Creating Tranquil Spaces: The Art of Decluttering

There’s a kind of clutter that goes unnoticed until it’s everywhere—piles of things that no longer fit, pieces of a life that once worked but don’t anymore. For me, the clutter in my home mirrored the clutter in my heart and mind during the last months of my flying career. I was anxious, sleepless, and stretched thin by change. There was no routine—just the rhythm of laundry, errands, and departures. For decades, I thrived on that nomadic life. But somewhere in the quiet of coming home again, it stopped working. I needed space to breathe. I needed tranquility.

So I started with one room.

Before

My bedroom had become a storage space for both belongings and overwhelm. I cleared five giant leaf bags of clothes and forgotten things from the closet, moved my instruments from under the bed, and filled the drawers of a new dresser with only what truly belonged. For the first time in a long while, I could find both shoes in a pair. I could see the floor, the walls, the light. I could rest.

What guided me through this wasn’t a checklist or a system—it was a feeling. A subtle shift in weight when I picked something up. If it felt heavy in the wrong way, I let it go. If it felt like me, it stayed. That same inner voice has guided me through my career, my woodworking, and now my healing. Listening to it is how I’ve always found my way.

Sometimes, even when we’re making space with intention, life rearranges things for us. A few days after finishing my room, one of my cats—Zack—knocked over a vase I had just chosen. I loved that vase. It felt like part of the new calm I was creating. I’d had it less than a week. And in an instant, it was gone. It hurt a little more than I expected. But like the wood I work with, or the sky I used to fly through, things don’t always follow the plan. Sometimes they break. Sometimes they shift. And still—we keep going. We keep creating.

Wood, like life, doesn’t always behave as expected. A piece might split, a grain might surprise me, a shape might emerge I didn’t plan. But when I stop trying to force an outcome and simply work with what’s present, the result is almost always better than what I envisioned. That’s what this room taught me, too: less is more. Simplicity holds power.

After

I’ve come to believe that we’re not owners of anything—not really. We’re keepers. Temporary stewards of objects, homes, even roles. I want my work to reflect that belief. I want to make beautiful, useful pieces that speak to people who, like me, are learning to live with intention. Who want fewer things—but deeper meaning.

If something I’ve made resonates with you, I invite you to let go of one thing that no longer fits and replace it with something that does. Something made with care. With story. With the spirit of the tree it came from and the hands that shaped it.

Whether in wood or in life, we often hold on to more than we need. But there is peace in letting go. There is beauty in space.