The Clutter Fairy Weekly Survey #225 Results
Clutter and Small Spaces
Below are the results of our survey released in preparation for episode #225 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly. If you haven’t already done so, please take the survey.
How Much Room Do You Have?
We asked our audience to choose from among several options the one that best describes how much space is available in your home for living, storage, etc. (Respondents who chose the “Other” option were given a chance to elaborate. You can see those responses in the table below.)
Note: Hover over any pie slice in the chart to see the name of the category and the number of respondents who selected that answer. (Mobile users: Click on the slices for details.)
Responses
To view the complete, detailed survey response from any respondent, click on their name (or “Anonymous user”) in the table below. You may also find it easier to read long responses in the detailed view.
| Name (click to view full survey response and comments) | Which of the following statements best describes your living situation? | If you chose “Other,” please elaborate. | Describe rooms or areas of your home in which the lack of available space makes living, storage, decluttering, and/or organizing challenging. | Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. |
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| Pat | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I am age 75 and cannot store items in attic. I can’t climb ladder to get up there. One bedroom, my office, catches all the clutter. In kitchen area: we have a counter in dining room side. It stsys stacked up due to not enough space in cabinets. In laundry room are shelves but not efficient. I cannot use the ceiling area shelving due to no climbing order. I had broken both legs, left in 2017 and right in 2021. Lower shelves are stacked and floor area. In garage I have shelves. But not efficient either if car in there. You must move car out to get to shelving on drivers side. | ||
| Linda | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | Post house fire Linda here: finding ways to store the everyday use items in a convenient attractive way. Examples: shoes (we live rurally and need slip on and go shoes by main doors to take care of animal chores), easy to grab jackets, ways to store firewood and kindling, space for recycling before it goes outside (especially the boxes!) | ||
| Marsha | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | Paper Paper Paper Paper Always Paper is my Problem It’s not exactly that I don’t have enough space to hold it all it’s that I need more advice on how to get rid of more and need more ideas of how to stop it from coming in but I know you’ve had so many shows about this and believe me I am binge watching them all! My house can’t hold all the paper | The reason I have so much paper is that my boyfriend of 20 years passed way and left me as executor! He hasn’t shredded anything in 30 years so I’m trying to honor his memory by disposing of the paperwork respectfully by going through it paper by paper and making sure it’s ALL shredded! Some is easy like old utility bills but some is so hard to know what to do with. Like his military records and evaluations and awards etc. He has no children to pass these documents on to! That would have made the task so easy! He has one sister age 89 who is struggling with her own paperwork so it seems unfair to send it to her. I’m 70 but in fragile health who knows how long I’ll have the capacity to deal with all this. (Starting Cancer treatment) So I’m trying to get it done as quickly as possible! I have two shedders going but I’m thinking about buying two more! Cause you know how quickly shredders burn out if you do to much at once so there is a lot of down time to let them cool down! Basically I stop after ten minutes of shredding but if I had 4 shredders then I could go for 20 minutes …. I know that sounds crazy but my friends think I should outsource the shredding but they want 200$ for like 10 boxes! I still have to look at every thing so I might as well spend the 200$ on shredders…. Your past episodes are telling me a lot but I think I’d really really really benefit from a Death Decluttering episode about now cause I’m feeling like I may not make it very long. Luckily I’ve been a fan of yours since the bad audio days so my own home was almost at ground zero before he died and left me with this huge problem!!!!! Photos are hard for me…. I still have to go through boxes and boxes of my own family photos and pair them down to pass them on to my one descendent! My nephew who has two children! Thank God for them! You’ve discussed this before but a current episode would be nice!!!! I’m doing the keep toss (shred) step right now. Trying to just keep a sample to pass on to posterity so as not to overwhelm them with more than they need. In Other Words Ed & Gail HELP!!!!!!! Do you think I need a virtual session with you I DO!!!! marshabrand@yahoo.com Love You Both Love Your Laughter | |
| Summer | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | No garage, attic or basement I've shed so much but still store some smaller items in my car trunk. 🙂 | ||
