a test and a challenge

I spent yesterday cleaning and re-organizing the recently reclaimed sewing room (vacated by Environmental Son). There were things in drawers that hadn't been unpacked since the reno, when the room was our temporary kitchen! I groaned and muttered, recycled and threw away and came to the conclusion that no house is ever big enough.


This morning during my blog cruising I came across the William Morris Test which makes the task of deciding what to clean up and what to clear out quite simple actually:

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." (William Morris 1880)

But maybe it should be even more limiting: only keep those things that are both useful and beautiful....




Like these carpenter's planers (which were once useful anyway) and are now quite beautiful (to me):

Or these Weck jars, a birthday gift from the kids:

Or the sewing cabinet designed and built by my dad:

With the cleaning and organizing out of the way, the new challenge for today is to come up with an appetizer / finger food menu for Artist Daughter's birthday bash that is both vegetarian and lactose-free. Carrot sticks anyone?