Musings at Spring Cleaning Time   
April 25, 1999

My husband’s out of the closet.  It’s not an alternative lifestyle – he’s simply seeking square footage.  Our 1930 Tudor Chalet has lots of charm, but few closets.  Robert gave me the bedroom hole-in-the-wall, while he transformed a photographer’s darkroom into a fashion mausoleum.  But his wardrobe is expanding due to end-of-season sales and incoming catalogues.  There are so many garments so tightly packed that, although on hangers, the clothes don’t really hang but seem suspended in midair.  It’s like a science experiment.  Similar to the high-pressure process that turns anthracite into diamonds and fossil remains into fuel, I wonder if the fibers can sustain the pressure?

New clothes, old tchotchkas, gargantuan grocery shopping.  Long Islanders love stuff.  Monster malls, tag sales and Costco keep us well stocked.  But for what?  Basements and garages, closets and pantries, junk rooms and drawers can tell tales of Titanic proportions. Admit it.  Somewhere in your home you’re storing stuff you don’t need.  Shopping, saving and never purging is so very suburban.  Empty nesters nag grown children to clear out their old junk.  Boomers are busy cocooning, saving vintage toys and buying retro shtick.  Children create their own cuddly clutter.  So harried for time, we insulate our leisure hours with carpe diem shopping.  Buy lots now; save time later.  The result?  Storage anarchy.

Our friend Diane has more boots than I’ve ever seen in a non-retail setting.  Her closet reminds me of an advertisement for storage space picturing rows of shoes.  The copy reads:  “There’s a little Imelda in all of us.”  Diane and her husband just bought a twelve-room center hall colonial in Glen Cove and it’s already full of furniture, collectibles and family heirlooms, as if they’ve lived a lifetime accumulating stuff.   They have.  Except they’ve only been married three years and baby #1 just arrived. They own more McCoy vases than Martha Stewart and enough FiestaWare to host a White House dinner. Where will they store the next 25 years worth of stuff?

My husband’s compulsion to collect has commandeered every nook and cranny of our house.  Old tins.  Hollywood Kitsch.  World’s Fair memorabilia.  Enticed by the effervescent glamour of Atomic Age antiques, Robert scours yard sales and toy shows.  I greet him at the door like a customs inspector checking luggage.  “Sorry, no junqúe beyond this point!”

Snap Crackle Pop dolls share a kitchen shelf with a Bluto Pez dispenser. 

Atop our refrigerator sits Robert’s Huckleberry Hound thermos – a $75 value, I’m told; “If I could find the lunch box, it would be worth $250!”  Next to that is the first pop-up toaster, circa 1927.  “I could get 135 bucks for that!”          

Despite our saver-nonsaver relationship, Robert and I are well matched:  similar backgrounds, shared interests, closeness in age – and spatial heritage.  Each of us grew up in apartments never knowing the ecstasy of multiple levels.  Or the thrill of an empty basement.  When we bought the house, Robert established a tool room and declared the rest of the basement storage space.  But storage is a slippery term used by clutterers to continue their chaos.  Kindergarten drawings.  “The Godfather” board game.  Every airline ticket and corresponding cocktail napkin.  His pack-rat mentality has transformed me into a Clutter Control Warden.  When I attempt to store seasonal clothes, he claims I’m patrolling his turf.

“This will be worth a fortune!” Robert declares, showing me a GI Joe doll in mint condition to justify his square footage.  But he’ll never sell his treasures.  And not every memento will elicit interest at Sotheby’s;  I doubt his Freedomland felt hat will have the same cache as Jackie O’s faux pearls (although it brings a smile to my face). 

After a few days under his tutelage, Robert’s intern observed, “You never throw anything out.”

She’s right.  His extensive Matchbox collection (including the Batmobile!) reveals an early inclination to save.

Is chronic collecting normal?  Normal depends on the company it keeps.  When we were moving Robert out of the bedroom he grew up in, a neighbor watching the circus-style schlepping commented, “Howdya’ fit all that stuff in your room?”  I caught a glimpse of my future in the reflection of the Norman Rockwell plates decorating my mother-in-law’s dining room; and saw signs of saving in my father-in-law’s garage packed with odd tires and old fish tanks.  The Shirley Temple dolls called out from their curio, ‘He comes from savers.’

It’s been thirteen years living with a saver, and I love him more than ever – from the empty cartons he stores in our attic to his stash of childhood mementos buried in our basement.  His collectibles have culminated in an elegant home with an eclectic decor.  Left to my designs, the house would be sparse and dull.  Living with Robert, I’ve been rescued from the doldrums of blank walls and empty shelves.  Robert’s vintage inventory transforms rooms.  How many homes have a framed map of the invasion of Normandy, courtesy of Robert’s father, a navy man during D-Day.  Had it been in my family, we might have tossed it out while tidying up.

That’s the beauty of our marriage.  He saves; I purge. Someday we’ll have a house large enough to accommodate our stuff, but for now we just have the stuff.

One morning while reading the paper Robert pointed out an article about Hollywood stars refurbishing old mansions.  “Guess what’s the number one must-have.”

“Media rooms?”

“Closets the size of gymnasiums.”