| Junimo | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | I don't have a pantry in my kitchen. We store food in whatever cabinet space we can fit it. This means that some sections of the cabinets in the kitchen have food, then some food we don't use as much is in upper cabinets which means I have to get a ladder to go get it any time I need or want it. We also don't have a closet in either of our bathrooms. We don't have a linen closet either. We don't have much of a closet for coats or shoes so we have a freestanding shoe cabinet in our dining room. For our bathroom we put a small shelf unit to put towels on, then use the small drawers in the sink unit to store our bathroom items. The trickest thing is where to put our blankets and bedding — we have some bedding in trash bags in a tiny closet in my office (the entrance to the closet opening is 13" to 14" which I can't fit through and my husband can barely fit through and it's also in a triangle shape since it's under the roof so you have to crouch. We also have some bedding in plastic bins inside our main bedroom. We have a very narrow 13" to 14" closet that is about 4 feet deep and 18" wide inside near our front door. We have a cart that we put cleaning products on inside this closet. I also can't fit in this closet when cleaning bottles fall off the cart into the closet. I don't understand all these tiny doors with larger inside closet spaces. We have a spacious house for what we have, but it seems when they designed the house nobody considered storage options that would be needed. I don't even know how they used the house when it was first built in the 1930s. | As someone who also does arts/crafts/hobbies and has supplies, for unused or unwanted supplies, have you sold them on eBay or do you just donate them? I have about $300 worth of yarn that I know now isn't the kind of yarn I want to work with. It sheds like crazy. And it's acrylic so it's too hot for me to make comfortable blankets with. Anyways it's gotta go. Have you had experience selling unused yarn on eBay or other places? If so, what kind of pricing do you do? Can you do it by bundles or groups of similar yarn? For yarn I had used some of it already I was going to donate that since I didn't think people would want to buy used spools of yarn. | |
| Julie | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | My closet area is small. Two long bifold type closets with plenty of room for my downsized wardrobe (thanks to Gayle and Ed!) You walk through this space into the bathroom. Laundry and misc Items pile up on my small dresser and floor. I wade through it to get to the bathroom. When company comes, it is the landing place for the "hiding up". I no longer leave piles of stuff on my bed. | How do I create a landing space in my small closet area that won't accumulate clutter? | |
| Kathy | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | There is no true entryway. The front door opens facing the stairs. On the right is the living room, where I have a chair for visitors to set their keys or sit to take off shoes. On the left is the dining room, where I have a small cupboard where I keep hats and stow outdoor shoes underneath. The closet where I store coats is in a downstairs spare room I use for my sewing room (need to declutter!!) and my winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc., are in a tall, narrow chest of drawers I keep in the dining room. Only visitors use the front door; we go out through the basement. My setup works, but it's not Pinterest worthy. 😉 | Your videos always inspire and motivate me. Thank you! | |
| Kathy | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I have downsized in May. All of my closets are small and I no longer have a basement. My kitchen is smaller and the office has no closet. We went from a garage to a small shed and a small outdoor storage bin. | ||
| Em | Other | Previously, I lived on 18 acres with outbuildings. Now, I live in an apartment of about 900 square feet. | The only entrance from outdoors to the apartment is in the far corner of the living room, necessitating walking the length of the living room to get to either the kitchen or to the bedroom hallway and coat closet. These two paths chop a long triangle out of the living room between the only two walls where furniture can go, i.e. between the visitors or in front of a TV. (So I got rid of the TV) The carpet is white, so a place to change shoes by the door would be desirable, but the door opens into the only spot where a chair for that purpose would be, as the adjacent wall is the sliding glass door to a balcony. It is a large room, largely unusable. The dining room also has to be traversed to get to the kitchen. The door to it is on a diagonal from the door to the kitchen, and it has a chandelier hanging from its exact center. If you put your dining table in the center, your path to the kitchen is blocked. (If you DON'T put a table under it you will bump into it. if you are over 5’4”. (so I have an unsightly S hook shortening it.) This arrangement is extremely unhandy when carrying a watering can to the outdoor planters, or for carrying garbage and trash to the dumpster, which is about a 50 yard trek once outside. There is a laundry room, but it is so small that you can't stand in front of the dryer and open it at the same time. (It and the washer are the smallest models available. Some tenants had to take the laundry room door off and leave it off because that was the only way to fit the washer and dryer in.) There is no place to iron clothing or do hand laundry. There is no room other than the hallway to sort laundry unless it is kept in the bedroom. The bathrooms are too small to accommodate a litter pan unless it is right in front of the toilet, necessitating climbing over it or the toilet to get to the bathtub or shower. There is no place by the sink for a hand towel, and the holes in the built-in toothbrush holder are too small for toothbrushes. The medicine cabinet is behind the door, so you have to move the space heater to close the door so that you can open the medicine cabinet. (That's right: no heat vent in the bathroom, and the only place for the space heater is in the path of the door!) | |
