Maximising your space while you minimise your stuff

In the last of our four-part series on everything you need to know about moving, columnist and serial home-changer Arun Janardhan says that in your home, create areas where you perform certain functions. And try not to eat in bed!

Just a few weeks ago, after much sorrow and resistance, I was forced to abandon a pair of canvas sneakers that had lived with me for over a dozen years because their soles had ruptured into at least 20 pieces. It was a separation soaked in angst and some monsoon water. In another incident of equal heartbreak, a running shoe lost a part of its bottom last week and despite my best efforts of scavenging the footpaths of the neighbourhood from top to bottom, I could not find the missing piece and hence stick it back.

As fervent readers of this column would know, I am a keeper, a re-sticker, re-stitcher and staunch believer in using objects till they can no longer be used. I have been for a few years trying to minimise possessions and not get new ones unless absolutely necessary—not including Netflix, which is virtual anyway or the waffle iron and single malt, which is needed for preservation of one’s health.

Hence, one object always present at home is super glue, which requires much care to use. I once stuck my finger to a shoe I was wearing, which later proved that I could be quite bendy when needed.

A report last year in The Telegraph in London about Prince Charles reinforced my beliefs in stinginess, besides reminding me to alter my pants from the late 1990s. The Prince of Wales keeps scrap material from every suit commissioned in case it needs mending later. He is known to wear patched up clothes, his Royal Air Force uniform is understood to be from 1972 and he still wears a pair of shoes from 1971. He said in an interview to an Australian magazine: “I have always believed in trying to keep as many of my clothes and shoes going for as long as possible—through patches and repairs—and in this way I tend to be in fashion once every 25 years.”

Needless to add, I do not throw away much while moving houses because why give away CDs just because you have no CD player? They make for great coasters and who knows, like vegetarianism, they may come back into fashion. This habit bordering on hoarding allows me to retain a familiarity at my new dwellings, a monotony that’s as comforting as it’s lazy while keeping my belongings to a minimum. This also helps when you move next—don’t movers charge by the number of boxes packed?