The living room is one of the most used spaces in the home and typically needs to accommodate multiple functions, from entertaining and relaxing to working from home. To help you keep the space organized, we asked a professional organizer to share the top five things that make a living room look cluttered.
Read on to know what things you should avoid, so that your living room doesn’t become cluttered.
meet the expert
Laura Caetano Laura Caetano is a professional organizer and founder of Organizational Design.
Lack of good balance of open and closed storage
A good balance of open and closed storage is essential in the living room, as it strikes the right balance between practicality and visual appeal.
Laura Caetano, a professional organizer and founder of Laura Caetano Organizational Design, explains how lacking these two storage options is one of the main things that makes a space look disorganized. Caetano personally prefers to use drawer units or cabinets instead of open shelves or open media units to hide everything she has that doesn’t need to be out in the open.
This concerns everything from office supplies, extra cords and books that may be used and needed in the living room, but are not necessarily kept on full display at all times. To break up all the closed storage, she recommends balancing with open storage.
,open shelves Must-have decorative items, things that tell a story about who you are, things that help make a room feel the way you want it to; Calm, motivated, energetic—whatever works for you,” says Caetano.
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no storage specified
Caetano recommends creating designated storage for items you use on a regular basis.
“Don’t make the mistake of storing those items somewhere inconvenient because they’ll stick out on the surface or in a corner because it’s too much work to put in the closet down the hall,” says Caetano.
Sort your items to see how often you actually use them in the living room and move less frequently used items to another area.
insufficient storage
Another important thing to watch out for is overcrowded baskets, drawers and cabinets, things that fall out when opened, or things that can’t be easily accessed or removed.
To create a functional organizational system for your living room, take inventory of the space and the items in it. scarce living room storage This will create a cluttered space that will be difficult to keep clean and relaxing. To remedy this, Caetano suggests getting rid of things you no longer need or purchasing a larger storage unit.
dirty wire
Most living rooms have a large number of things that need to be plugged in, from TVs and light fixtures to portable devices like phones and laptops. Although we may use all of them on a daily basis, proper cord management is essential to keep the living room from looking cluttered.
“Taking the time to tie wires behind a piece of furniture goes a long way in reducing visual clutter,” says Caetano.
Additionally, you can hide cords Use outlet concealers with an extension cord, where possible, in a cable management box, or create a charging station for charging devices in one location.
things that have piled up over time
“We become blind to the things in our homes that stay in one place for too long, things that we should be getting rid of but for whatever reason don’t,” says Caetano.
Be it old magazines or a pile of board gamesShe says these things pile up over time and eventually we stop noticing them. To avoid this clutter trap, Caetano recommends looking at your space with fresh eyes. This way, you’ll really be able to see if these items are adding or taking away from your life or space, says Caetano.
