The “Marie Kondo Effect”

By now you’ve probably heard of Marie Kondo–the Japanese pixie who has taken decluttering and organization to a new, almost spiritual, level. She’s written books (four) and more recently has been featured in a Netflix series. She is soft-spoken and gentle and her philosophies and techniques do work for a lot of people.

Her overriding principle is based on items “sparking joy” for you. (Feelings play a big part in Kondo’s “life-changing magic of tidying up.”) Personally I don’t need a spatula to spark joy for me, I just need it to work properly. (I’m more of a William Morris gal, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”) Still “spark joy” does help people decided if they should keep something or not.

I’m a big fan of decluttering because here in the U.S. it’s so easy to accumulate stuff without even trying. At any given time, my family and I have a donate pile started. The other day, I dropped off four stuffed bags of clothes, books, DVDs and misc that we’d been gathering for the last month. It felt so good. Honestly though, we could let go of so much more so I’m going to reread Kondo’s first book to get inspired!

And I’m guessing with the popularity of Marie Kondo (or maybe just good old fashioned spring cleaning) more folks are donating stuff to thrift stores this month…cuz lately I’ve had a continuous streak of good finds! Today as I was dropping off my bags of donations I did a quick peruse around the store and within 15 minutes I found four “bread and butter” things. Which for me, in this small store, is darn good.

Even though I’ve been trying to limit buying big, breakable things, I just thought this Ernest Sohn Creation divided tray was so pretty. It’s a made-in-the-U.S.A. mid century piece that looks like spring. Here’s the thing that sold me…it looks unused. There are no scratch marks, chips, crazing of any kind. (I’ll be listing this for $40.)

I’m always thrilled to find Native American pottery and this little pot was signed “D. Weeks, Ute.” Love the graphic quality of this. Won’t be sad if it doesn’t sell. (I’ll be listing this for $30 with free shipping.)

This world recipe cocktail shaker was so cool. It has a frosted world map and painted recipes. Not too old, but in unused condition. I found another one for sale and the seller said it was from his personal collection purchased in the late ’80s/early ’90s. So vintage, but not by much. There is a tiny maker’s symbol that I’m trying to track down. (I’ll likely list this for $35.)

I got this zany brass cello player figurine for my daughter who’s a cello player. If she doesn’t want it, I haven’t decided yet if I’ll sell or exchange it. It typically sells between $25-30+ so there would be a profit (I paid $6.89.) but I’m thinking it would be quite long tail!

How about you…seen an uptick in good stuff in your thrift stores?

As always, happy hunting,

Karen