| Diana D. | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | I have a 4 bedroom home but need to declutter many items. | How long have you two known each other? | |
| Katharine | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | Main bathroom has no closet. We’ve had to arrange cabinets to hold towels as well as products for getting ready. We have a routine maintenance A/C guy that visits quarterly. He goes through the main bedroom closet to get access to the unit. He tries to be neat, yet insulation falls into the closet. I downsized my items & moved to another room so I wouldn’t have a stranger in my closet & have to clean up after the visit. The other room has no closet either, so I bought a clothes rack & small dresser. I have only two upper cabinets in kitchen. The lower cabinets are ok for basic things. I had shelves built in another room to hold seasonal kitchen items or mini appliances. My house is total 3100sq ft. The function overall is good. I’ve downsized items to fit what I have or moved items into other rooms for a better fit. Rooms can feel overwhelming at times, so I pass on items to feel better. My in-laws have a much smaller home & so many closets.😃 Bigger is not always better.🤓 | ||
| Ellen in W Michigan | Other | I live in an apartment and will be moving in the next two months to an apartment with similar square footage but much less storage and though I have been decluttering, am still worried about how I will make it work. Both apartments are about 800 square feet, which should be plenty, but I like having groups of friends over (up to 20 people). The old apartment is divided into six spaces with a fair amount of storage. The new one is one bedroom, one bath, and a great room with much less storage. | I got to help design the kitchen for my new apartment, within the confines of the structure, but the only other storage is a small living room closet, bedroom closet,and a shelf above the washer and dryer and open shelves in the bathroom. Since it is a great room, I have no idea where to put my TV, or if I should just get rid of it. I still need to store things like my sewing machine, cooler, lawn chair, and various other sometimes used items. I like a fairly minimal look, but am afraid that it will look too busy having my things mainly in just two rooms. | Is there such a thing as a list for packing order for a move? I feel like most of what I have left unpacked is needed up until the move (sleep, cook/eat, bathroom/hygiene, clothes); but I'm afraid I an leaving too much to the last minute and will be overwhelmed. |
| Anonymous user | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | Spacious is relative, right? My house has a sunken living room directly to one side when you step in and the house is open concept with stairs in the center. A great deal of space is unusable due to location of the sunken living room. Small linen closet, kitchen cabinets - not enough and you must turn pots or pans sideways to remove from bottom corner cabinets, - my mother said the kitchen must have been designed by a man (1970s) for a professional couple who do not cook, or have children. To put in less words. House not designed to accommodate family who have four seasons of clothing and footwear (-40 to +40 Celsius/-40-104 Fahrenheit), play sports or have hobbies or worse, have both, store food and cook meals from scratch, or has linen to accommodate four seasons. And yet it’s a 3-bedroom home. It really was designed for a minimalist couple. Why am I still here? The market being what is and the costs associated with selling would mean moving into a less safe area and perhaps a home with hidden surprises/repairs I could not afford. | Billion-dollar question. If we don’t buy and buy the economy won’t move and acquire our money, then the makers, marketers, and bosses, and businesses won’t make their money, then prices will likely increase because people want to and need to earn money (except the majority of fat cats who earn enough to feed all the skinny cats and are mostly so greedy and selfish that they won’t be part of a solution that touches their mass of surplus wealth). How does the world turn if people with limited resources don’t hand over their ressources to those with limitless ressources? If I stop clutter at the door how will the fat cats proceed? If everything keeps going up in price and everyone needs to earn more money to buy even essential items, even those who have no earnings for legitimate reasons, and those who earn or receive a great deal of money want or need more for the price increases of luxuries, well, how do we stop this giant snowball that is growing as it rolls down the steepest mountain imaginable? Will it only go splat when the world’s ressources have exhausted? Eek. What does this have to do with ask us anything. 😶 | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I have a small bugaboo. I have a lot of things in home. I do a small clean up each day to keep things in control. | What can I do to get basement decluttered? I get soo overwhelmed thinking about it. So I don't do anything. I love the show it helped me get my life back! | |
