Becoming Minimalist

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The Pictures We Hang On Our Walls

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A few years ago, we decided we wanted our home to better share our story. Our desire was to decorate in a way that clearly communicated what was most important to us as a family.

As a result, we removed outdated objects, knick-knacks collecting dust, and any decoration bought only because it matched the color of our couch.

What remained were the pieces most important to us: photos of our family and growing children, a scenic image of Vermont given to us by friends, a beautiful piece of art we received on our wedding day, and a few items that have always been important to my wife.

Each of our decorations tell a story. Our home and the pictures on our walls display what is most important to us.

Now, I realize that personal tastes in this matter vary widely. The art of making a home is always going to look different from person to person. And I know that we hang far less pictures on our walls than most.

But generally speaking, regardless of the number, it is interesting to me that most of us hang the same types of pictures on our walls:

We hang photos of our family. We display photos from places we have visited or would like to visit. We post inspirational words about love and laughter and living life to the fullest. We frame images of a life filled with quietness and rest.

Nobody hangs images on their walls of a hurried, busy, stress-filled life. Nobody displays photos of more money. And nobody decorates their homes with pictures of another day at the office.

Instead, on our walls, we celebrate family, friends, and faith in a better world.

But then, for some reason, we head out the door to live hurried lives of desperation. We rush from one appointment to another hoping to find a better life through anxious worldly gain. And each day, we pile anxiety upon anxiety.

Meanwhile, the pictures on our walls invite us to something better. They remind us of a life lived on purpose with meaning. And they call for us to focus on the very things that make us human.

Unfortunately, too many of us will never notice.

We are out striving for the next dollar that we can use to buy another framed picture of the life we wish we were living.

Joshua Becker

About Joshua Becker

Writer. Inspiring others to live more by owning less.
WSJ Bestselling author of The More of Less.

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Comments

  1. Joshua, these words are so simple and true. Thank you for reminding me about the importance of living a life that reflects our joys and desires.

    • I look on my walls and see the same things… A beautiful photo my husband took of a tree in New Orleans over the fireplace… Old home place photos, memories of places we’ve been.. My home is my refuge from that hectic world…

  2. Recently, I moved back to my parent’s place after a 10 month trip to Panama City from Toronto. While I was gone, my room was being used as a storage area, and a guest bedroom. I came back and noticed that a lot of my creations that had been on the wall previously had been removed and stuffed into the back of the closet. There were a lot of pictures of places I wanted to visit, and art with affirmations printed onto them.
    Instead of putting these items back onto the wall to clutter up the tiny room, I decided to throw everything out. I had no mental attachment to these items.
    Right now, my room’s walls are bare of any decoration. Somehow it makes the room look even bigger than normal. It also gives me a sense of calmness. I come into the room harried and crazy from the day. And as soon as I step into the room, I’m calm. I meditate in the room staring at the white walls.
    I recommend leaving your walls bare to create some of that sense of peace that all of us are seeking.
    Thank you for the post.

    • I agree with you – I had so many photos of my family in frames on my shelves and I realised I made a saying for myself “The ones I love are in my heart and in my mind’s eye, I do not need them on my shelves” and posted to my page to remind myself.

      In all honesty, the photos themselves were not reminders of a life I wanted but rather the one I never lived. Instead they were a storyboard of responsibilities and sacrifice – single motherhood after a failed marriage, taking 5 years off work to care for my elderly mother who I lost last year, a younger me that was happy for a brief moment in time before losing all the fun in my life.

      So away they went and I too have bare walls – the rooms feel calm and open, the walls a screen to play a movie in my mind of possibilities and a constant reminder to not give up.

