Minimalism Q&A: Home Edition Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of the Home Edition Q&A. I love answering your questions! These are questions that were submitted from Instagram last month. 

1. When choosing decor, do you try to combine functionality with aesthetics?
   Absolutely! I want a beautiful coffee table or ottoman for the center of my living room, but I also want it to be functional in the space. We had a small baby when I bought ours and so I chose one that is covered in fabric. It’s easy to care for, looks pretty, and did not have sharp edges to hurt a small child.
   
   Another great example is the decorations in my kitchen. I have very little on my kitchen counters. I like to keep them very clean and minimal. However, I do want something pretty to look at so I have used my cake plates as a decoration. I use these pretty regularly. So they are useful and beautiful.
   
   I also want spaces to be easy to clean. This means that I’m not going to have knick knacks all over the surfaces. It takes me minutes to dust an entire room in our house and I want to keep it that way.
   
   
   

2. How do you store recipes? I’m tired of having a large recipe box.
   I have an entire blog post about this HERE. I keep a very few cook books in my kitchen. All of my other recipes are totally digital in Evernote. I was tired of saving my recipes in Pinterest and then going to search for it and the link would be broken or I had to scroll through a hundred photos each time I wanted to cook a certain meal. Now I save the pdf of the simple version of the recipe in a folder in Evernote and they are very easy to access.
   
   
   

3. What do you do about directions on boxed foods that you decant into another container?
   This is a great question. Once I began pouring all of my rice into my OXO pop top in my pantry I realized that I needed to google how much water to use per cup each time I made rice. I now do 1 of 2 things when I know I will need to access something on the box. I cut the directions off and place them inside where I can see them or I use a chalk marker to write it on the back or put a label. This way I can still have my things in pretty containers but still have the directions easily accessible.

4. Any advice on life with with animals? My dog sheds so much.
   I personally do not have animals in my house. I do have kids! :) The biggest thing is to be sure your surfaces are easy to clean. Pet hair tends to stick to fabric. So leather furniture might be a better choice. The same goes with carpet. I hope to change all of my downstairs carpets to hardwood soon because I know spills and messes are so much easier to clean off of hardwood.
   Another thing to be aware of is the tools you are using to clean with. Be sure your vacuum is one that is specific to pets. Certain vacuums are made to clean up pet hair and dander.
   The biggest thing is consistency. Since I have a young daughter I have to make sure it’s in my routine to pick up toys really often. With a pet you have to be sure you work it into a regular routine to vacuum and dust pet hair and dander.
   
   

5. How do I get control of paper? It is always incoming. I’ve tried unsubscribing but it won’t stop.
   Paper enters our house every single day! I have photos of my desk that are a few years old when it was covered when I missed a day or 2 (or a week) of dealing with it. Now I try to deal with it daily, but even if I only deal with it once a week it’s not overwhelming. I have a system and it works!
   I have a blog post HERE that goes more in depth about how I deal with daily paper. HERE is all about my paperless filing system. HERE you can find how I deal with random things that don’t necessarily need filing, but I need access to.

   Here are a few quick tips as well:
   - Freeze your credit. This keeps your credit safe and stops credit card companies from hitting you with a soft hit and sending you all the mail offers.
   - Deal with it BEFORE it comes in your house. When I check our Post Office box I will stop at the counter and pull out all the junk and toss it right there. (Note - I do not throw anything away that needs to be shredded. I take that home and shred it.)
   - If you are checking the mail at your house or if someone else brings the mail to you, take 5 seconds and sort it. Trash. Shred. Keep. This will immediately get your paper down to only 1 or 2 pieces each time.
   - If it’s something that you can take care of quickly, do it! Pay that bill. Shred the letter. Take care of it now to save time later!

I hope some of these are questions you have had as well! If you have a question to submit for my next Q&A ask me in the comments!