Is your home spartan?

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Bedroom is fairly spartan. Bed, dresser, bedside table, radio, some books, one picture and 2 kites on the walls.

Rest of apartment is definitely not spartan.

That's how it is for me when I live in normal homes and apartments. I find it to be very stimulating for my art.

In the art rooms/home offices I've had, I tend to go for a combination of comfy naturalism with touches of magical realism...the overall effect is kind of like working in a Joseph Cornell box.

Since I'm big on thrift shops and garage sales and am willing to paint and decorate the furniture, nothing ends up costing all that much.

I use a laptop now, but my the monitor for my last desktop computer was decorated to look like a log cabin. Before that, I had a celestial theme going in my home office.

Yep, and if I could throw out more stuff I would, but my son likes them, he loves containers of any size, I just find them annoying.
The simpler and sparcer the better!! !

I'd have a lot less stress if my home was more spartan. I waste an amazing amount of time looking for things. I periodically do a great purge but it seems to re accumulate. Part of the problem is anxiety that I'm going to throw away something I'll need later, as in papers, and part of it is I just get attached to objects. I can't explain why. For example, why do I need two cast iron frying pans? I have a griddle I never use but it's the same griddle my mother was making pancakes on when she told me JFK had been shot. I never even look at it but I can't throw it away. I'm weird I know. I'm not at hoarder stage though.

OMG, that's me!

I have the "primary boxes" for things I bought 25 years ago still. And I have a difficult time getting rid of "secondary boxes" (shipping cartons) even--they keep piling up in my living room. It's embarrassing when people have to come into the house. I sort of apologize and call it my"Shipping & Receiving" department. If the fire chief were ever to pay a visit, I'd probably be in violation of 23 laws.

I flattened and recycled a lot of them (probably over 50) last year (just to prove to myself that I could if I wanted to), but I didn't feel any better afterward, so I may as well just let them accumulate. Never know when you or a neighbor might need a box...

I understand. And my dad is the same way.

Once upon a time, they just called us pack rats.

But our attraction to objects isn't just hoarding, I think, because each object that we cannot discard has so many associated memories that would be lost along with the object itself. So we retain them as external parts of ourselves.

Yup, I am all about the spartan-ness. I grew up in a large messy home and in hindsight I found it very stressful. I love the idea of not having to worry myself with the complications associated with messes and visual complexity. I am always thinking about how to make my environment more simple without wildly compromising my ability to do things. It has become an interest, in other words.

Depends.

Studio where I "crash" is not. It's also where the game computer, TV and cats are. Cat's like furniture. In it is filled with half-completed projects, my reloading supplies, books, blah blah. I always mean to organize but there's just never enough motivation.

The main house is semi-spartan. No TV, lots of empty rooms. But there is a room with tools, and another room with furniture waiting to be set up. The best part? The kitchen. That's the most cluttered part.

The other home is definately spartan. It takes 'women folk' to visit and put a touch on the place. I actually had picture frames (some with stock photos, others just cardboard) set up on the wall to fill the blank spaces. Took me 6 months to buy living room furniture and a year to buy a proper bed. Two years to actually organize the garage.

To me, it boils down to time. If your home is a place where you do things (e.g. art, tasks, living) then it'll be busy. However, if it's a temporary place (e.g. landing spot to the rest of the world) then it'll be filled just enough to accomplish the task.

How much you organize after you get your crap done determines how cluttered it looks.

other than furniture and carpets my rooms are bare. nothing on the walls.

for one thing, it takes time and money to decorate a home and both are in short supply.

I wouldn't call my place spartan, but I don't overdo the decorations either. I have a few photos and paintings on the walls but the rest of my place doesn't have little trinkets around it (unless you count the large American flag on my bookshelf, mounted in a brick from my now-torn-down alma mater--I added the flag since the brick didn't look right on its own and I got this nice big flag around the same time I got the brick). I don't have bumper stickers on my car, either.

Admittedly, I do decorate my houseplant for Christmas, but even there I keep it simple--a few aluminum balls of various colors. I've got a bigger plant that gets a string of lights, but it is currently awaiting a new pot so it didn't get decorated this Christmas (it's a bit rooted and isn't as healthy as it could be right now). I also usually have a pumpkin or two sitting around somewhere in October-November since I grow them in the garden (although I don't carve them).

Of course, I am a guy, and most guys don't really have decorations in their places. None of my guy friends have much save for a few pictures and maybe a thing or two on their mantles (if they have them).

Mine probably is, yes. Depends where you set the threshold - I do have a TV set, a fridge, a washing machine. Central heating but I only use it for one room. There's a few ornaments but they were brought in my other people.....I've always had plans to put up a bit of eye candy but the functional stuff always gets priority for the space, and those gifts from people take up enough as it is. Most of my stuff is old because I always run things into the ground before buying new. It's a small house. A lot of it boils down to money - saving hard for early retirement, so I don't want to scupper that for the sake of a few frills that I'd probably just get bored with. Also my parents had to scrimp and save much more than I ever did, and I inherited their attitude. But I don't have my mum's pride in appearance. I'm more like my father, who always valued practicality over looks.

Apart from the way it looks, I'm quite happy with it. It's reasonably clean, warm, secure and comfortable. One recent visitor remarked that it was a nice, cosy house But I'm not complacent. I'd hate to sink to the level of some of the grubby bedsit places I've seen, and the visual vibes of my own place sometimes look as if they're headed that way.

THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I dont like mess or clutter so I dont have extra furniture, but I dont think my house is bare. I have book shelves on almost every wall so pictures wouldnt have a place anyway. As far a the temp, yes my house is a little cold. I try not to use extra energy so I mostly just have my fireplace going and wear warm clothes.

I thought the exact same thing when I first saw the post.

That is how I look at knick-knacks too, as dust collector. I have to go through the tubs of stuff that I do have regularly (I don't have any chest of drawers, I have rubber tubs) and clear them out of things that I am done with. I can't stand having anything that I am not using. I have just enough 'stuff' to get by on, the rest is extraneous and I become overwhelmed with creepiness if it starts accumulating past the point of necessity. I am the opposite of a hoarder and I wonder if I am the only one, I've never met anyone else like me but I know there must be some others out there. Hoarders can't get rid of stuff, I compulsively can't keep stuff. I've been given some nice gifts and been sad because I knew I would have to get rid of it because otherwise it would give me the creeps to have it around. I recycle everything I can and the rest goes to goodwill. I used to throw almost nothing in the trash but I have gotten slacker about that than I used to be.

Agreed about dust-collecting objects........I'd also like certain kinds of plastic added to that list - most of my VCRs, hi-fi separates and remote controls seem to attract grime. They always look so shiny and clean when they're new.

Can't somebody invent an effective air filter to render the room dustless? As well as avoiding the cleaning chores, I suspect there'd be fewer cases of allergy and lung disorders.