My cottage has been described before as “warm messy”. It was filled with couches and nooks and a bazillion statues and musical instruments and books. There were paintings on every wall and doo-dads on every surface. And that kind of warm-clutter-messy felt like that was my me-ness. I revelled in it, even though it felt overwhelming and hard to keep clean.

This year though… I’ve been feeling the call to something that kinda scares me.

Something that I joked about as being beige in the past…

Minamalism.

Before Little Mermaid was born, we knew we had to make some actual SPACE in our lives for her to enter. We let go of bags upon bags of clothes and books. Mr Hottie even decided he didn’t want his child transfixed by our large TV, so we donated ours to a community organisation and replaced it with a teeny-tiny one instead. And we thought we were done.

Then three weeks after she was born, we decided to move back home – 2000 kilometres away. We decided to put our house on the market – and needed to make it WAY less warm messy and more warm and spacious to make it yummy and appealing to buyers. My sweet mama came to visit for three weeks to help us with our mermaid daughter, and instead of just hanging out with a newborn, we did that AND decluttered and cleaned like we have never done before.

And the more we got rid of?

The more I felt at home.

We sent most of our belongings back to the tropics already, and for the last three months have been living with the barest of essentials.

And you know what?

I just don’t miss our stuff.

Our home feels calm… soothing… relaxing… not overwhelming.

Just functional. Flowing. Good for the heart and soul and dreams.

Here’s what our home looks like right now…

And the boxes we’ve already sent home? All the extra STUFF? I feel like going through it all again and letting it go. Just keeping the minimal, and concentrating on living and loving.

We are moving from a fairly open, large three bedroom modern home to a 1.5 bedroom 100 year old cottage.

And as much as I love colour and warmth and being surrounded by good things,

I want to keep this essence –

of clarity. of space. of openness. of calm.

Once we’re up in our new home, I’ll share photos again as we create our new space… making it filled with the essence my soul is longing for.

I just started reading these two e-books as well:

The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life by Leo Babauta

The Art of Being Minimalist by Everett Bogue

Who woulda thunk it?

This Goddess is becoming a little minimalist.

What about you, gorgeous hottie?

Do you harbour minimalist fantasies?

love you all good,