Handling Clutter for Better Liveability
“It won’t feel like clutter if items are clearly sorted and have thoughtful locations to call home.”
- Rory Everitt
A cozy living room showcasing multi-functional furniture and smart storage solutions.
It’s hard to relax in cluttered spaces, where the eye is drawn to chaotic piles and covered surfaces. That’s why most of us inherently try to keep our public spaces tidy, to create a welcoming environment for our guests. There are three primary strategies to dealing with the visual messes that inevitably happen to every household.
Moving clutter
Within your floor plan, hopefully you’ve already identified places where necessary clutter will go. Instead of getting dropped on the floor when they come home, give children a clear place to put away backpacks. Identify a space where new mail and packages should be put before they’re dealt with. Determine a “holding zone” where items can be put temporarily before they’re eventually sorted and tucked back away in their long-term locations.
Have a clear plan of where created clutter can go, and try to position those places out of eyesight from your public zones.
Organizing clutter
It won’t feel like clutter if items are clearly sorted and have thoughtful locations to call home. This is very person-dependent for how much is the right amount but consider:
Organizing bookshelves so that instead of a jumble of books, they’re arranged by size, color, or other identifying trait.
Placing trays and organizing containers on top of flat surfaces, to corral items and create a tidy-looking edge.
Grouping items together in baskets on shelves. The edge of the basket presents a cleaner edge to the viewer, and the basket is easy to pull out when you want to access items within.
Hiding clutter
Put things away. There are two keys ways to get yourself to the point of having sufficient storage space for the things you own:
Decrease the volume of what you own. We would point you to Marie Kondo for inspiration.
Increase the amount of storage space you have. We can help here!
Consider these closet ideas:
For example, the simplest starting point for most homeowners is to work with existing storage. Are your closets giving you optimal storage options? In a typical closet, most houses only have a hanging rod and a single shelf. But that may be inadequate for many things you need to store.
Put a small dresser inside the closet. This gives you instant storage drawers as well as another surface to set larger items on top of.
Add additional shelves. Wall-mounted floating shelves are easy and cost effective.
Upgrade to a closet system. There are many options in the market, including California Closets and Ikea. You can create a custom storage solution that exactly fits your needs, utilizing every inch of available space.
Interior designers are often tasked with helping homeowners come up with creative storage solutions. Drawing on their experience, they can quickly come up with ideal combinations to recommend. And some homeowners like having an accountability partner to help reduce the quantity of possessions!
Ready to Elevate Your Home?
A well-designed home brings joy every day because it’s both practical and beautiful. Schedule your introductory call to see how Rory Everitt Design can help.