| Gabriella | Other | I live in a small appartment (about 460 squ. ft.) with enough space for comfortable living and and well organized storage. I keep on decluttering to further reduce my inventory and try to keep the inflow at a minimum. | Very few kitchen cabinets require very disciplined orgaization even though l maintain a rather modest inventory. My partner's accumulation of surplus items takes its toll on my space and counteracts my decluttering progress. | Have you remarked any intercultural differences and patterns with respect to clutter issues mong your naional and worldwide audience? |
| Jean | Other | Apartment with two bedrooms and two baths, good storage spots! | Apartments have no space for ‘once in a while ‘ stuff. Where to keep a bucket? Lawn chair? | Just curious, do your clients have landlines? |
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | Our apartment was built in the 1950s and the storage reflects that. There are 2 closets for all 600 sq ft | ||
| Andrea | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | My apartment is big but lacks storage areas like a garage. | How soon should I get rid of things I know I don't like or want | |
| Barbara B | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | My kitchen has only 2 small counters. The microwave takes up most of one and my dish rack and coffeepot take up the other. No dishwasher so I have just enough cabinet space. My biggest issue is no place to hold winter boots near the door from the garage. We have to take them off and carry them to a boot tray near the front door, which all to frequently doesn't happen, causing a tripping hazard. | ||
| Danetta | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | The house is spacious but the kitchen is small and there is little room for dishes and pantry items | ||
| Granny | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | My only issue, as I told you last survey, is my grandchildren's toys which spill over onto the floor and a surface in the family room. I have a task on my list of going through and culling, but some items are just too big to fit into the cupboard. I have been sorting lego by colour, but will stop doing that forthwith!! It was only from one new box that came like that. I have many grandchildren and each one does things differently... BTW I have a cousin who still does Lego in his 50s and they have a home full of displays, including on the mantelpiece, on the walls and...in the the lego room! | I needed the peptalk on procrastination! A problem for many people - even my husband who is very good about getting his tasks done has areas where he procrastinates (not many - he really shows me up in that department). I'm a YouTube addict. It's a place I go to de-stress and also to hide when I'm feeling low. | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | My apartment is big and generally spacious | My apartment is big and generally spacious | |
| MS | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | We don't have an entryway, just a short hall which has 4 more doorways immediately after coming in the outside door. I have no space to take off footwear, no wallspace to hang coats, no place to put anything down, .... | ||
| Heather | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | My studio apartment is 510 square feet, but only about half of that has space where you could put furniture or spread out anything to sort/declutter/organize it. I have two closets: a small coat closet that doubles as my paper storage area and a walk-in closet (well, maybe not walk but take a couple steps) that thankfully is big enough to hold some small furniture pieces for storing items you would keep in a dresser. | ||
| Karen | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | My house was built in 1890. All the rooms are small and crowded - Kitchen, living room, dining room and my bedroom, | ||
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | The house was built when little recordkeeping was needed, there were few electric appliances /devices/entertainment and decorating for holidays other than maybe a Christmas tree was not a thing. Therefore creating office space has been a challenge. There are only one or two plug receptacles per room for computers, tv, dvd, music is a challenge as well as storage of movies, music and gaming media in a location convenient to the deviced is nonexistent. Until Starlink, there was no cell phone, cable or streaming choice for movies, music or gaming so homes had aallllll these media forms to contend with. Outdoor storage or a low attic that does not even allow crawling except right at the peak are the only options for Christmas and seasonal decor storage. Dampness and changing temperatores are a problem for some things stored there and often leads to unwanted smells absorbed by goods even when they are in plastic totes. | ||
| Trish | Other | I live in a small home and have managed to downsides quite well to accommodate the limitations | I have a small 2 bedroom home with very small CLOSETS. I live alone so I have limited amount of belongings. In the second bedroom I have an office, armoire for my dresser, 2 wall mounted hanging rods with shelf above, and small stack washer/dryer in the closet (backs up to bathroom so plumber was able to easily install hookups)... no door on the small square closet... only accommodates the washer/dryer.. this room functions as walk-in closet, office, laundry... accommodates my needs | |
