Maybe clutter is collecting on a piece of furniture because of the furniture.
I know that sounds weird but it’s true. If it’s convenient to set something down instead of putting it away, we will often take the easy way out. Over time your piece of furniture becomes a dumping ground.
Sometimes you need to remove the desk, hutch, table, etc. I’m not saying that this is always the solution. I just want you to think about what is really happening in your space.
Example: I found a cute rolltop desk that fits perfectly in our space and did I mention that it was SO CUTE! But it never stayed cute. People were always setting stuff on it, it was never clean. I finally decided to give up the desk altogether. It never held anything important, just stuff that should go somewhere else. And magically nothing accumulated in that space after it was gone. Does anyone else have furniture that is essentially just a delayed decision collector?
This client was able to clear her entire spare media center. It had turned into a dumping ground. If you have a piece of furniture that doesn’t really have a purpose you might want to get rid of it or there’s a chance it could do the same.
Maybe it’s the fishbowl effect but for surfaces? You know, ‘the fish grows to the size of the bowl’…but here it’s ‘if there’s a surface, it must have something on or in it’… (I don’t know, it’s a work in progress.)
Have you found this to be true in your home? How do you encourage family members not to fill up your empty/decorative spaces?
