Just Right: Keeping Decor from Exacerbating Your Clutter Problem

The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.

Your Decorating Manifesto

This week’s assignment is to design a decluttering algorithm slash personal manifesto to fit your style and decorating aesthetic:

• Reflect on the elements that you consider a part of the decorative style of your home. What colors, materials, textures, collections, etc., and types of items would you like to include or have you incorporated in the past?
• Write a list of three or more statements that encapsulate key components of your home’s existing style, decorating principles that you’d like to embrace, and practical limits you plan to observe. For example:
  • “I prefer handmade or one-of-a-kind decorative objects to mass-produced items.”
  • “My motif is a cool-color palette of blues, greens, and neutral shades.”
  • “I like natural materials, water-color paintings, and handmade ceramics.”
  • “Everything decorative in my space should make me smile when I look at it.”
  • “The decor in my home should include only beautiful, useful, or sentimentally rich objects.”
  • “Any horizontal surface should contain no more than five—and ideally no more than three—decorative items.”
• Now evaluate the contents of one room in terms of the statements you wrote. Are there items that don’t meet the set of standards you wrote? Think about grounds on which you’ll be willing to make exceptions—for example, “This lamp is ugly, but it’s the only memento I have of Aunt Jane.”
• Take your design manifesto with you as you shop for new decor. Examine each prospective purchase to make sure that it meets the standards you’ve established.
• Revise your statements as needed if you find that they’re either too lax or too restrictive.

For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.