Maximalism – the tiny maximalist

I have accepted my maximalism. I don’t apologize for it. I’ve often gloried in it as I hung a whole wall of frame-to-frame pictures or sorted my hundreds (thousands?) of buttons into color categories and put them in jars or opened my drawer to choose from my many different colored and patterned shirts.

But, what happens when a maximalist decides (for many reasons that we will go into later) to “go tiny”? Will I inevitably become a minimalist? How hard will it be to get rid of some of my stuff, and how much of it will have to go? Will it be donated? Will it earn money? How will my family cope?

I’m going to be living the answers to these questions over the next 6 months. It’s gonna get ugly. It’s going to be a lot of hard work. I’m already completely overwhelmed. But, man, I’m pretty darn excited.

Do you love rich, colorful pattens? Do you like to “collect” things? Do you, in fact, have a collection or collections? Do you mix eras and styles and textures in your decor? Do you always err on the side of too much rather than too little? If so, you might be a maximalist like me.

A maximalist is the opposite of a minimalist. Those of us with maximalist tendencies are drawn to excess and even redundancy. (One might be so bold as to call my 12 teapots a little redundant. Especially since my husband is the only one around here who drinks tea.)

Maximalists don’t have to be clutter freaks or hoarders. We just like the feel of more around us. Bare walls make us nervous. Our refrigerators usually stay at maximum capacity. If we travel, we like to visit a new place every couple of days and fit in as much as we can. If we are crafty sorts of people, our craft closets/fabric drawers are so full of beautiful prints and stripes and solids that it’s sometimes hard to close them. When we find a half-price sale on our favorite shirts, we think, “Great! I can buy twice as many!” (And not, like my husband thinks, “Oh, good, I only have to pay half as much.”)

If any of this describes you, then welcome to my tribe! I love your style, friend.

A few of my favorite collections: