Getting a haircut or shaving off a beard after months or years of being all shaggy; cleaning the bathroom or sorting out your kitchen cupboards; adding a new word to your vocabulary that perfectly describes something you genuinely had no idea there was a word for; walking somewhere you've walked ten thousand times before but taking a new and different route, just because...a sudden jolt of consciousness and life into something that had become completely routine. It's the most mundane of things, sometimes, that have the greatest life-changing power. Suddenly, the whole world is different, even though nothing (or nothing much) has changed.
Over the course of 2018, I've accumulated four double sets of greenhouse shelving units; £19.99 a pop, eight shelves each. A total of 32 shelves. That's about the most boring thing I could have told you about myself, but I'd like you to focus on it anyway. Shelves are great. Particularly these kind of cheap, self-assembly-able shelves.
Some are in my flat, and others are in my shed. Here are the ones in my shed:
I use them for cultivating cuttings...
 |
| Sage and rosemary |
...taking a closer look at things...
 |
| Mushrooms |
...drying herbs...
 |
| Chives |
...and generally keeping everything neat and tidy.
 |
| Everything in its right place. |
My fourth set of shelves arrived only today, and so I now have enough shelves to have some kind of shelving unit in every room in the house. It's weird how happy this makes me, but it's also completely normal.
In the bedroom, I'm slowly morphing the shelves into a kind of wardrobe:
These shelves in particular are great because while you have to build the frame one shelf space at a time, you don't have to put the actual shelf in the space, meaning you can have a double height space, if you see what I mean. The shelves themselves are just a kind of wire mesh structure, that you can add it, or leave out, as needs require.
In the windows, I have this:
In the kitchen, I have this:
Even in the bathroom, I have this:
And finally, in the bedroom, I have this:
It's not so easy to tell from that angle, but what you're actually looking at is a double whammy of shelves, right there: some on the windowsill, some in front of the window at the head of the bed. I like to think it of growing my own curtains.
The most important thing about all of this, of course, is how it allows me to bring more plants into my home. The more plants you have in your home, the better your life will be. This is something everyone knows, and something we can all agree on without the need for further discussion.
Anyway, as I assembled the newest shelves and found their places, I was taken over by a sense of wellbeing for reasons I can't articulate. It had something to do with the calm that comes come commonly after any good old tidying up, but it was something more than that. A feeling of completeness, of everything being as it should. I don't really need to say anything else about this, except to remind you: find your "shelves", my friends, whatever they may be.
In the bedroom, I'm slowly morphing the shelves into a kind of wardrobe:
These shelves in particular are great because while you have to build the frame one shelf space at a time, you don't have to put the actual shelf in the space, meaning you can have a double height space, if you see what I mean. The shelves themselves are just a kind of wire mesh structure, that you can add it, or leave out, as needs require.
In the windows, I have this:
 |
| Lounge window shelves |
Even in the bathroom, I have this:
And finally, in the bedroom, I have this:
It's not so easy to tell from that angle, but what you're actually looking at is a double whammy of shelves, right there: some on the windowsill, some in front of the window at the head of the bed. I like to think it of growing my own curtains.
The most important thing about all of this, of course, is how it allows me to bring more plants into my home. The more plants you have in your home, the better your life will be. This is something everyone knows, and something we can all agree on without the need for further discussion.
Anyway, as I assembled the newest shelves and found their places, I was taken over by a sense of wellbeing for reasons I can't articulate. It had something to do with the calm that comes come commonly after any good old tidying up, but it was something more than that. A feeling of completeness, of everything being as it should. I don't really need to say anything else about this, except to remind you: find your "shelves", my friends, whatever they may be.
Related posts
2018: Year of the Shed
Unshopping
Mundane Freedoms
The Great Indoors
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