  3. We recently painted our bathroom and I took down 4 pics. Although I really loved one of them, I donated all four to Goodwill. My bathroom walls are now bare…and I love it! I never had a room with bare walls before. I have a few nautical things ( shells, a fish jar, etc. ) set around the tub and it looks amazing! Less is certainly best. Even though I have gotten rid of tons of stuff, my house is still cluttered. It was renewing to remake over that one room. As we go along and inevitably paint another room, I will do the same thing and leave the walls bare or minimally decorated. It’s a work in progress. In the bigger picture, you are so right Joshua. Wish I would have known all this sooner. :)

    • I have bare walls except for a few pcs of metal wall art from pier one, one is a large butterfly, the others are swirled designs. This type decoration goes with about any decor. I know people with metal artwork/sculpture on every wall which is way too much to focus on, bordering on clutter.

    • I painted bathroom over year ago and we put a ladder towel in. Only pic I want to put in there is of a retro poster of Yellowstone National Park, i havent done it yet. Cuz its close match to colors I painted and nice reminder of trip of a lifetime. To me all decor now has to have a memory involved with it. Otherwise it’s just clutter. Bathroom has towel ladder and a scentsy burner.

  4. Thank you for the constant reminders. Recently, I talked my mother out of buying a bigger home than she needs now that she’s retiring. Once I told her that she would have to spend all that time cleaning the huge inside portion of the house and mowing the rather large lawn outside, she changed her mind. Now she’s buying a condo and she’s happy about her decision.

  5. Just fabulous! We did this about four years ago and have never looked back. It’s made such a difference in our home.

  6. Over the last six years my husband and I have started to remodel our home. Gone are the art pieces that matched the couch or the room. Gone are items used just to fill up a blank hole on the wall. For many years, the walls remained pretty bare as I only kept what I really loved.

    Now, things are starting to make their way back up. But this time, it’s the photos of our trips to Maine, mixed with inspirational quotes to remind us of where we want to be, the way we want to live–surrounded by nature, where a hike is the highlight of day.

  7. Excellent post and just what I needed to read. My husband and I are downsizing in an effort to save money. We are moving from an 1100 square-foot townhouse to a 600 square-foot apartment. We in the process of moving this week. A long time ago I eliminated decorative items that had no meaning from our home. Anything we display or hang on the wall now has meaning, was inherited from a loved one or comes from our travels. Unfortunately we do not have the wall space to accommodate all of our artwork. I’m painstakingly trying to decide what to keep, what to give away and (gasp) what to put in storage. It’s definitely been a process and one I didn’t think I would be able to do, but as more time goes on and the more I handle these items because of the move the easier and clearer it’s becoming of what I can and will get rid of. Thank you for your timely post. It was just what I needed for continued inspiration!

    • Storage = Gasp! is correct. You wouldn’t pay for storage would you? My son always says, “take a photo of it, file it in a folder on your computer, and donate it.” We have the Yavapai Humane Society Gala Auction Event coming up in Prescott next month, and many people have donated art work, some worth thousands of dollars. I watched my dad choose what he couldn’t live without to take to the nursing home. I was surprised at what he let go of and what he kept. It’s a good exercise to think about what I would cull from the crop if I only had a couple of rooms to live in.

      • Hey I am 23yrs old and I just want to say Please Please Please don’t put things in storage!!

        Early this year I struggled to find somewhere to live and resulted to putting things into a storage locker. I thought it was cheap, £63 per month. Not bad. I didnt own too much in the first place. But as the months went on paying for it (i had a year lease) I started to hate that I was losing money (which i could of used to find housing) storing items that I actually never really used (minus my bed) . Over the months I actually forgot what was in there! Each month passed I realised I didn’t need the things in there and was of no importance to me, just stuff iv accumulated over the years!

        Luckily I had rented this locker from a very nice person who let me end the lease early! He gave me just 3 days to move everything out. In the end I ended up taking 10 bin bags full of items to the charity shop, 10!! and 6 to the bin!!!
        (Please bear in mind I am only 23yrs old, never ever earned over £700pm in my life, didnt own anything expensive, and my only treasured & most expensive possession was my bed, yet I was able to chuck out 16 bags of stuff!)

