Recently I visited some historic homes designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The tour guide mentioned several times that the houses had very few closed cabinets (if any) since Mr. Wright believed this would encourage the occupant to collect clutter and hide it behind the doors. He felt that if we own something it should be (as we've heard before) useful or beautiful and in either case deserves to be displayed. If it wasn't either of those things we shouldn't have it -- and his design forced his homeowners to comply. Even his garages were carports -- without doors -- so that people couldn't hide/store clutter. I read that he once said, "If it can't be displayed, throw it away."
I thought a lot about this and realized that, while I like having cabinets with doors and a garage with a door that closes, Mr. Wright's concept really resonates with me. I still have a TON of decluttering to do, but I have discovered that I really don't like closed spaces and tend to get rid of the ones that aren't truly functional (or I just empty them and don't refill them). My kitchen cabinets? Useful and will stay filled. The giant cabinet and bookshelf in my computer room? Slowly being emptied out. Those doors just hid mountains of paper and old CDs, things I never used and didn't even think about because they were literally behind closed doors.
Just wanted to share -- hope you are all doing well on your decluttering journey!
