I don’t consider myself a naturally tidy person. Especially when I find myself stressed and frazzled - it shows up in my space. Anyone else?
The sheer amount of time I’ve spent in our Home this year has really made me see our space (and all our stuff!) in a new light. I spent my Summer beautifying the spaces in our Home that needed some love and attention - and that in turn made those spaces calmer.
Some of these projects were larger and more daunting than others, but others were surprisingly simple - and that’s what I’d like to share today.
You can transform a space without spending any money - simply by calming it down.
Clear Your Fridge
This one is the simplest and most powerful in my opinion - surfaces that have a lot of stuff on them tend to feel cluttered, even if we don’t realize it. One easy surface to clear? Your Fridge. I know the fridge is a place for calendars, notes, reminders, photos and art - and those things can bring joy! But once I cleared my fridge, it was instantly calming. Even though all the stuff I had on my fridge brought me joy - I realized having it all clustered together in the kitchen made the space feel busy. And the kitchen is already a space that’s busy - with cooking and preparing food! Try it and see how it shifts the energy.
Group Similar Things Together
This one seemed like a no-brainer - until I realized I had similar stuff scattered all over the place. Our kitchen is very small with minimal storage and it has taken us a while to figure out the best way to utilize the space. (We’re still working on it!) We weren’t sure where to put all our kitchen appliances - and for the first few months of living in our apartment, our toaster oven sat on top of our glass cabinet right next to our printer - another thing we just didn’t know where to put. Kelly Robinson taught me this trick - and she cleverly recommended we tuck the printer away with the cable box, modem and router by the tv. There was certainly space for it, and we were keeping all the technology together. We moved the toaster oven to the kitchen island, back where it belonged. And that freed up the top of the glass cabinet for decor! It’s one of my favorite spaces in our Home now and everything makes just a little more sense. It didn’t cost us a dime, just a little rearranging.
Make the Bed
The bedroom can be a disaster - but if the bed is made, it makes a world of difference. It can bring peace to the room, and who doesn’t love climbing into a made bed at the end of your day? I will admit, our bedroom was a space I put on the back-burner, because we spend more time in our living room, but now that we’ve made the bedroom over, I am so grateful that our bedroom now has just as much beauty and intention as the rest of our Home.
Stay Close to Nature
I’ve learned from my yoga and spiritual teachers that we are not separate from Nature, we ARE nature. There is a reason we feel calm when we watch the sunset, or have our toes in the sand on the beach, or breath in mountain air. It connects us to who we are - and having those moments in our Home can have a similar calming effect. This can look like having house plants or flowers, or simply favoring natural materials like glass, wood, or metal and reducing the amount of plastic in your Home. Try replacing your plastic kitchen utensils with wood ones or plastic food storage bins with glass ones. And if you’re not in a place to invest, bringing in Nature without spending anything is as simple as opening your windows and letting the sun shine in. My favorite morning ritual is opening the blinds. We close everything at night, and opening the blinds in the morning feels like we’re waking up the Home, just like we’re waking up ourselves. If we’re awake - the House is awake!
Here’s to creating more peace in our lives, one small space at a time. And if you try any of these tips - please tag me on Instagram so I can see and share!
To shop any of the spaces I shared above - check out my Shop My Home page!
