Clutter

It is really amazing how much clutter and unorganized objects can shrink the perceived space of a room. I'm sitting in my new apartment amidst a forest of stainless steel poles and I have half an hour before people come over. The place looks like an Ikea showroom (I wish!) but I've come to terms with that. Cheap and modern looking furniture isn't easily acquired if one discounts Ikea! But moving boxes, bags, discarded packaging, and sundry are strewn about.

OK, time for aggressive cleaning.

No more saving packaging since I don't plan on moving for a few years. Out with the plastic bags on the couch and in with open space. After about 20 minutes of aggressive trash collecting (and discarding) and putting things outs of sight, my living room doubled in size. I think people, including me, often neglect the impact of the absence of something. Fledgling interior decorators such as myself probably neglect space, neophyte composers may neglect rests, and perhaps even inexperienced scientists neglect what is not seen or observed. The "negative" is as much an quantifiable thing as the "positive". It merely takes an inversion of viewpoints to switch from one to the other.