Your Guide to a Clutter-Free, Peaceful Home
A messy home can be a pain for a homemaker, but it doesn’t have to be. In The Clutter-Free Home, Kathi Lipp shows how women can find peace in every corner of their life through decluttering their home. No matter who you are or what your home looks like, you can take back control of your space and have a peaceful home. Start your journey to create a purpose-filled home!
Tell me about your home life growing up.
I would say my dad had a challenging childhood, not a bad childhood, but he had some challenges and he brought those into the house. He never really had a way of getting rid of things. Things were emotions to him, and he collected everything from stamps to electronic parts to rocks. Just everything. He was very intelligent, and so those collections meant a lot to him cause he knew a lot about a lot of things, but the problem was that he had no way to curate those collections.
Growing up, I was a collector of everything as well, and I really didn't know how to limit myself. I had to get to a place where I realized that stuff was not relationships. I didn't need to keep those things. When it really came to a head is when I married my husband Roger, who had two kids. I had two kids and we were all moving into his 1400 sq. foot house when we got married, and I had to decide what was more important: peace in our relationships or this stuff. And that's really where my journey started.
What led you to create a purpose filled home?
When we got married, we had so many different personalities coming in and it was hard to manage all those personalities and all the stuff. What I began to realize was that the more stuff I got rid of, the less tension that was in the house. It was amazing.
My husband was already not a clutter-y person, so I realized it was really me who was bringing that stuff into the house, and I had the ability really to control the peace level in our house to a certain extent. And so that's why I decided, “Okay, I need to work really hard on getting rid of some of that stuff.” It was really emotional, but my present was more important than my past, and I couldn't do anything to affect my past, but I could do a lot to affect my present. And that was getting rid of the things that we didn't need.
What is your number one tip for how to make people feel welcome and at home in your house?
Don't apologize. Whatever state your house is in, realize that that's reality, and that's reality for a lot of people. We want to make sure that people aren't uncomfortable because we've made them uncomfortable, and so if you want your house to be clutter-free before you have people over, don't start off by inviting somebody to spend the night. Have somebody come over for coffee and work on one little area that you will be peaceful in. Also understand that everybody's on their journey. There are people you're going to have in your home that are struggling with clutter as well, so make them feel comfortable.
How can someone express themselves in their home?
I think it's really important to understand what you use each room for. Get really purposeful in that and say, “My kitchen is for creating. Whether it's work or food or whatever, that's what it's here for.” I actually like to hang signs in my house that really kind of establish what is happening in that room. We have a sign in our kitchen that says All the Best Memories Are Made Around the Table, and that's a reminder to me that that's what I want the kitchen to be. I want it to be a gathering place where we can create those memories. And then in the living room we've got a great JRR Tolkien quote about how this was a home where people gathered and sing and ate food and told stories, and that's what I want my home to be.
What do you hope readers take away from your book?
Progress is a beautiful thing, and I just want people to have the hope that people who think that they could never live a clutter-free life [realize that that’s a lie]. We can all do it; it's just taking a little bit of time and intention. You don't need any special skills. You don't need any special equipment. It's just time and intention over and over and over again, and you can have the kind of house you want.
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