        I was glad I ended the lease early but realised I had wasted at least £300+ on something I didn’t need to pay for! That could of paid off some debt, or saved up for my housing!

        So PLEASEEEE, if you have items that you are unsure about pleaseeee do not put it in storage! Don’t waste money on something that you think is a good idea at the time but will hurt your bank & life in a few months time!

        Best wishes xxxx

        • As a Professional Organizer, I can’t agree more with this writer’s views on storage. So often clients have paid out money for storage for years before they call me in to help them work through things. Most of what is in storage is redundant.

        • Love that you have learned at such a young age what is important! We are in our 60s and paying storage for things we can’t even get to with our disabilities . Sentimental things my parents gave me are the hardest. I have had 2 full pickups a week from a charity for over 3 months. I am not giving up. Grateful 2 out of 3 of our kids don’t have these issues. Thank you for having this site….look forward to every day

    • I would desperately try to find room for the pieces u cannot live without, consider swapping and rotating pieces. Or giving to family members or friends who would appreciate it their homes.

  8. All to often I see people hanging a picture of their loved ones behind the couch.. That is the one place where you won’t be seeing it when sitting on the couch. I love a photowall.. I know it’s not very minimalist but love seeing pictures of my loved ones. But I wouldn’t hang it on the spot which I’d face with my back.

  9. “We are out striving for the next dollar that we can use to buy another framed picture of the life we wish we were living.”

    This. This should be a bumper sticker. No, wait . . . it should be a billboard. Hung visibly all over every first-world country.

  10. I was just asking myself this weekend what I’m not getting in my concept of living a simple life; what was the next step. As soon as I read the title of today’s post, I cringed. I am guilty of “filler” art. I can think of about 10 pieces that would never be considered “art”. Their redeeming factor is based on size and color to fill a space. Oh, I hang my head in shame. However, I do have something over the back of my sofa that is pretty cool and everyone enjoys immensely. We have the Chromecast rotating photos from all over the world on our flat screen. It’s a $35 device that plugs into the side of the t.v. Our flat screen mounts over the back of our sofa, which is primarily a dog bed at this point. All the chairs in the room can view it. We can cast Pandora free music to the screen and it plays through the speakers in our ceiling. We have no cable t.v. and watch 2 Netflix a week. So our entertainment costs $7.99/mo., plus the $35 one time investment for the rotating pic plug in. It feels like art!

  11. Joshua:
    You have been a favorite blogger of mine for a couple of years and became my absolute favorite by continuing to come up with awesome posts like this one. Like what they say about 10,000 hours of doing something results in genius, you have gotten to a place where you are seeing things, and sharing them in a special and very understandable way.
    Thank you for continuing to work at your craft and for helping make the world a better place as you do it.
    All the best,
    David

  12. When I returned from each of my travels I made it a point to print photos and put them in frames as well as getting canvases printed so that I could proudly display them on my walls not for anyone else but myself.
    When life became too busy or I was stressed, I would put music on which I had listened to on my journeys and star at the photos remembering the fun but calming times I had. It always helped :)

  13. When my husband, myself and our three children moved out of the country four years ago, we couldn’t take anything with us as far as pictures and wall art goes. We moved into an already furnished apartment, minus anything on the walls. Over the two years we were there, I grew to absolutely LOVE the white, bare walls. It really helped me realize how much visual clutter impacted my life and everyday peace of mind. Now that we are back in our own home, we have many areas of the house with bare walls, and those pictures we do have are like Joshua says, pics of our family or of places that hold special meaning. I love it and will never go back to the ‘filler’ art that has been mentioned.

  14. When I was a young woman, I visited a couple I didn’t know at their home. I was struck by the eclectic mix of odd, but interesting, items on their walls, shelves and table tops.

    Fascinated, I asked about many of them. Each one represented a fond memory of a trip or experience they had had over their lives. On that day, I went home and assessed my own living space and found that nothing prompted conversation or flooded my mind with good memories.

