organizer quote that books are the hardest thing to convince clients to get rid of.

The authors who limit you to 7 "Baby Bears" have this to say. "Where cabinets, closets, or drawers are not available, stackable plastic storage boxes are functional, and not unattractive, when placed in a corner or along a wall." The mind boggles at a writing time who thinks that stacking plastic bins in the living room along the wall is somehow more attractive than more than 7 pictures on the wall.

It's YouTube, not UTube. Eeek! Wrong URL, even!

ETA: I am unsurprised that the workflow descriptions (paying bills, filing, paying taxes, keeping records and so forth) are terrible. Personal organizers/declutterers are notorious for being paranoid and keeping stuff too long. I assume pathology (or why would they feel compelled to do this, right?). But this is ridiculous:

"Also it needs to be noted that failure to report income is considered to be fraud with no statute of limitation."

Not true. 6 years from filing OR whenever you lied to the IRS agents who asked you about it. I do _not_ understand why anyone still thinks, in 201x, that you need to keep tax documents of any sort that are more than 10 years old, other than things needed to prove a basis in a property you still own (and related things like credits you are rolling over from year to year, such as AMT credit and so forth).

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

In my house a bookcase is a Papa Bear. Also, surely similar objects grouped together are generally seen as one decoration? E.g., we have four little plates over the top of one of the doors in the kitchen, and that seems to me to be essentially one thing, as if there were tiles there or something.

You can try to re-interpret it to make it make sense.

[walkitout]

Or you can accept that these are people who have become extremely ruthless about Getting Rid of Things, likely as a result of living for decades with _50_ unopened boxes from previous moves.

I agree that bookcases are Papa Bears (I didn't include their full list of examples). I am unconvinced that similar objects grouped together would be judged by these authors to be one thing. I think they might tell you to get rid of all the small item and get one bigger/better item in its place.

However, I absolutely agree with you that grouped small items = one large item for decorating purposes. My mother-in-law does watercolors, which are nice, and which we have a lot of. I took four of them (she quarters a canvas, so they are roughly the same size), had them framed and matted to a uniform size and shape and had R. (because I am Sloppy) hang them in a rectangle on a wall in the bedroom. I _love_ the result, and I didn't have to shop for some huge thing to put in that space.



It is not possible to put any furniture along this wall, as there are doors at either end and one in the middle:



To the right of the bathroom door, you can see the curio cabinet.

Other example from this room of grouping small to make large. It's above the bed in the master suite, so the, er, NSFW aspects of the art are appropriate:



And another example of grouping small to fill a large space:



That's in the upstairs hall -- you can see some of the toy storage "book"cases further along.