Life, frankly, is chaotic. Between demanding jobs and lengthy to-do lists, life can feel like a constant game of catch-up. At the end of the day, you deserve to come home to a place that puts you at ease. If your home is stressing you out rather than calming your nerves, it’s time to redesign for a more organized, peaceful home.
Consider Color
Color is powerful. Take notice of how color affects your moods. Perhaps you find peace in muted, natural hues and power in bright, vivid colors or maybe the clean lines of an all-white room is your idea of serenity. By painting and decorating rooms according to their purpose — energizing colors in the kitchen and living area, calming hues in the bedroom and bathroom — you can subtly influence your mood and create flow through everyday activities.
Keep Bedrooms Sacred
An ideal bedroom promotes relaxation and a good night’s rest. But if you’re surrounded by clutter, it’s hard to shut your mind off and get to sleep. Aim to store as little as possible in the bedroom. Outside of clothing and decoration, the bedroom should have little more than a plush bed and a pair of slippers. By keeping stuff (especially electronics) out of the bedroom, you improve your sleep hygiene for a better night’s rest. If external factors like noise and light are disrupting your sleep, add light-blocking curtains and install sound dampening material to reduce stress and keep the outside world out of your dreams.
Store Messes Out of Sight
It’s impossible to eliminate messes. Even the cleanest people create dirty laundry, dishes and trash. The difference between a tidy home and a cluttered home is how you handle these everyday messes. Rather than coexisting with messes until you have time to clean, create spaces to corral messes out of sight. A hardwood chest stashes children’s toys with a grown-up look, while hanging canvas hampers keep laundry off the floor and out of sight. If you don’t have a dishwasher, don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink. Instead, keep a basin under the sink and place dirty dishes in it until it’s time to wash.
Go Green
It’s hard to find the perfect balance between sterile indoor spaces and cluttered, closed-off rooms. One inspiring way to create visual interest without making a room feel busy is by utilizing shelving, tables, and other surfaces as plant stands. Houseplants in coordinated pots create visual continuity so rooms have a clean feel without being boring. Need plant inspiration? Blogger Melyssa Griffin offers stunning examples of how a well-curated houseplant collection can brighten a room. As for those displaced books and knickknacks? Other than a few hand-picked favorites, small items like these are best stored out of sight.
Open Up the Kitchen
One room where open storage works is the kitchen. Not only do jars filled with dry goods, hanging pots, and neatly stacked dinnerware bring personality to the kitchen, but they force you to pare kitchenware down to the basics. When everything is on display, it becomes obvious just how unnecessary that third set of measuring spoons is. And when everything is out where you can see it, it’s easy to perform a quick scan before heading to the grocery store. If you’re not convinced that open shelving can be more organized than cupboards, these examples House Beautiful from will change your mind.
Your home should be a place to recharge and escape the inevitable stresses of life. By changing up your home’s interior design, you create a space that’s not only more beautiful, but also more organized and pleasant to live in. However, it’s also important to know that it’s OK if your home doesn’t look magazine-worthy all the time. Sometimes, a lived-in feel is just what we need to truly let our hair down.
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Author
Alice Robertson began her career in the home organization industry as a professional house cleaner. After cleaning and organizing her clients’ homes for years, she decided to open her own home organization business. Over the years, she has built an impressive client list, helping to make spaces in homes and businesses more functional. She recently created tidyhome.info as a place to share the great cleaning and organizing advice she has developed over the years.
