Ok, so college students do it regularly, military families do it regularly, missionaries do it regularly...so why isn't there more written about it?
I'm talking about moving, of course. :)
College students move usually twice a year (to and from college) for four-plus years, military families move anywhere from every 6 months to 4 years, and missionary families often move between the field and their home-church base for sabbatical times. There's tons on the internet about moving, packing, cleaning out the clutter before the move, and unpacking after the move. That's all well and good and has definitely helped me over the years.
But now what I can't seem to find is the one type of thing that I really want to know about: when one is preparing for a life-time (or at least several years of the foreseeable future) of constant moving, how does one make EVERYTHING one owns portable or easily packable or flexible, without looking like one is living in a college dorm room with posters haphazardly taped to the walls and stacks of flimsy, brightly colored plastic rubbermaid boxes holding anything that doesn't fit in the wardrobe that came with the dorm room? Where are the blogs about making every piece of furniture do double duty as furniture and storage that can be adapted to any sized living space but be both easily packed up and moved with out breaking easily, yet still look classy or even coordinated? Where's all the advice about how to decorate your first home or apartment when you know full-well that you'll be relocating the entire contents in 6 months or less?
I'm determined to meet this challenge head-on and master it. I WILL figure out a way to make this work, to keep the furniture and containers and systems that will transition well from location to location, from one side of the globe to the other, if need be, and cull out everything that weighs us down without being worth the extra effort. :)
In closing:
"Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
-designer William Morris
[Or that can be easily moved halfway across the world, or is worth the extra effort needed to do so. :)]
If I come up with awesome revelations or even vaguely useful ideas on the subject of the Itinerant Household, I'll follow up and post them!
