Here’s Why Your Home Feels Cluttered When It’s Clean
Cluttered home? Here’s why.
It happens to the best of us: You’ve got yourself a cluttered home, even though you’ve already decluttered.
Why is that?
The answer partly lies in the perceived inverse relationship between clutter and cleanliness, as perfectly demonstrated during a recent lunch date at my home with a friend.
Shortly after she arrived, I noticed her looking around. Then she gave me the best compliment. She said, “your home is so clean.”
I smiled + said thank you, of course, but my house wasn’t particularly clean that day. There were Dust Bunnies + dog hair all over the floor. I had given the bathroom a wipe down but it certainly wasn’t sparkling. Crumbs from breakfast still sat on the counter where my youngest daughter ate nearly 3 hours prior.
We had a lovely lunch date and, after I left, I sat with her compliment. I found myself wondering what she really meant.
Here’s what I concluded: My friend wasn’t actually commenting on cleanliness. Instead, she was commenting on the fact that my home is free of clutter.
That’s because we as humans associate clear spaces with cleanliness+ on the inverse, clutter with dirtiness.
Here are 10 reasons why you may have yourself a messy home (even though you’ve already decluttered!):
10 reasons why you have a cluttered home (even though it’s clean):
1. Too much furniture
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Find yourself constantly side stepping end tables + floor lamps + arm chairs? If so, you may have too much furniture.
Similarly, the pieces you do have + do need may be oversized.
When professional stagers come into a home before a sale they do one of two things.
Either they A: Take out 80-percent of the homeowners furniture + move around what’s left
or B: Take out 100-percent of a homeowner’s furniture + replace it all with SMALLER pieces.
That’s because fewer, smaller pieces make homes feel bigger, 100-percent of the time.
If you think you may have too many in your home – and certainly if you have furniture you don’t use + don’t need – consider passing some along. High quality pieces in solid condition can be resold while cheaper or older items can be given to someone in need.
Furniture that’s free almost always goes quickly, so go ahead and use that to your advantage.
Did you know?
You can find The Sustainable Minimalists Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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2. Stuff on the refrigerator
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Is your refrigerator door a cluttered disaster? If so, it’s contributing to your messy home.
Try a clear fridge on for size for one week. Remove absolutely everything.
– Kids’ school papers? Place them in their baby books.
– Invitations to birthday parties? Extract the important information, put in your calendar + recycle the invite.
– Photographs? Place them in a photo album.
– Old holiday cards? Recycle.
Intentionally keep your refrigerator bare for 7 days. If you’re like most people, you’ll come to love that clear + quiet space.
But if you don’t – if it feels a little too bare for your liking – know that you can put some items back up. Just be intentional about what choose to display + remember the cardinal rule of minimalism:
Less is always More.
3. Overstuffed bookshelves
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Overstuffed bookshelves scream messy home. That’s why it’s important to organize your bookshelves:
– Arrange books in ascending order.
– Push books to the front of the shelf so they’re lined up evenly + create a flawless, smooth face.
– Intersperse a trinket here or there to break up the visual monotony of book spine after book spine.
– Turn some horizontally + stack to break up the monotony.
4. Excessive wall art
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Wall art can drive us into sensory overload, fast.
Take some down, especially the ones you’ve always been iffy about.
It’s often assumed that we *must* fill bare walls. And while there’s nothing wrong with filling bare walls if you’re covering them with pieces that “spark joy”, it’s prudent to challenge the assumption that walls need art if it serves no purpose except to fill empty space.
Maybe you have a painting up that you never really liked but you wanted to fill the space on the wall. Take it down.
See if you grow to love that white space. If you don’t, and if you choose to put the original portrait back up, do it because you miss the artwork + genuinely want to look at it every day because it improves your day + enhances your mood, NOT because you want to willy-nilly fill the space.
If an item doesn’t add genuine + lasting value to your life, it has no place in your home. Period.