| Kristin | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | Our entry way is too small and the coat closet is not in a good proximity to it. We have to walk through the living room to get to it. We keep our shoes that we wear daily near the entry and the rest in the coat closet so we are not walking through the apartment with shoes on. I would have been better if the closet was near the door and the entry was a bit larger. | I am having a hard time starting to declutter. I would not decribe my home as overly cluttered and I don't have garbage laying around or anything like that. But I do feel like we have too much stuff. So where do you start when there is no clear problem area? | |
| Catherine | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | My small bathroom only has a stand sink and tiny cabinet so toiletries etc take over space in another closet. | ||
| Jeanne | Other | Three each have our allotted space in house less than 2,000 square feet. .Lost husband last fall so much space has been reassigned in the past year. One son lives with me part time, and the other lives in the finished off downstairs of the house. | No front entry in a cold climate. . We usually enter the kitchen through garage when using the car. We use mats at all entries, types depend on the situation. Helps reduce what gets tracked in. We have boot trays to catch snow melt or mud. Wet gear is hung in the garage. Still a challenge to keep those floors clean! | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | I live in a spacious home, and have been decluttering for some time- only a LOT of this has been paper, so while I feel relief at finally carving out a significant amount of paper, I realize that I have a lot of fabric and other craft supplies. I have been working on that, and all categories. At the same time, I know I will be moving in a year or two, and I know that I don’t want to buy any new furniture because of this. My home is spacious, but I don’t have a lot of furniture to store things in some rooms. While this suits me long term, in the short-term, things then look cluttered and messy. | I box things up or bag things because of this, but the decluttering process is not going as fast as I would like. I also realized that so many people fear things ending up in landfill, but it’s really when they don’t periodically declutter and something happens and the clutter inevitably ends up with someone else who is unable to handle it and ends up dumping all of it- that’s when things really end up in landfill. Not if they were decluttering bits here and there and some of it got tossed but most donated. | |
| Debra | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I often have to store things away from the point of use so that every area doesn’t become cluttered and visually messy. Currently I am at my clutter threshold and the thought of birthday/Christmas gifts coming in a few months stresses me out! It’s also a busy time of year for me work-wise so I have less mental space for my physical space right now. Part of the current problem is I am still recovering from whiplash I got in April. Since seasonal things have to be rotated either up top my wardrobes (requiring a stepstool then twisting while lifting moderately heavy storage bins) or awkwardly humped down three flights of tightly spiralled stairs down to the dark dank cellar. (How dark? I need to wear a headlamp even with all the cellar lights on) I tend to use Ikea totes over my shoulders to carry things like my summer fans or Christmas decorations up and down. I will delay the cellar-related tasks for as long as possible because it’s such a PITA. I work hard to follow the William Morris idea of beauty/utility but with no built-in storage everything is tricky. | ||
| Carrie | Other | I live in a small home with just the right amount of space. | My bathroom is tiny, so it’s good I live alone. | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | No entryway, door opens onto wall. Kitchen is very small with standard benchtop depths just achievable. No where for a fridge (definitely not American style). No laundry, washer was in bathroom. Spare room can't fit a king single bed for guests, unless I don't close the door, currently relying on a curtain. On the plus side, generous back yard for a unit. However stupid council wont let me built a covered structure more than 10 sq m (about 105 sq ft.). I have built some storage in but generally that takes away floor space. | ||
| CHRISTINE | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | Kitchen has no pantry. So have to use one and only coat closet to store extra kitchen items. My house has no entryway. only one small coat closet. Even worse,, when you enter front door the sight line goes right through to the kitchen sink!!!! My" family room" is as small as a walk in closet. so no room for tv in there, or books, etc. so tv is up in a bedroom, and books etc are in living room. which is ok. | Following your golden holiday decluttering advice, I have been able to almost entirely eliminate all holiday decor that has to be stored. Instead I am celebrating with food and wine, natural decor...like real pinecones, pines, candles. When I want to treat myself to buying something "holiday", it is no longer buy decor. Instead , I just treated myself to better holiday kitchen items, I actually. need during the holidays, . and can use all year.. Like new kitchen dish towels, a quality wood cutting board (to replace the old plastic ones), a very unique wood rolling pin (to make xmas cookies and pies with grandkids), and a better food mill to make applesauce ( to replace my broken one). My question is... have you downsized your holiday decor..and which items? | |
