HOUSE BAG
What is a house bag (house purse for our US cousins)? This is a concept I came acoss the other day and it immediately resonated with me. A house bag is like a handbag that you take with you when you go out, which normally contains everything you need such as your wallet, car and house keys, diary, cosmetics, tissues… A house bag contains all the things you need around the house. This is usually known as Clutter.
My sitting room clutter
I spend a lot of time in this room. I have an adjustable height table in front of the settee from which I eat, and it has a desk organiser on one side which has overflowed with clutter. Bits and pieces keep falling out of it, and if it ever gets knocked onto the floor, small things go everywhere and it’s a nightmare picking them all up. There is a table at either end of the settee with more general clutter. The whole room always looks untidy however much I try and tidy up.
General view:
As you can see, I also have my trolley, which always has clutter on the bottom layer.
The table by the door:
The table at the other end of the settee:
Once a month, my cleaning lady helps me change ends on the settee so that it doesn’t get unevenly worn (recommended by the furniture salesman). I transfer stuff between these two tables. There are also boxes of crochet and embroidery stuff, and sketch books, book currently being read, two Bibles, and other bits and pieces like external hard drives.
The adjustable height table:
I think this is the part that drives me the most nuts. It’s always a mess.
I have a rather tatty shopping bag that lives down the side of the settee during the day. When I go to bed, I stuff everything into it that I need to take upstairs, and I quite often forget things and have to go down again to get them. I had been thinking of replacing this bag at some stage, and then came across the idea of a house bag.
If you keep everything you need during the day in this bag, you can carry it around with you so that you have everything with you whichever room you are in, and you can take it up with you to bed. Some people use a simple bag for this, but I have so many small things that I really needed some kind of organiser bag. My original thought was to make one, but as soon as I started to draw it out, I realised that this was going to be highly complicated, and could I really be bothered? The answer was no, so off to Amazon I went, and immediately found just the thing.
My new house bag
It’s a green corduroy bag with lots of pockets.
It’s actually about the same size as the old shopping bag. It feels really substantial and well-made, and I think it is going to be absolutely great.
There is only one small zipped pocket inside, and also a smaller separate bag with a zip. I had hoped for divisions inside, and in their absence, I have also ordered a separate bag organiser which will be arriving in a few days’ time. This has handles and can be lifted out. I am planning to use this for the things that I always need to take upstairs each night, so all I’ll have to do is lift it out, knowing that everything is there, but these things can still be used during the day. It is a bit smaller than the main bag so there will be plenty of room for other things in the larger space as well.
One thought that has occurred to me is that after I have my operation, and may be spending more time in bed, my hubby will be able to bring the whole thing upstairs for me, and it is large enough to take my laptop which normally just sits on the settee beside me.
On one side of the bag there is a larger outer pocket with a magnetic fastener. Ideal for my iPad.
On the other side of the bag are two smaller pockets.
At each end of the bag is a pocket large enough for a water bottle or a phone.
Finally, they have supplied a choice of two shoulder straps, one patterned and one plain. I don’t think I shall be using these.
The inner bag that I have ordered is as close to the same shade of green as this bag. I’ll post an update when it arrives. In the meantime I shall continue to use the old shopping bag, and then decide where I’m going to stow all my clutter in the various compartments of the completed new bag! This is going to be great fun as I love organising stuff.
I think this is going to be a huge success, getting rid of the clutter but enabling me to have everything to hand, easily accessible and easy to find.
