The power of taking (tiny) actions

Whether it's pretty-ing up your home or political

How’s everyone doing? What a time we are living in. I try to keep this newsletter focussed on advice for living small, but living small isn’t just about managing a small space, it’s also about choosing to focus on what matters most.

So, I want to encourage you to pay attention to what’s happening right now. If you’ve been avoiding the news, I get it. But this last week in America has been wild to watch unfold.

So, what do we do? I don’t pretend to have the answers, but many leaders I respect want us to join a peaceful protest this Saturday June 14th. These “No Kings” protests were originally planned to protest the $40+ million tax-payer-funded military parade Trump has planned for his birthday. With Americans’ right to protest being challenged, attending feels much more urgent. Find a June 14th demonstration near you (there are 1,800 events planned), but maybe skip the one in D.C.

Here in New York City, Saturday is also the first day for early voting in the mayoral primary. I’m using my tiny megaphone to implore New Yorkers not to rank Andrew Cuomo anywhere amongst your five choices. Zohran Mamdani is my top pick and Brad Lander is a close second with Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, and Michael Blake filling out my slate. If anyone is still making up their mind or having a hard time understanding ranked choice voting, I’m happy to chat!

Okay, onto this week’s newsletter.

My living room on its very best day: It doesn’t look like this right now!

Last week I checked Myquillyn Smith’s book House Rules: How to Decorate for Every Home, Style, and Budget out of the library. Myquillyn has been on my radar for a while (I loved her viral video about “quieting the house”). However, I hadn’t picked her book up yet because our interior styles differ enough that I didn’t think there would be much for me in its pages (and to be honest, I sort of bristle at anything that is formatted as “rules”).

I’m so glad I did pick it up. Myquillyn has a lot of smart things to say about decorating, and I found myself nodding along to her advice. One “rule” in particular stood out. It’s something I knew and have even written about in less direct ways, but something about how she phrased it hit home. She wrote:

If it sits out, it’s a decoration.

Myquillyn goes on, “Whether we admit it or not, when an item is out on display, we are decorating with it, and it either enhances or takes away from the overall experience.” Suddenly, I was looking around my own living room to see what I was inadvertently decorating with:

A plastic lamp dimmer

A Nerf basketball hoop

A box of multiplication flash cards

A garish Kleenex box

My son’s Kindle in the hideous pink case that it came with

In the book, Myquillyn encourages readers to buy a prettier thing to replace the things that are bringing you down (which is sound advice), but you know me: I’m always trying to find a way to make, thrift, or mend my way out of a home problem, so I got to work.

I took down the Nerf basketball hoop and flipped the offending backboard around to the plain cardboard side. Maybe at a later date I will paint it black to disappear into the door. I took a scrap piece of kraft paper and covered the top of the times table box. I pulled out

Erin Boyle

’s wonderful book Making Things and followed her directions to make a (slightly wonky) tissue box cover. I realized the Kindle was just an object in need of a permanent home (it just sort of floats around our apartment), so I moved it to his room for now making a mental note to give it a proper “home.” The dimmer was not a problem I could solve so easily (there aren’t even pretty ones to buy–a business idea for someone!). Maybe someday I’ll have the lamp rewired to have a dinner switch?

There are a hundred other ways you could improve upon what sits out. Peel ugly labels off of products or decant them into more attractive vessels. Hide the worst offenders by putting them away or finding a more attractive bin to get them out of sight, but still close at hand. Hang a curtain in front of a whole cabinet of clutter. The point is to tackle those tiny things you don’t really want to look at day in and day out.

Doing these things took so little time. I’d covered the box and flipped the basketball hoop in minutes. I sewed the tissue box cover in an hour (and that included ripping out most of the seams and redoing them).

Some of you may think I’m crazy writing about pretty-ing up the everyday clutter in my house, (especially in the face of all the world’s terrible news). You might be thinking: Life's too short! Who has time? Who cares? But I care, and in a small space, these little things add up quickly.

I’m also sharing this idea to inspire you to take action—even if it’s just a teeny, tiny action. Doing and making things makes you feel like you can make and do more. It gives you momentum. It makes you feel like you are the kind of person who can fix things or who can make something beautiful. We need to flex these muscles more, especially right now.

If all of us began to see ourselves as the kind of people who made, improved, and repaired the world around us, it might just add up to something big.

3 More Things

The best small space I saw last week wasn't really that small, but I loved how this apartment does double-duty as a wedding dress maker’s showroom courtesy of a murphy bed and a few other clever choices. I thought to myself that this might be a helpful lens to see our homes with fresh eyes: What if clients were coming over?

Garden Writing: I penned a mini magnum opus on rocks this week for Gardenista that I was quite pleased with. I also recently wrote about reimagining what a hedge can be for the Perfect Earth Project.

Reading: I went to see

Katie Gatti Tassin

and my friend

Lindsey Stanberry

talk about women and money at the 92nd Street Y last night. It was great. Should I do an edition of the newsletter about applying a living small lens to your personal finances? If you want a taste of Katie’s new book, which I’m about to start reading, here’s an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.

One last thing: So dreamy!