15 ways to reduce VISUAL clutter

Hey, welcome back to my channel, and if you are new here then welcome. My name is Mia Danielle and I chat all about holistic and clutter-free spaces. So as the name suggests, holistic and clutter-free spaces, I spend a lot of time chatting about how to maintain clutter-free spaces, how to make spaces that feel good, how to get the clutter out. But one thing that I haven't shared about before is how to create visually decluttered spaces with the belongings that you already have. So there are a lot of things that we keep that we're not planning on discarding because they're items that we use. Things in the kitchen, you know, like silverware, papers, mailing supplies. There are different things that we actually do use on a regular basis that can still make our space look visually cluttered. So today I'm going to share 15 ways that you can reduce that visual clutter. I'm going to show you some of the things that I do inside of my own home in order to keep down some of the visibility of things like cords and papers and those things that we do need to hold on to but don't want them to be cluttering up our space. Now if you're new to this channel and you're working on getting the clutter out and creating spaces that really do feel amazing, then be sure to click the subscribe and turn on notifications so you'll be notified when I release a new video every Tuesday. Alright, so you ready? Let's go ahead and give it a thumbs up and talk about the 15 ways that you can reduce visual clutter inside of your home. One of those things that we all need but that so many people, especially if you have kids, can leave them just tumbled across the floor and make the place look a mess is shoes. So one thing that we've done here that's worked out really well is put a shoe rack at the top of the entryway. So our entryway is right here at the top of the stairs. We put a shoe rack there so that everybody who's coming in takes their shoes off and puts them there and it never gets beyond that point. And then of course whenever we want to leave, we put our shoes back on and we leave. So just having a collection space for shoes, ideally something that looks nice and goes along with your decor, is a great way to keep down any kind of shoe clutter and also losing your shoes throughout the day. Now of course a lot of the belongings that we use and the things that we own do require cords. They need to be plugged in in order to function. You've probably found this to be the case with a lot of your lamps or if you're like me here in Oregon, most of the houses don't come with central AC and heating which drives me insane. I'm not a huge fan of window units but when it's 113 degrees like it was during our heat wave a couple of weeks ago, we've got to pull out some window units, right? And I don't like the appearance of the cords hanging down the wall. But one thing that I've started just naturally doing is placing things like decor or lamps or plants in front of things like outlets and unsightly cords. It really helps to cover up that area in a more natural way. Of course number three I have to throw out there is to have less stuff. When you have less stuff, even if it's those things that you do need and that you are using regularly, when you have fewer of them and you minimize those things down to a more manageable quantity, it's a lot easier to maintain the visible appearance of clutter because there aren't so many things to juggle. So for example with the shoes, if you only have a couple of pairs of shoes, it's easy to keep those maintained. It's easy to fit them inside of a slot in the entryway without having to worry about not being able to accommodate so many shoes from so many different people. The same thing with papers and with stationary supplies and with cooking supplies. All of the belongings that you're able to minimize and get down to a more manageable quantity, you're going to find it a lot easier to maintain the visual status of those things on your surfaces. Now of course I have a really popular free training on exactly that, creating holistic clutter-free spaces inside of your home. So if you're struggling with getting things down to a more manageable amount, then I definitely recommend that you check out my holistic clutter-free formula where I share information about how to do that. Of course there are some things that you don't want to necessarily store away in drawers or in cabinets, particularly when you're thinking of things like the dining room or the kitchen. Maybe you want to keep your coasters out on the table or different salt and pepper shakers, things that you're going to regularly be using. A great way to be able to keep these things out and easily accessible while not looking cluttered is to create a central hub in each of these locations versus having things that are just kind of spread out and placed here and there. The fifth thing is something that I've always been a huge fan of and that is creating stations. So for example, for me, because I'm such a big coffee drinker, I have my Keurig and my espresso maker and a little dish that my daughter made me in ceramics that holds all of my Splenda sugar and all of the ingredients that I need pretty much right there on a separate table. And I've seen people use this in a bunch of different ways. You can use it for smoothie supplies, if you're a tea drinker, basically anything that has a variety of items that go along with it, creating a little station that's just for that. And this has the added benefit of using groupings where you're grouping like things together, things that are for a common purpose, which really helps to increase the functionality of that space. Number six is a blanket collector. I've had this thing for years, but I think that regardless of what you have, it's great to have a location to put all of your throw blankets. Most of us enjoy having throw blankets that are at least somewhat readily available, right? So rather than just keeping multiple blankets draped or just left out on the couch, it's nice to have one central location where you can go and toss all of the throw blankets. Sometimes we'll even toss a few throw pillows in there if we have extras on the couch. And it just makes it look more appealing and less visually cluttered. Number seven is to use bins to collect like items. For example, we have a bin that we use for all of the sushi supplies. This is something my daughter got for Christmas. And so we keep all of the sushi supplies, the bamboo wraps, the seaweed, the rice, all of the different pieces that go along with making sushi go in this bin. And we use this same type of concept throughout our home. And so when you can collect like items into a bin like this, it increases functionality as well as decreasing the appearance of clutter. Now, not to scare anybody off from design and being a little bold with their design, because I know it's scary for a lot of people. And I do have a good friend who teaches about design, and she encourages people to not be afraid of occasionally mixing patterns. However, when we're talking about keeping down the visual clutter of a space, it's important that you take a look at the colors and the patterns