Furniture | The Aniweda Dream

Einstein's living room in Berne, Einsteinhaus,...

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Moving a lot is exciting, renewing, and inspiring. New experiences are gained, horizons are expanded and being efficient is variable. I’ve moved at least every 3 years since I was 12 years old. I love having the freedom to explore new possibilities and locations, but I realize there has to be some continuity. Home management is a great place to create a loving routine that works, wherever you happen to reside.

This is my task. For over 6 months I lived on the road with my husband and our oldest daughter. We traveled in a small Honda and camped out on beaches, in the mountains, in backyards, etc. There’s more on that story later. The point is we were free-spirits. Going where the wind blew us, and we made no effort to impose on our environment or on ourselves.

It was a great way to live, but it created a comfort in minimalist living, and when we started to maximize we had to relearn the customs of house-holding. Being in an RV is a unique situation to figure out a system for. The storage is interesting and using our space well is a challenge. Like lots of twenty-somethings we wanted to rebel from our upbringing, but in terms of home management, your first home(s) growing up is the best place to start. I remembered that we had magazine racks in the living room and a space for mail. We also put magazines on the coffee table. I remember I usually had to vacuum everyday, and everyone had chores. It was easier to keep things neat and organized because everyone did their part.

I’m not really into making a home look like its not lived in. I’m also not into stressing out about how clean things are(or are not), or about dishes being left in the sink or having to clean up after other people. None of those things bother me, it is just the balancing act of having too much of it on anyone’s plate. I decided to remember some of my old habits and preferences to keeping my things(when I was just me, instead of we) together.

I decided to start with the living room. We do almost everything in this room, sometimes sleeping, working, eating, playing, reading, coming and leaving. I’m clearing out my old motorhome and brought over a few boxes and organized them in the living room while my daughter was watching Muzzy and the baby was taking a nap. I organized a lot, and found some things I’d been looking for. I’m planning to focus on one room at a time, and creating my own personal spaces and keeping constantly used spaces completely clean, to hopefully reinforce the habit of keeping things clean(like kitchen counters and bathroom floors).

I organized baskets around our living room couch, taking into account the fact that the baby likes to climb on the couch and pull everything down onto the floor. I also put all of the toys I would like them to be able to get into on their own in a box and pushed it under the “coffee” table. I threw away a lot of paper junk, and put a lot of books, papers, boxes, art and bags away. I put our instruments stacked on top of each other, put the library books together and put important documents and cords into an open cabinet space on the edge of the living room and kitchen. I put socks into the shoe cabinet, and I put lots of clothes into the laundry basket next to the door. Since we’re naked a lot, change our clothes and haven’t really organized our closets or bedroom storage yet, I figure it was a good idea to have a big basket for clothes and things of that nature in the living room where we spend most of our time.