If you have any interest in interior design or have been around the internet in the last few years, you will have caught on to the many trends around organising your space. During our long time inside, many of us took the time to inspect our home space. There was an influx of home blogs, TikToks and YouTube videos of people building, organising, painting, renovating, and upcycling. As we all re-entered the world, we took these trends with us, and they have continued to influence us in 2023, if the number of kitchen restocking TikToks is any indication.
Decluttering, organising, and redesigning your own space has always been a personal and almost spiritual process. The common phrase is:
“A clean home is a happy home, and a happy home is a reflection of a happy mind.”
The concept of tidiness contributing to mental well-being has been expressed in different forms across cultures and centuries emphasizing the connection between a tidy environment and a clear, content mind.
The freedom and fulfilment associated with creativity can’t be understated either. We saw a rise in people making their own clothes, upcycling furniture and painting murals on their walls. I wonder if this all came from a desire to truly feel safe in a space that felt ours.
2020 to 2023 became the time of home improvement as self-improvement.
Marie Kondō
Marie Kondo became famous as a ‘professional organiser’ in Japan, releasing 4 books over her career to this date. But she became known to general Western audiences in 2019 with the Netflix TV show ‘Tidying Up With Marie Kondo’. She rocketed to stardom in 2021 with the release of the sequel; ‘Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo’, forever cementing the phrase and her ethos into our minds during our long hours in the house during the pandemic.
To put it simply, she believed you should only hold onto those items which ‘spark joy’, that is, items that have an emotional value to you. This of course is used for those items that would be classed as non-essential, not those we would use on a daily basis like cutlery, pans, sheets etc. In this way she encouraged us all to be more mindful of what we own, and why we have chosen to keep it. Looking at you, drawer of cables I’ve never used.
You begin by collecting all things in a certain category, say all your clothes in one pile, all your mementoes in another and so on. Then working one category at a time, you identify which items spark joy (or tokimeku in Japanese), and you discard those that do not. Once you have achieved this, you place these items in a designated place and ensure they stay there.
According to Marie Kondō, this has routes in Shintoism ‘Cleaning and organizing things properly can be a spiritual practice in Shintoism, which is concerned with the energy or divine spirit of things (kami) and the right way to live (kannagara). Treasuring what you have; treating the objects you own as not disposable, but valuable, no matter their actual monetary worth; and creating displays so you can value each individual object are all essentially Shinto ways of living.’
Home Office Design
Many people now work from home, some made this change overnight, having to work from dining tables and occasionally, sofas and beds. This was far from ideal or healthy for the body or mind. If there is a concern about our posture at a desk, you can imagine the damage working from a laptop on a sofa could cause.
We began creating a work-from-home space that facilitates a clear mind and good focus. Although offices were making changes to make the environment more open and friendly, many people still felt the oppression of an office cubicle. So interior designers and influencers alike began to build spaces for homes that would challenge this.
Choosing a room that is well-lit with natural light was essential, it is proven that exposure to not just sun but clear daylight in general, helps us to feel better. Vitamin D doesn’t have to come from a bright sunny summer day, any natural light will boost these levels.
Personalising the space and differentiating it from the rest of the home helps it to feel more comfortable and inviting and also ensures that your workspace doesn’t bleed into your personal. Creating a clear divide ensures you are able to mentally take time away from your work to relax and decompress.
Having your workspace and personal space intersect is a little like having your boss sit next to you on your sofa.
As you move into winter, ensure that there is appropriate light in your study to reduce eye strain. But there’s no need to go fluorescent. Ambient and accent lighting should be in warm tones and need not be exceptionally bright. These lights just add warmth to the room as well as ensure you don’t bang your knee on the desk in the morning. Your task lighting should be brighter, to really bring the required light to your work. As almost everyone works from a computer, it is essential we take good care of our eyes, good lighting will reduce eye strain. You can always include a dimmer option so you can customise the light to your comfort level and the task at hand.
Biophilic Design
Biophilic design is centred around bringing the outdoors in by introducing nature of all kinds to your home. Especially for those who don’t get a chance to leave the home office or live in a location more central to a city or town. Plants in the home improve air quality, can act as dehumidifiers, and give us something to look after and a way to connect to nature when we are apart from it.
Natural materials, such as wood, stone and bamboo and patterns such as leaf patterns and natural fractals add to this aesthetic and can look quite striking.
Biophilic design has been associated with improved mental health, reduced stress levels, and positively impacted mood and cognitive function. This naturally aids in focus and productivity, so this is ideal for the aforementioned home office.
Influential names such as Marie Kondō, The Home Edit and Emily Henderson, made us feel we had the tools to do it all. Marie would help us declutter, The Home Edit would help us organise and Emily would help us renovate and beautify.
We will never truly know if it was the extra time the pandemic afforded some of us or the cluttered mind it caused us all, but we were discovering the power of a clean, organised and deeply personal space. I think for many people it awakened a talent and love for creative spaces that make you feel good.