    My home now, years later, is something like that of the couple I visited long ago. I love being in my environment because it says something about my life, our life.

    Thank you, Joshua, you are a brilliant writer and a cheerleader for people who strive to live a simple yet meaningful lives.

    Ree

  15. I don’t know why we cannot do both; live in the real world, with it’s hectic nature and also walk into the worlds depicted on our walls. When minimizing clutter and leaving behind attachments to tangible things, we create space for the things that matter the most. Maybe if we leave behind photos on our wall of the places we’ve been and intend to go back to? Or our next holiday spot? I think it’s possible to live in the same moment that brings such peace.

  16. When I was a teenager,I read somewhere to hang photos of places you want to visit someday so that you will strive and it serves as your inspiration to make it happen and I think I should do that now. We also change some of our family photos hanging on the wall,especially the girls’ pictures,to see how they change and grow.

  17. This post is so great. I’ve recently just gone through all my artwork and have gotten rid of the pieces that don’t mean anything to me. I still think I could do better haha, but it’s a process!! It’s like fear, things seem scary at first until you try it and realize it’s no big deal. Then you pick at it getting closer each time.

  18. I regularly read and enjoy your writings. I have read this post several times because it seems to hit a painful “rubber meets road” point, that I cannot resolve.

    Yes, I have pictures of my family and our favorite vacation spot. But the family vacation is only possible because I am striving for the “next dollar” that pays for it. No striving means no family vacation. The same is true for many other important experiences … health insurance, tuition bills for college, braces for crooked teeth, nice homes in nice neighborhoods, even the family dog … Again, no “striving” means these “things” and experiences do not exist, resulting in a different kind of anxiety/stress.

    I certainly agree with your broader points … we need to spend less, need less, consume less, value people and life experience over stuff. I felt that point very cogently and painfully yesterday, as I was dropping off my daughter off at college … it all goes by way, way too fast. But today, I need to get back to “striving for the next dollar” because college is expensive. No striving means no college education (or having her experience a mountain of student loans at ridiculous interest rates).

    Just a different perspective and a little feedback … there is a balance of life, and a line that is hard to delineate, ever moving and changing, between the pictures on the wall and the “striving” that makes those experiences exist in the first place.

    Keep up the good work.

  19. I have two preschoolers, and I’ve noticed that the pictures on our walls are such a source of pride for them. For the most part, we only hang pictures of family members and friends. The boys love to look at them, and they tell visitors about who is in the pictures. The pictures are a great way for us to tell the story of our family, and they help the boys feel connected. We are a military family, and we are far away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our pictures remind us that we are a part of a larger family.

  20. Wow…. I have been doing some hard work throughout my home this year and this really touches me. Is my home a reflection of the life I’m living or the life I WANT to live…..? The “work” has been about ridding my home of what has no meaning for me (or purpose or importance). Each item (from every closet, drawer, shelf) I would pick up and notice an emotional reaction (plus, negative, or neutral). I learned that much of what I had was just “stuff” – meaningless. And it made the other PLUS items so much sweeter because they are meaning-FULL. My home has become a reflection of ME and of what matters to me. What is on the walls is not much. But each piece “speaks” to me. I’m a little overwhelmed at this point of the work I’ve done but can honestly say it’s a LIFE CHANGER!

  21. Love this post. But I do have two photos of chaos that I love. One of my boys when they were younger and they’re laughing and screaming and having a blast, yet looking wild and crazed. And one of my little artist covered in paint, so serious and content. They just remind me that our mess is ok…on some level anyway.

  22. I think perhaps the words of inspiration on our walls are just that; words. They aren’t the actions of our life. We have printed on our walls; ” With God all things are possible.” But then strive to make everything happen without trusting God one step of the way. I am just as guilty as the next on that. You have definitely giving me something to think about. Thanks.

