Why emptying the loft means plumbing new depths
While the first two floors of our south-London Victorian terrace house were modern and spare, we were living a lie. Directly above our clutter-free bedroom, the floorboards in the loft heaved under a mountain of accumulated possessions. The more minimalist our lives below appeared, the more nightmare “the pile”, as we had come to call it, became.
It was around this time that the idea of converting the loft began to pick up speed. In East Dulwich, you're never more than a few metres from a conversation about loft conversions. Now, these conversations had begun to happen inside our house as well. Soon it became the only conversation. Any silences were heavy with the awareness that we weren't talking about having the loft done but would be soon.
Across the internet there were big claims being made for a minimalist lifestyle, from saving the planet to spiritual cleansing, even reconnecting with community. Unless they meant getting to know the guys at the dump, it wasn't always easy to connect the dots. In my case, the heat was the scaffolders who were booked in for Friday week. The vision of his goateed face helped me tackle stage one of the clear. I started with the low-hanging fruit. The 10-litre water bottles bought during the first weeks of lockdown. The two boxes of unidentified wires for gadgets that had long since died. The mystery planks of wood found in any loft or attic the world over.
Through another layer, I emerged into a clearing of sorts. Here was the mother lode: clothes. Bags and bags of them. Scarily, these were the survivors of several previous culls. This was the good stuff.
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