| Anonymous user | Other | I love in a small home that has plenty of storage space for things, but very limited space in the kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms. | The kitchen has cupboards that are very shallow, making storage of pots, pans, mixing bowls, etc., very difficult to store. The bedrooms are very small, making it difficult to find storage space for items other than a bed and clothing. | What was the name of the bedroom closet shelving system you mentioned about two weeks ago? |
| rowan | Other | I have my bedroom, space on pantry shelves, my rollator and shredder have space in the living room, and space in the covered outdoor storage patio. | ||
| Lala | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I have about 500 square feet to live in and try to find places for my stuff. I have way too much stuff. Way way too much stuff. I really wish I didn't have that much trouble getting rid of it but I can't seem to let go. I don't know why. | It's obvious to me that I need to change my mindset about the stuff in my house and everywhere else. Maybe you have some ideas and tips help me with that. | |
| Intignia (inn tig (as in pig) knee ah) | Other | We are two people living in a one-bedroom apartment. Hubby sleeps in what should be a living room and I get the bedroom. We have a washer-dryer combo in the walk-in-closet which takes up a quarter of the space. I have bought many plastic dressers or drawers from Walmart which gives us more storage in the bathroom and my bedroom. I am constantly decluttering or downsizing. I have to keep reminding my husband that we can no longer shop at Sam's Club and please don't buy the largest size of anything as we don't have room to store it. I have been trying for six years to clear the floors so our "home" and I can breathe. | ||
| Anonymous user | Other | I live in a small home but since I've decluttered so much storage isn't a problem. | The mechanical systems in my apartment are in two closets which limits the use of those closets. | |
| Anita | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | 1960s kitchen cupboards. Narrower shelves than today’s models, not adjustable in height- and just 4 little drawers! | How do I get into the mindset to greatly thin my photos? Print and digital — so my kids will inherit the Best of the Best and not a mountain of poor photos that haven’t been thinned in years | |
| Ginger | Other | I live in a small home 1,366 SF of living space. Our home is a split level on stilts. We have plenty of living space for the 2 of us. (Once there were 3 and it was plenty.) Master suite with bedroom, bathroom and small room my mother used as her sewing room. 2nd bedroom.2nd bathroom. Kitchen. Laundry closet. 2 hall closets - utility & craft supplies. Plus, 2 living rooms (his and her). We have plenty of storage space in the house & out. In fact - the ground floor is all garage, husband’s work shop and my studio - all with plenty of built in shelving. It’s larger than our living space. | No problem for us - especially since we’ve decluttered so much now. Nothing stored under beds or in the floor of closets. This was part of our vision. I can vacuum those spaces easily now. | You may have done this before - can you describe how you might help someone like me - work thru a decluttering project via FaceTime or Zoom call? I may need a coach to hold me accountable if I don't get on it soon. . |
| Jenny | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | N/A | What are the current top issues/challenges that the organizing profession is facing? How is the industry addressing them? | |
| Celina | Other | I rent a room in a small, two-room flat. | I have many tiny craft supply boxes and containers and the shelving units aren't good for it... | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | Small house (2 bed 1 bath) with only one small closet (used for linens, extra toilet paper, first aid kit, shampoo refills, etc) - no place to put out of season items (clothes, holiday decorations, etc) | ||
| Barbara | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I downsized from a house with a lot of basement storage to an apartment nearly three years ago. I'm still figuring out what I can live without, especially kitchen items. I don't have enough cupboard space for everything I kept, so some is in a plastic bin in my front closet. I have adequate pantry space for most people but I am still learning that I don't have to have everything on hand--I can go to the store and buy canned tomatoes if I need them. On the other hand, once I buy barley or arborio rice, then I have to store the rest of the package until I use it all. It turns out I have two juice pitchers but I haven't made frozen lemonade or orange juice since I moved--they can go. I haven't made an angel food cake either, but I'm not quite ready to give up the tube cake pan. It's a struggle. | ||
