Space
Our home is where we take shelter, make our memories and how we communicate desirable versions of ourselves to others through our belongings. ‘Your home is your living space not your storage space’ says Francine Jay, author of the book titled The Joy of Less. This, I could not agree with more! Stowing things that impact on our space for living in is counterintuitive for healthy living, as we now know that existing in an overly cluttered environment is an unhealthy place for us to inhabit. It impacts negatively on our concentration, productivity and adds extra anxieties to our lives. When Rightsizing SPACE is considered an area that is unoccupied, empty and/or free. When we begin discarding objects from our lives, this opens up space for us to enjoy what really matters. The act of creating more space in your home will require action-based dividing and sorting of the belongings no longer required.
Space feels good when you start to make it in your home. I can become a key motivator in the Rightsize process. One project I recently worked on was with an intergenerational family all living under the same roof. The Rightsize project we had decided on together was to clear the clutter from the guest bedroom to make space for a new baby arriving a few months later. Bill, the patriarch of this family, passed comment to me about his thoughts on space. He said, ‘When we were living with so much around us it felt our lives were full. A life lived because we had so much to show for it. But now with more pockets of space throughout the house, I still feel full but also free. None of us were expecting that.’
This perfectly illustrates how they were all unaware of how living in both a crowded and cluttered environment had impacted on himself and the family. As Bill has described there was this sense of feeling lighter because of the openness created by discarding their excess. This is a great motivation igniter, as space is addictive. When someone has lived in a cluttered home for a long time the effects they encounter during the removal process is very powerful. Pausing to reflect on how you feel about your home emotionally is a proactive task to do, before the planning phase. It allows you to gain a perspective on how you live currently with the things you own.
Revising your floor plan will be useful to see if shifting your furniture around may be beneficial in creating more space, using the measurements of your floor plan as a guide to what can moved around to suit your space better. Think about what you will ‘keep’ and how these items could add to the aesthetics of your space by creating ‘interior stories’. These stories will function as decorative statements to show who you are, what you like and even where you have been. Make these revamped changes by hanging objects, showcasing shelf stories and envision a feature point or focal piece for your rooms. Gather all your like objects together to allow them to be the focus or theme of the room, such as geometric patterns for the guest room, a nautical theme for the entrance and one-block colour for your office. Thinking about creative ways to hang photographs on the wall together as a feature, whereby leaving flat areas clear. Cluster items that are precious in odd numbers such as groups of three and five. Arrange a carefully curated collection of items in height order for a streamlined look. Storing items out of sight, yet making them easily accessible when you need them, is a way of reducing the excess stimuli in our space so our homes can become our happy place! The way you style your belongings around your space will evoke your memories, allow you to feel connected to your world through your ‘keep’ items and show off your creative side!
Elements for design are:
Colour ,tone, texture, line, direction, shape, size, proportion
Principles for design are:
Balance , rhythm, unity, repetition, harmony, contrast, dominance
To Keep or Not To Keep 