Housework

[poliphilo]

I had a cold. It went away. Then it came back again. In the brief interval when I didn't have a cold I got all fired up and did some housework. "There you are," said Ailz. " You stirred up all that dust and now you've given yourself rhinitis."

Could be. 

Can I use this as an excuse for never picking up a duster again?

No- because there are little pills to treat the condition. I've just popped one. And actually I'm quite a fastidious person. I don't mind dust and think piles of books and papers enhance a room- but I don't like it when things become sordid and start to smell. 

A house is an expression of the self, a second body, a vehicle for personality- which is why novelists think it worth describing the rooms in which their characters live. A tidy room shows a tidy mind. Francis Bacon, the painter of screaming popes and decaying flesh and men humping one another on rumpled beds, lived in an absolute pigsty- as you can see from pictures of his studio. Well of course he did.

Ailz sometimes mutters darkly about hiring someone to come in and clean. I react with panic. I don't want a stranger handling my things. Everything is just where it ought to be until I choose to rearrange it. Bleaagh, get your mucky hands off!

Ailz, I should hasten to point out, is no tidier than I am. She may in fact be worse. And most of the time she's quite happy to live  in bohemian disorder. It's just that every so often she gets these cravings for the house beautiful- which I dismiss as an atavism.

We keep one room all neat and tidy for receiving guests. It's very nice. And- guess what- we hardly ever use it. I took a book in there yesterday and sat for fifteen minutes or so in a comfy chair- then got up and left.  I missed my clutter. The prettiness made me feel uneasy.

The room we mainly live in looks like this. 



It's home. And as long as there's still a space where I can safely balance my teacup I don't see any need to change it.

Comments

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I can only second that. I need my beloved level of clutter, otherwise everything feels..sterile. Since I live with Dan, everything is A LOT cleaner and nicer in here, but my little chaos in my office.. nobody touches THAT!!!!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

When my daughter was younger, we used to call her room 'The Cave'. Every 8 - 10 weeks either her father or I would blow a gasket and DEMAND that she clean it up. Then would ensure an all day - usually Saturday - marathon of sweeping, moving, cursing and re-arranging. And when she was finished it did look lovely. However, by the next mornings breakfast she would stomp into the kitchen complaining that 'I can't find anything. It's all too neat!'

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

It appears a very bright and cozy home indeed.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

My clutter level is about the same as yours. It consists mostly of papers and books and mail, which seem to multiply in my absence. There's also dust and cat-hair, which gets vacuumed.

I have lots of little nic-nacs, too- collected from places I've been. And lots of fiddly little things. Those little things threaten to overtake me, and I have to regularly go around with a shoebox and clean them away lest I get buried in them. They're the Perfectly Good little things that tend to hop into pockets, totes, handbags, and things and come home with me.

I do keep my home at a certain level of order, though. You will never find food or food containers anyplace else but the kitchen or dining room. Same with drinks. Clothing is restricted to the bedroom, as are shoes. I don't like to see clothing or dishes out of place. The floor is kept clean, too- while I have my magazine bins lined up in the living room, the only things permitted on the floor are cat toys. If I toss something on the floor, it's a signal for me to clean it up, so when I sort through paper, I'll create a floor-pile, because I must dispose of it.

The dining room table is the main battleground between pristine emptiness and the paper piles. The paper usually wins. My Dream Home will have a second large table besides the dining room table to spread papers on. It'll be in the office/library.

[freesprouts.livejournal.com]

That room looks quite comfortable.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

As I sit here studying your picture all I see is a cheerful , comfortable clutter.

As long as there is nothing growing mould, rotting or dead under things, it's all good. I once told someone I had piles of book teetering precariously throughout the house...and we do!

I like your fireplace.

I love your room!

[aellia.livejournal.com]

Where do people,who live the minimilist lifestyle,put things?
Anything?
I think the picture of it would make a good jigsaw puzzle. I used to have programme that made them before I got connected to the web. I was easily pleased. What with that and my "Starry Night" programme :-)
I'm rambling....
x

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Well that looks nice and cosy. It is the paperwork that runs me ragged, and the empty teacups and the beer glasses and the apple cores, and the CDs that are not in their boxes and and and...

My DH creates Entropy. I fight it. He has the easier job!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I do not like nor live in clutter, but this is a tremendously cheerful and cozy-looking room. It seems like just the sort of place to be an artist.

[sovay]

The room we mainly live in looks like this.

And it's beautiful.

I have books in stacks. If anyone ever rearranged them, I wouldn't be able to look up anything I need.

[oakmouse]

Oooh, OUR house! ;)

My DH is prone to piles of stuff of every description, from books and papers to drafting tools. Especially when he's in the research phase for the next book.

I'm prone to stacks of books and heaps of yarn and piles of plastic storage boxes full of crochet hooks and beads.

We're both bibliophiles.

Translation, our whole house pretty much looks like yours. Except the bathroom, which only has piles of towels, but that's because it's too humid for books and papers. Otherwise books and papers would collect there too.

We know pretty much exactly where most things are. We keep anything that might smell bad (dishes, food scraps) under tight control, and let the dust bunnies pile up until my allergies kick in. Then I vacuum and dust, using the vacuum attachment for the latter.

I'd rather live in a home than in a museum!

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

That room looks like a place I could feel most comfortable in.

I always feel weird and a bit inferior when I walk into homes that are utterly clean, without dust or clutter or mismatched objects. I wonder if people actually *live* there, and whether they meticulously pick up everything they do the minute they finish. I feel like they judge me when they come into *my* house, and yet--I would not want to live their lives.

And books. Have you ever walked into someone's house and realized there are no books anywhere? What do these people do? Usually they have the latest, biggest TVs available. I feel like an alien in homes with no books, like we have no possible common ground.