The story below is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Living through a home project can be messy, but small steps like gradual decluttering, starting with exciting tasks and styling temporary spaces can make the process more enjoyable.
Stacked symmetry can look like part of your home rather than a mess.
Post-holidays, it’s not uncommon for the decoration clear-out to snowball into a bit of a decluttering spree that might reveal some of the ways your home isn’t as functional or beautiful as you’d like. You might find yourself looking around your home in January and feeling the itch to refresh and the “new year, new me!” energy might inspire you to address these gaps now.
But we all know that creating the home you love doesn’t come as easily as the desire to do so. While it’s one thing to put together a vision board or scroll through Pinterest with decision and excitement, the implementation process often goes much less smoothly…and much, much more slowly. Whether you’re DIYing or working with a designer and a larger budget, delays are inevitable. Chances are high that you will have to live in a space that is, at least for a time, in progress. AKA: kind of a mess.
The prospect of living in the in-between states of a design project can sometimes be enough of a deterrent to even start. Repainting, upgrading furniture, or even just rearranging a room can require lots of temporary solutions like boxing up shelves’ of books and picture frames and leaving them stacked in less-than-convenient places as you work. Sometimes you have to remove old items before the replacements arrive, which at best, might leave an empty eyesore; at worst, a functional nightmare. Losing the use of a bathroom or a kitchen appliance might even be more than an inconvenience, depending on your needs and whether or not you have another option during the waiting period. Maybe your project requires kids moving into the same room, or the whole family sharing one toilet, or maybe you have to actually live somewhere else for the interim. Logistics, planning and flexibility are all components of design that require time and emotional bandwidth and sometimes there just isn’t enough to go around!
But if you have a home project that you’re tired of delaying, there are ways to make the WIP (work in progress) stage a little bit easier. Don’t let the idea of short-term inconvenience or mess put you off turning your dreams into a reality a moment longer: This is your year to make your home dreams come true.
Declutter: Slowly, Without Delay.
Start off the new year by clearing out the clutter and organizing your home, one step at a time.
The number one way to minimize the annoyance of living in a space-in-progress is to clear out the extraneous clutter. If you’ve got to put things in boxes or in temporary piles to make room for your project, nothing will make it more frustrating than the presence of the stuff you less-than-love. Take the opportunity to do a quick clear out and give yourself the blankest canvas you can muster.
The best way to keep a decluttering objective from turning into its own enormous project is to not think of it as a project at all. Instead of designating a whole weekend to clearing out the entire house, adopt the compound effect approach and do it piecemeal, over a longer period of time. The trick is to strike a key balance between immediate action and slower overall progress: The moment you find yourself thinking “We should really donate that lamp,” unplug the lamp and put it in your car. Similar to the five-minutes-or-less rule, where you challenge yourself to do any task that takes less than five minutes the moment you become aware of it, approach decluttering the same way. You’ll be surprised how much progress you’ll make in clearing out your home without torpedoing a full day to do so.
A variation on this is to keep a donation box in a convenient location like the garage, or near the recycling bin for household items and a separate one in the closet or next to the laundry for clothes. When the box is full, donate it. (You can use a decorative basket or other visually pleasing container if a cardboard box stresses you out.) This process gives you a little time to test out what it feels like to get rid of something you’re on the fence about: Put it in the box, and if you find yourself thinking about it before you donate it, you can take it back out. If not, bid it farewell.
Decluttering should be an ongoing process in your home, as you enter new stages and find yourself either figuratively or literally outgrowing things from other parts of your life. So consider this part more of a habit-building practice rather than a single task needing to be completed by a particular date. The more you do it, the more decisive you’ll be, and eventually it will all come full circle, making you a better buyer when you go to purchase something new.
Dessert First
“Dessert first” is a piece of writing advice about how to get yourself engaged in a new project –– especially a longer format or more ambitious project. To put it simply, start with whatever you’re most excited about. Don’t delay working on the things you have passion and energy for, especially not at the beginning, when the road ahead looks so long. Eat your dessert first.
The benefits of this approach is that it gives you momentum. Instead of starting with something hard, intimidating, or tricky that can present the sort of roadblocks that might kill your desire to continue, go for the thing that will only fuel your excitement. For a home design project, this could be the idea that really has your heart, like the peel-and-stick statement wallpaper you want in the bathroom. Or it could be the part of a project you can knock out completely in a short period of time, like swapping all throw blankets and pillows out for a new season. “Dessert” just has to mean whatever is going to give you that delicious, satisfied feeling once you get started. Whether that’s seeing fast progress or a particular wall paint color you just can’t wait to see in person, go for it. Jump right in, get a little dirty and knock down the first domino of your home design project.
Make Your Mess Visually Appealing
It can be kind of fun to live with mess –– with the right mindset! And it starts with not thinking about it as a mess at all.
You know how in the movies the artists’ studios are always quite untidy, but also very cool-looking? Think of your own in-between spaces like this. Just because the mess is temporary doesn’t mean it has to be an eyesore!
First, keep the area as functional as possible: Make sure you always have walkways and that no vents or doors are blocked. Then create as much order as you can. Stack boxes and books in a stable, organized way, creating symmetry with your piles if you can. Keep objects grouped together and give tools their own temporary spaces to always live when not in use. If your project produces a lot of trash, keep designated bins nearby and available so nothing ends up getting kicked under a table or scattered across the floor. Don’t use the accumulation of project supplies as an excuse to dump other stuff that will only accumulate and clutter up the project area –– junk mail, reusable bags, outerwear, keys, papers can all find their way to another location. Keep your in-progress areas clear of unrelated materials as much as possible, so that you can see what you need to see: the progress of your project.
The other reason living with a mess can be fun is that it forces you to have to get a little creative with how to live in and around the spaces that are out of commission. You might have to give up an entryway closet during a project but you will still need to find a place to put your shoes and coats –– think of this as an opportunity to experiment. Instead of simply tossing your shoes into a trunk and calling it a day, maybe you bring up a forgotten shelf from the basement and try it in a different corner; maybe you clear out a storage bench from the garden and put that on your porch. You might find a function that works better for you!
And don’t be afraid to style a temporary space –– who cares if it’s only something you’re using for a little while? You can still like doing it!
While waiting on a new sofa, instead of just pulling in random lawn chairs to watch TV, pile blankets, rugs and pillows around to make a cozy indoor picnic area. Hang twinkle lights, light candles and eat dinner on the floor. Play and enjoy the opportunity to use these spaces a little differently than how you would usually. One of the best parts of having areas of your home in flux is that it can spark your imagination to see all the spaces from a new perspective. Let yourself improvise and get creative! You might be surprised to discover that the dining room would be a better office area, or the light near your front hallway provides the perfect glowing nook for a little reading chair. Who knows? Follow any notion or idea that pops into your mind and see where it takes you.
Sometimes living with a home design project can be hard because of stalled momentum, and sometimes it’s just because it’s not the space you want to be in. It can be hard to stay patient when you can’t find your things and delivery delays keep pushing back your timeline! It’s important in these moments to remember that a work in progress won’t stay like that forever. And if you can stay patient, you’ll get much longer to enjoy the final, realized product than you ever had to endure the messy process it took to get you there.
The story above is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!