Thursday, September 5, 2013

Death by Accessories


Death by Chocolate Accessories -  Too much of a good thing can be bad sometimes.  All summer I've been noticing all my accessories and not in a good way.  Don't get me wrong - I hate homes where you walk in and there's nothing personal anywhere in sight.  However, scattered personal trivia everywhere isn't good either.

Advice I've gathered over the years about dealing with accessories gone wild:
  1. Gather all your accessories and put them all in one place.
  2. Remove the ones that no longer appeal to you - you don't like them or they aren't special anymore.  (Give them away or box them up if you really can't part with them yet.)
  3. Sort and group similar items.
  4. If you found you've kept a lot, see if you can rotate them through in a more seasonal way.  For example, accessories you'll have out in fall and winter to be replaced by those designated for spring and summer.
  5. Wait a few days and live with your space without the accessories.
  6. Now, decide what parts of your home would benefit from these personal touches - displaying items in groups for more impact and keeping in mind the need for furniture to be functional.  Who wants to have move six things from a side table before being able to set down a drink.
  7. Re-accessorize and critique.  
  8. Don't let things get stale.  Consider rearranging more often to keep things fresh.
  9. Buy a cottage to display all the other stuff you didn't get rid of
Now, here's a review of what I've accumulated - along with some commentary from my husband after he saw me working on this post.


Look 4 crabs - a brass one, a red one, a matchbox one and even one preserved in plastic!   Concrete books, a clam, a scallop, a pineapple and a Santa gnome glued on an old Jif peanut butter lid. Oh, and an empty bottle of bay rum cologne...I liked the wicker packaging.


3 brass clams , 3 moss balls and a faux boxwood atop fluted zinc.  Pottery, books, old telephone insulators and a clam filled with 2011's harvest of lavender from the garden.  What made me think that was a good idea?

My husband - Hey, what about all those styrofoam balls you bought to make into moss balls?
Me - They don't qualify as an accessory yet...they aren't finished.


What didn't I put on the table?  Mostly things that were on shelves - lots of coral, a chipped Waterford bud vase and lucite book ends.  These will still be part of the process but I basically ran out of room on the table.  (p.s. - Anything made by my kids, like the plaster handprints, will of course stay but I'm going to think of a better way to display them. Also, I now only buy faux coral since buying harvested coral isn't good for the oceans.)


Husband - "Hey world, FYI, this is only a partial portion of the trinkets she owns."  

Me -            No, really, I think it's mostly all out there.

Husband -  What about the vintage slide rule, the horseshoe crab shells, the iron owls, the cigar boxes?    Do I need to go on?

Anyway, I hope to update in the next few weeks the results of my purge and re-distribution.

By the way, how's the home accessories situation at your house?

22 comments:

Unknown said...

This is great and you're speaking to me! I love to do just that--take it all down and put it on the dining room table then reStyle my house! We should have a swap! Do you ever come out this way? We should meet for coffee somewhere in the middle someday M.
XoNancy

Sarah said...

This post was written for me. Need I say more? My husband wouldn't be as polite as yours in his comments. Just last night he suggested we go through and pull out things for an upcoming garage sale. What? I know it's time to purge, but this isn't an easy task.
Thanks for the inspiration.

A Perfect Gray said...

love, LOVE your title and this post! I have a spare bedroom that I am going to try to tackle today. It holds all the accessories I have but am not displaying. My weakness is antique prints and art, and I have no clue what to do with the pieces I am not using. Love them, don't want to part with them, but if they are gonna sit in a box, I might as well get ride of them, right? And I JUST BOUGHT MORE LAST WEEKEND! Ugh.

great post. donna

Kerry Steele- Design du Monde said...

Haha! My husband would tell me to throw it all away. "Its garbage" he says that about everything.
I like Nancy's idea. We should have a blogger accessory swap but then I guess we'd all still have too much.

Karena said...

Ha Michele the situation here is pretty similar to your, maybe more! I have boxed up a lot because my condo is on the market, however there is no lack of knic-knacks(I mean valuable Accessories)!!I also have a stash of candles that would astound a lot of people!Plus art there is not room for!

Your idea is the best!

xoxo
Karena
Feature: Entrepreneur Sigal Sasson

Karena said...

PS if bloggers all got together to do a swap it would look like Brimfield!
K

debra @ 5th and state said...

think those flat earth pieces are priceless! :-)

Bethany [at] Powell Brower Home said...

man! i want to have a cabinet full of accessories, but i just rotate them in and out and toss them because I have no place to store them. i dream of a storage closet in my next home one day :)

Linda {Calling it Home} said...

Your husband needs to get out of the house and let you and your accessories work it out. Have you ever heard the "if you bing something in you need to get rid of something" philosophy? I wish I could do that. No judgement at your collection.

ArchitectDesign™ said...

haha -this embaresses me because i have TOO MUCH -you walk into my apartment and it's probably overload - i'm a thing lover, it happens. Did you read the article about Mario Buatta and no one seeing his apartment because he's a hoarder? thats us!

therelishedroost said...

You are so funny I have that same brass crab!!
My friend has a swap party every year and it works out pretty well, I unload and of course come home with something...But I usually like what I take home so everyone is a winner!
XO Karolyn

Jeannine520 said...

I have the opposite problem. I don't have enough "stuff". I have to really love something in order to display it downstairs so I'm always waiting for just the exact right thing. The collecting is going very slowly. My mother on the other hand really needs to do what you're doing and rethink what she's got out.

vicki archer said...

This is a great idea, sorting through things and making sure you still like everything, it can be easy to just allow things to build up! Love your husbands commentary too!!...xv

http://vickiarcher.com

Trish @TheOldPostRoad said...

That looks like the sale table at Anthropologie!

Champagne on Tuesdays said...

Not sure why you crossed out number nine. :)

I eagerly await your solution to the plaster handprints, and I love your taste in accessories.

pve design said...

10. Open a home accessory shop.
Need I say more.
pve

Windlost said...

The situation is equally dire at my house and I don't have a lot of storage. Looking at that table, so many of the things are lovely and I can see your style in them, which is hard for me to define but yet when I look at the things I see it - classical, ocean references, those particular greens and golds you like. I LOVE that brass crab and that sea horse and that tray with the horse sketch on it, and that big shell and the cross and that green book in the distance. You should take bids. ;)

xo Terri

Mary Ann Pickett said...

Excellent advice. That's what I do with clients...put it all in one spot and shop. Clear the clutter but make it personal and special. Love this post.

Teresa Hatfield ~ Splendid Sass said...

Michele-
You wrote this post for me. I can part with many things, but accessories are the big one for me! I usually love them and don't want to part. I will try this and see.
Thanks for sharing.
Teresa
xoxo

cindy hattersley design said...

This article made me chuckle. I have a large closet and a garge filled with accessories...boy do I need to purge!! Great post!!

stephanie at Stephanie Kraus Designs said...

This is the best post ever Nancy at Prowellbrower sent me here! So true. I have so many accessories yet I don't like more than half of them but I'm afraid to get rid of them -- great ideas you have --- I still don't know if I'll have the heart to get rid of some of them but it gives me comfort knowing there are others out there that suffer this same disease!

SHERRY HART said...

hahahahahaha...of course the post was meant for me! Can I relate? You betcha.

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