We would all like to own a magic wand to tidy our messes and create beauty out of chaos. This worked for Cinderella and oher Disney princesses, but it doesn’t work in real life. Thankfully, we don’t need a fairy godmother to create beauty out of chaos. Helpful tips and sometimes a helping hand will do the trick.

Remove Friction

When it comes to organizing, friction is anything that makes accomplishing your goal more difficult. (Pro tip: your children don’t count as friction. They’re blessings that just happen to cause a friction from time to time.)

You want your child to make their bed daily, but they rarely do. You ask them why, and they tell you because it’s too hard. Since making a bed is not difficult, you ask them to show you what they mean and realize they are squeezing between the wall and the bed. Friction!

A closet door or dresser drawer that doesn’t open and close smoothly is a source of friction. The more difficulty you have accessing a storage area, the more hesitant you are to use it, and the easier it is to drop a laundry basket next to the closet or dresser thinking you’ll put away the clothes “later.” But the reality is, when “later” comes, you’ll be more likely to do things that are easier and have less friction.

Another source of friction can be found in spice cabinets. If you have spices without sufficient room to store and display them, you’ll have to continually move containers around to find what you need. This friction makes it easier to buy a jar of cinnamon than to keep digging through the cabinet. Guess why it’s common to find multiple open containers of cinnamon and other spices!

Reducing friction may mean decluttering, but sometimes it means moving furniture, fixing a closet door, or purging, sorting, and labeling spices.

Define Your Spaces

Homeowners should define what happens in all their rooms and spaces. But it’s common to see the opposite and find a space dictating to the homeowner what they can and can’t do there. This is not how it is supposed to be.

If you want to bake in your kitchen, that space should have easily accessible baking products, pots, and pans. Working around a mail drop, medications on the countertop, and Bobby’s homework doesn’t let you use the space how you want. (Remember, Bobby isn’t friction—only his homework is.) It’s time to limit what lands in your kitchen so that the only things there are the things that let you use the space the way you intend to.

If you and your spouse want to retreat into your bedroom to relax after a busy day, stepping over laundry baskets, toys, and Target bags prevents you from doing that.

It doesn’t have to be this way! You can take control of your house so that you’re the boss rather than the other way around.

Beauty Is Critical

Sometimes a bedroom is decluttered but it isn’t conducive to relaxation. If the friction has been removed and everything in the room contributes to relaxing, what’s missing? Beauty!

We have been created to appreciate beauty and to need it around us. You don’t have to be an interior decorator, and you don’t have to have a Pinterest-worthy home. Just keep a few decorating guidelines in mind and you can create something beautiful.

60/30/10 Rule

This “rule” suggests that 60% of the room should be one color, 30% should be a complementary color, and 10% should be a pop color. If you have a dark brown floor and dark brown furniture, there is your 60% color. If your bedspread, pillows, and window treatments are another color or color family, there’s your 30%. (Play it safe with white or ivory OR get a little funky and go with turquoise or chartreuse.) And for the 10% pop color—do something fun!

Less Is More

If you don’t trust your decorating skills, remember ‘less is more.’ This shouldn’t scare you away from decorating but should direct you to not go crazy. Family pictures count as decorating, but you don’t necessarily need to hang all of them. Choose wisely. Frame pictures in the same or coordinating frames to be seen as a planned grouping rather than something that was hung randomly. Another easy decorating idea is to use plants. Be careful how many you put out since you don’t want to be tied down to watering a lot of live plants or dusting a lot of silk plants.

Creating beauty out of chaos is possible. Remove friction, define the purpose of the room, and make it beautiful.

We’re here to help if you need guidance along the way.