| C | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | We have no attached garage, and the one we rent doesn't allow anything in the space other than the car; we have only an allocated 2.5 sq meter (floor space) part of the communal attic; the co-op laundry room is shared by 8 other families; we have no basement. We are using our daughter's former bedroom for storing all the things others would put in such places in USA standard size homes. (While she lived here a lot of out of season stuff and sundries was stored in boxes in the hallway, making it more narrow.) Slowly, (perhaps too slow) I am disposing of stuff stored in that room. | How do you imagine you will be doing your down-sizing decades from now? what will you begin with and why? | |
| Susan Marie | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | There’s basically no entryway into my condo. You’re right in the main combined space of sunroom, living room and dining (one big-ass open space). The spare bedroom has a very small closet which must be cleared to access the double doors in the back which open to a very small space containing both the hot water heater and the furnace (cozy!). | ||
| Evelin | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | I think our 80 square metre are more than enough for two people but I seem to never have enough space on my desk. | How has your job as an organizer changed over the years? Do you think that people have more stuff today than when you started your business? | |
| Noreen | My linen closet is so small and it is triangular shaped. Nothing fits on shelves | |||
| Noreen | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | Primary closet is a walk in but very narrow and hard to organize. | ||
| Denise | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | My house is 1600 sq ft. It is the largest home that I have ever lived in. My family has plenty of space! We have ruthlessly Decluttered and things are good! | ||
| Heather | Other | I live in a small space with adequate storage in some areas and more limited storage in other areas. | My 1970s kitchen isn't large enough to hold everything. Small appliances and stockpots are stored in the hall closet. | |
| Anne | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | My guest room becomes a dumping ground for things that have no place. Or delayed decisions. | Hey y’all! | |
| Anonymous user | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | The closets in our home are all small. The attic is not conducive to storage. The guest bedroom is large enough for a full bed. Period. There is no door on the master bath opening. | ||
| Linda | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | I'm using a TINY room for storage as I'm unable to carry heavy and/or large items up two flights of stairs to the attic. The room does not have a door and anyone walking by in the living room can see into that room. I've pushed my vacuum, carpet shampooer, exercise weights, two air conditioners and recycle bin to the far wall. Together they take up one complete wall. They nearly block my access to a small closet there that I use for pet food and other miscellaneous items (the rod was removed years ago and adjustable shelves fitted when it was used formerly by my late mother for her crafts). I literally have no other place to store items without paying someone to bring them up two flights to the attic and the air conditioners are too heavy and bulky to get around the curved staircase easily or safely. I need to find a way to keep those items from view. I've thought of buying a small room divider but feel it would be an annoyance getting past it each time I needed the vacuum or the weights. I wondered if you have any other thoughts. | ||
| Dawn | I live in a small home where limited space for living and storage tends to cause issues throughout. | *We live in a condo, so we no longer have a basement or 2.5 car garage. *We have lived here for five years, so I"m always in the process of refreshing areas, assigning new reasons for spaces (as needs arise/change), and continue in the process decluttering what was here five years ago... *From an earlier Clutter Fairy podcast, I've decided to use the second shower for storage. 🙂 It currently has a few seasonal flower arrangements which get rotated, an empty long storage box, our mop for the kitchen, and a recent addition: a free commode which DH doesn't want to use after an injury. | ||
| Leslie | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | New build house without linen closet. Two bathrooms have open shelving for all things (TP, towels, decor, medicine chest items, linens, blankets, heating pad, etc) I have some pull out plastic bins for misc. and am putting linens in my walk-in closet. It is hard to make it look beautiful like the show home. | ||
| Lela | I live in a spacious home with a few areas in which space for living or storage is limited and causes issues. | My father built a coat closet in the laundry room and a clothing closet in the bedroom when we first moved here because storage was so limited. The existing closets are so shallow you have to use wire hangers. Plastic hangers are wider and touch the back closet wall! | ||
| Hila | I live in a spacious home with plenty of room for living and storage. | In my home there isn't balcony. So I haven't place for plants | ||
| Name (click to view full survey response and comments) | Which of the following statements best describes your living situation? | If you chose “Other,” please elaborate. | Describe rooms or areas of your home in which the lack of available space makes living, storage, decluttering, and/or organizing challenging. | Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. |
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