Organizing: Create Calm Within Chaos
How to Have Your Stuff and a Sense of Order, Too
I am an architectural design writer who often focuses on how environment can affect behavior. Before consulting privately, I received my MA in writing and ran a design boutique in Los Angeles.
I am an architectural design writer who often focuses on how environment... More »
The emails I've recently received from Houzz participants involving issues with organization and design make me think that we all in some way have an irresolute relationship with stuff. Indeed, we are real people in a real and material world. Yet we want our homes to be places set apart from the chaos of everyday life.
If you live with someone else, especially with children, then you understand how hard it can be to keep things — from everyday stuff like work materials to beloved collections — beautiful and functional within a single dwelling.
To answer the questions about living with stuff, I've created an ideabook that spans many different spaces and styles, and how they gracefully manage their items. Remember that the first step of creating conscious chaos is to first be a good guardian of what comes into your home in the first place. Be vigilant, waste not, and adore what you do have.
If you live with someone else, especially with children, then you understand how hard it can be to keep things — from everyday stuff like work materials to beloved collections — beautiful and functional within a single dwelling.
To answer the questions about living with stuff, I've created an ideabook that spans many different spaces and styles, and how they gracefully manage their items. Remember that the first step of creating conscious chaos is to first be a good guardian of what comes into your home in the first place. Be vigilant, waste not, and adore what you do have.
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| The large variety of items in this shelving area are given designated areas and grouped to create order within the "chaos." |
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| Built-in bookshelves like this provide an established place to store many item. The strict geometrics of the shelving help divide up the stuff. |
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| A mix of open shelving and cabinetry allows for displaying only what you want to — and keeping the rest hidden. |
by Tongue & Groove
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The sleek dark furniture and leather add an understated elegance, allowing for a balance with the books, which could be stuffed in in any manner and still look great.
| It's impossible with kids to think of keeping toys away all the time. Let them have free access to what they love, but keep what is out to a minimu. Consider a toy closet you pull from. |
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| Spots here and there for children throughout a home make so much sense. Rather than being overrun with toys, peacefully integrate the kids' world with yours. Note the storage under the bench, the built-in shelving, and the small piece of chalkboard wall. The chairs in the background are actually high chairs. |
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Group things together in open kitchen shelving to create a cafe feel with order. Keeping to one color of dishes allows for mixing, matching and stacking with style.
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This small kitchen exhibits how open shelving can look simultaneously full and ordered. Choose one kind of jar and fill them with bulk items you buy at the store. You can save on packaging and produce less waste. Plus it looks super cool.
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| Keeping to a kind of Danish-modern color palette helps any clutter that accumulates look deliberate and brilliant. From the art hung here and there to the stacks accumulating at the desk, every piece looks meant to be. |
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This bright blue provides a great background for a collection of mirrors. The many details in this exotic setting all come together into one smooth whole.
| Sectioning off a space helps keep work chaos in check. While this is a busy and clearly much-used work space, it is divided by shelving and storage to keep it invigorating, but not distracting. Plus it's tucked away in this little space so delicately. |
by Ilija Mirceski
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Keeping a workspace black and white adds a sleekness that allows a collection of photos, sketches and other details to look simple and deliberate.
More: Turn Your Closet Into an Office
Inspiring Shelves and Cabinets
Next: Browse photos of kid spaces
More: Turn Your Closet Into an Office
Inspiring Shelves and Cabinets
Next: Browse photos of kid spaces
Ideabook published on March 30, 2011.
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-Stephanie Bonini, California Closets of New England
sbonini@calclosets.com / sbcalclosets.wordpress.com
I'm actually searching for the perfect jar style for my kitchen as we speak. Will definitely post pics when it's done.