Clutter is the bane of our lives. It makes our homes look messy, which in turn casts us in a bad light. Dr Clodagh Campbell explains how we can make our homes work harder for us
Some people are naturally messier than others. For those of us who fall into that category, do we all simply have too much stuff?
The short answer is probably yes, and much has been written on this subject, starting with the 2013 book Stuffocation, by trend forecaster James Wallman.
Marie Kondo turned everyone on to the joy of clean surfaces and flagged the mental load living in a messy space brings.
"It impacts a huge number of the people I work with," says Dr Clodagh Campbell, a psychologist who worked in the prison service for years and now has a large, 100,000-strong, mainly female following on Instagram under The Wellness Psychologist.
She believes creating some systems within the house will help share the load and alleviate the problem.
It’s about looking at circumstances and best using the space you have, she says.
A couple sharing a wardrobe should consider functionality and each individual's needs.
Previously, she and her husband shared the wardrobe in their room while living in a smaller house in Dublin.
They were short on space, so they used the attic for seasonal storage. But it still didn't work for the way they lived.
"Some mornings, he liked to go for a run and would be trying to find his running gear in the dark," so he wouldn’t wake her up.
She and her family recently moved from Dublin to a bigger house in Wexford, and having the extra space has been transformative.
They now have a spare room with built-in wardrobes that has become his dressing room.
He commutes to Dublin three days a week and has to get up at 6 am. It means he can switch on the light and now figure out what to wear and indeed go for a run, if he wants to, knowing that he isn’t disturbing her.
This sounds small, but it frees up busy parents to get on with their commitments without feeling stressed.
She’s also a fan of drawers to keep floors and surfaces clear.
With three daughters aged 1, 5 and 8, there are five sets of clothing to manage daily.
The girls of school-going age change out of their uniforms when they come home and get into their pyjamas.
They identify which of their clothes need to go into the laundry basket, they fold the clean ones, and put them beside their bed, ready for use tomorrow. They also clean out their lunchboxes at the same time.
This type of organisation has to be taught, she says.
The onus is on all parents to teach kids learn how to do laundry and put away clothes.
It shares the burden of these tasks across all family members so that no one person feels it is their task to stay on top of it all.
A recent survey by storage specialists The Panelling Centre backs up this approach.
It showed that 36 per cent of homeowners interviewed said a messy bedroom had a negative impact on how they felt, while over half of those interviewed, 55 per cent, admitted to keeping a floordrobe, that is, allowing clothes to pile up on the floor.
Campbell says drawers can be a very effective part of this solution.
They can hold socks, underwear, gym gear, t-shirts, and accessories, all within easy reach.
For now, her eight-year-old, who is very good at keeping her room tidy, but can’t reach the hanging rail, hooks garments onto the wardrobe door pulls and door handles.
It’s on her list of things to get done with the house.
“It's about having a system,” she says.
In her new Wexford home, they now enter the house through a different door so that there’s space for everyone to offload all of their stuff before coming into the main part of the house.
“It’s not a beautifully designed boot room," she says. "It's a shell of a room, but there is an old locker for shoes, hats and coats that we take off before we come into the house.
"It is relatively ordered and holds the clutter. We know where everything is. If it’s drizzling rain and I want to go for a run, I know exactly where the baseball cap I want to wear is, rather than spending part of the time allocated to running searching for it.”
This saves valuable time. It also removes all the visual clutter from the main hall and newel post at the foot of the stairs.
If you don’t have such space, she suggests adopting a one-in, one-out rule, so that no one room becomes overwhelmed with stuff.
She’s put some manners on the subject of laundry clutter, too.
In her Dublin home, the clothes horse was a bugbear for the only place to stand it was in the middle of the kitchen.
Now she has a dedicated room for laundry.
“It sounds fancier than it is,” she says. But it functions. It houses a washer and a dryer and is big enough to accommodate the clothes horse.
She also uses hampers for dirty clothes; a different one for whites, another for coloured’s and one for darks.
There are five baskets in situ, too, one for each member of the household. This is where all their clean and dried garments go, ready to be brought up to the relevant room by the relevant family member.
The Panelling Centre offers a full suite of storage options. Its wardrobes come in a fashionable colour palette and a slew of internals that can be customised to your household’s needs.