5. Trinkets everywhere scream cluttered home
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Trinkets collect dust; as such, they require your precious time to clean + maintain.
They create visual overstimulation, too, especially when you have lots of them.
Finally, when you have too many of something, you never really “see” any of them – you never give yourself the opportunity to enjoy them when they’re competing for your attention with dozens of other trinkets.
Think about a place in your home that holds decorations. How often do you look at those decorations? When I say look, I mean really look. You stop + gaze. You stare, even, as you allow yourself to feel an emotion through that trinket.
How often does that happen, really?
It doesn’t happen often, does it? The reason is we don’t have time to really stop + really stare + really enjoy all our decorations.
But this problem can be easily solved by displaying less.
[Related: Declutter Your Trinkets in Under 10 Minutes]
6. Out-of-control collections
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Back before I described myself as a minimalist, my husband and I traveled a lot. I brought home a teapot from different countries we visited as a way to remember each trip.
As we traveled more + more and as I brought home more + more exotic teapots I realized that while my teapots were beautiful individually, they looked like a gigantic, mismatched mess when displayed together.
When it comes to collections, I’ve come to internalize Joshua Becker’s insight on the topic. He says that when you intentionally decide to display fewer items, those small but curated pieces are empowered to come to the forefront and shine because your most treasured items aren’t competing for your attention amidst all the other teapots, or all the other dolls, or whatever your personal collection may consist of.
If you have a beloved collection of something, or if you have too many trinkets, you have 3 options. You can:
- Donate some,
- Rotate them so only a few are on display at a time, or
- Enact a quarantine box.
7. Chord chaos
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Chords are part of 21st Century living. The problem is, chords can quickly become unruly. They can quickly contribute to disarray in your messy home, too.
Keep your chords organized by using the plastic nubs from bread bags to label them individually. Fold them + store them in repurposed toilet paper rolls, too.
8. Piles everywhere
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Even organized piles contribute to a cluttered home.
Worse, piles are just delayed decisions. So instead of putting like items into neat piles + vowing to tackle them later, tackle individual items now.
Does the mail pile haunt you? Get into the habit of sifting through your mail the second you remove it from the mailbox. I put the junk mail straight into the gigantic recycling bin in my garage before stepping a foot in my house.
If you have a gigantic junk mail problem, I suggest you consider – for both your sanity and the planet! – taking the 10 minutes to remove yourself from marketing and catalog mailing lists.
9. Entryway woes
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When returning home after a long day, the entryway greets you first.
Indeed, your entryway can make or break your mood the moment you step foot inside.
Make your entryway a priority by putting things away the moment you enter.
Have a system for shoes. There’s nothing worse than opening the door only to trip over the shoes that are just sitting there because they aren’t part of a system.
My kids are little, but even they know that when they come in the house their shoes must come off + they must go in their respective bin.
I like bins because they’re easy enough for even my two year old to master; they serve as a container, too, to literally contain the shoes.
If you live in a climate with distinct changing seasons, rotate your jackets + shoes. (There’s no need to keep your snow boots + your parka out in the summer!)
Take all the off-season stuff out, wash it + sift through it at the end of every season. This household maintenance is a habit that keeps real clutter at bay in the long-term.
10. Too many toys
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I hear it all the time: Moms + Dads who declutter the toys often don’t declutter enough. The result is a cluttered home with overflowing bins of plastic toys.
I understand why. No one wants their child to be depraved, and so – even though we know better – we often leave too many toys.
The solution here is simple: Do a second declutter of the toys. On your second sweep through, be ruthless.
If you’re really having a hard time – or if your children are putting up a legitimate fight – fill a basket with items you’re not yet ready to let go of. Put as much in as needed to make your home’s toy space feel decluttered.
Then put that basket somewhere out of sight. Sit back and see if your children ever ask for its contents.
Alternately, reserve this basket as your rainy day back-up plan for when your kids are restless and bored and need something “new” to play with.