  23. I have been reading your blog for some time now. After a horrific illness two years ago, I decided I wanted to live a more simple, quiet, peaceful life. I am a work in progress and your blog is really helping. Thanks. I am loving the journey.

  24. We have very few pictures in our home. A wedding gift, art. One of the park in my home city, A nice impresssionist oil painting (not even framed) and some old ads from the mail, newspaper that we found and had framed. Couple of German Advent calendars that were brought back from WW2. And a few family photos.
    You really don’t need more. A client of mine 4 years ago moved from a 5 bdrm/3 bth mansion to a 2 brdrm /2bth townhouse. He told me, “I had to have a library. I always wanted one and when we built our last house I had them build a Beautiful large room library upstairs. You know how many times I used that room?”
    “No.” I replied.
    “Once. A week after we moved in. Now in this house I had a designer make 1 wall a library in the living room. One wall. Do you know how many times I use it?”…………..”Everyday. Every single day.”

  25. I refuse to put photos on my walls–paintings only. I don’t want to look at people, I can go on Facebook for that. But a painting is aesthetically pleasing and relaxing.

  26. I agree so much! I am still on a journey to owning less but one place I love to have clutter is on my walls. I love to cover my walls with important pictures, mementoes, paintings, etc.

    For my peace of mind, I like to have my surfaces clear and don’t have many shelves or ledges, but I love stuff on my walls.

    It has actually helped me reduce what I purchase as well once I noticed this. When we travel I will only pick up one memento for the trip and it has to be something to go on a wall. I ignore candles and knick-knacks now knowing I won’t keep them.

    But my walls? Those are our family’s history.

  27. Could anyone know why I prefer black and white . Hands, babies hands, mom and dad with babies hands. The innocence of small children, couples, old couples in love , close ups of very old peoples wrinkles in their faces. My parents dating , shots taken of our children when they were young….all in black and white. Anyone have any idea? Flowers, barns, cars, blah. I have to have these around, not too many, or I rotate. One picture I framed is in black and white with President Obama running outside the White House with their new puppy years ago. Him in suit and tie and it still makes me smile daily.

  28. Nice article. I also think it’s important to regularly change the pictures on our walls. Like anything, they become something you get used to seeing, a part of the wall and in time you stop noticing them. Changing the pictures regularly or moving them encourages you to keep looking each time, an ongoing reminder of what you have and what you want to be.

  29. I have very few things on the walls and like it. I want it to look like I’m just passing through as Heaven is my home. Keep up your great work.

  30. My husband is an artist and we only hang his art in our home along with some photos we have blown up from vacations and our family pictures! Those are the items that make us the most happy and that we want to be surrounded by every day!

  31. Thank you so much for this! When I first met my husband I saw a picture in the shop and couldn’t stop thinking about it, so he gave it to me on my birthday! It was his first “real” gift to me. For years now it has however spent the time in the storage room, as it didn’t “fit” anymore, but didn’t want to get rid of it either. After reading this post I brought it back in to our household and I found a perfect spot for it! Other than that we mostly have family photos and pictures painted by myself or personal orders from an artist I know.

  32. Put a 32″ or larger LED/LCD TV/display up on a wall or free-standing on furniture or shelf (TVs of this size are often found new for <$200), digitize photos, and with flash memory cards or USB stick that can plug into unit, create slideshow of important/meaningful photos. Some units have built in DVD players that could be used instead. Takes up less of wall (or other) space, and photos can be backed up and stored off-site, providing protection from catastrophic loss to due flood/fire or other damage/theft. I'm surprised there's not more of this use taking place. ;-)

  34. A few years ago while camping in the lake country of northern Wisconsin I noticed that there were a lot of huge houses being built on the shores of the lakes, all with shelters attached to their docks to store their large motor boats. Yet the local art galleries which sell to these mansion owners were filled with lovely paintings of small cabins on a lake with a canoe pulled up on shore. Cognitive dissonance?

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