that you are bringing in to make sure it's at least cohesive. So having multiple different kinds of bright poppy colors is going to feel more visually cluttered. Having a bunch of different textures and patterns that don't necessarily go together, especially if you're using more than like three to five and it's just everything is different, is going to feel more visually cluttered. So if you try to get down to a semblance of a color pattern using maybe three to five colors and maybe three to five different textures or patterns that kind of work together that you can pull out in different zones of a space, that's going to help the space to feel more cohesive and to feel less jumbled and less cluttered. Now number nine I know is hard for a lot of people, especially if you have a lot of stuff inside of your pots and pans cabinets, and that is to establish a space for each of your chosen appliances. Make sure that you're only keeping the appliances first of all that you have a space for and that those that you are using and that you're holding on to have a spot underneath the cabinet. That way you're not leaving them out on top of the cabinet or tossing them in on top of a bunch of other things inside of your pots and pans cabinet. This is one of those things that's much much easier if you already have a minimized amount of belongings underneath the cabinet. Having a specific designated location for things like that, things like the blender, the toaster, the instant pot, also encourages other people in the household to put it back where it belongs. It just it adds a system that makes it easier for everybody to follow through with putting things back in their designated location. Number 10 is pretty simple. It's something that you've probably even tried before and that is to band cords together. I enjoy using rubber bands or sometimes when cords come with little velcro latches that you can wrap them around, I hold on to those because I will definitely use them in one location or another. Doesn't even have to be with the thing it came with, but just wrapping up cords and keeping them tidy helps them to more easily fit behind the appliance or whatever it is that you're using so that it can be concealed. Otherwise you're going to have cords that are unruly and winding around the counter and become visually cluttered. Number 11 is to create small groupings and negative space with your actual decor items. So I'm talking you know when you're putting the plants up on the shelf, when you're setting the items out for display on your bookshelf or on your dining table. Having things spread out across the table is going to make it feel more cluttered as we talked about earlier with having a central hub for belongings. It really helps when you can group things together, but even when you're just talking about a couple of items like for example a couple of jars of display items. When you can group those together and add a little bit of white space in between and use odd numbers because for some reason studies have shown that our brands prefer odd numbers. That's why if you look at a bunch of articles, whether it's mine or somebody else's, unless it's a 10 number like 10s, 20s, 30s, it'll usually be an odd number. Nine things that people need to fill in the blank and that's because studies have shown that people prefer and trust odd numbers over even numbers and that works with decor and design as well. We also have bottles that we display above the sink in the kitchen and we don't have an even number on each side because it makes it feel more natural while also keeping down the visual clutter when you can keep the groupings separated but not looking like it's matchy-matchy. Not looking like it's exactly the same on both sides. So really pay attention to a lot of the negative space when you're placing your items. Number 12 is a personal preference of mine. It's something that I've been doing for a couple years now and I really love and that is keeping the knives off the counter and in a drawer. This is my favorite drawer in the house. This drawer that holds the knives. I have a little knife rack that's inside of the drawer and I love that this drawer has a very specific purpose. Its purpose is to hold the knives. You know it's not collecting other kinds of junk and the knives aren't taking up space on the counter because a lot of the knife blocks that are used for display with the knives take a lot of space on the counter. It's like they need their own corner. So just having this drawer really helps to keep the counters clear. Another one of my personal favorite ways to keep down clutter is to consolidate. Consolidate like items into one container. So this could be dish soap if you have a couple of different dish soaps that are almost empty. Consolidating those, squeezing one into the other, and throwing away the empty one just helps to save at least 50% of the space if you have two things. If you have more than two things then you're saving even more than 50% of the space and it's a quick and easy way to reduce that visual clutter. Number 14 is to lift items vertically. So start thinking of how you can store or place your items in more of a vertical nature as opposed to a horizontal nature. Horizontal takes up space on the surfaces right and it generally causes more visual clutter because of the space that it's taking up and because of the way that it's spread out. When you're able to use vertical placements as part of your decor whether it's stacking coffee mugs or using shelves that stack vertically up a wall or mounting things whenever possible whether it's the paper towel holder or the toilet paper holder or the microwave. Just keeping things lifted off of the surfaces and going upward as much as possible helps to lift the eye up. It helps to make the spaces feel bigger and it gives you more of your surface space back which looks less cluttered. And number 15 is to try to find a way to make the everyday items if at all possible look artistic and visually appealing in design. A friend of mine clued me into a man named Don Norman who is an American researcher but he's known for his contributions to design specifically emotional design and one of the things that he says in one of his TED talks is that pleasant things by design things that are fun or you know pretty nice to look at fun to use that those things because of the way that we operate when we're interacting with those things that they work better. Not only that but we register things that look more visually appealing whether that's more simplified using more of the natural elements like we register that as being less cluttered than something that's just using its branded plastic store bottle that's sitting out on the counter all the time. It's the same thing but one looks more cluttered than the other. So those are the 15 systems that I use in my home but I actually have a bonus one for you because a lot of you know that we recently got married and as a wedding gift our good friend Noah gave us an Aura picture frame and I just have to show this because this thing is incredible. The view on it is amazing. The simplicity of being able to add photos to this thing is just great. All of it works from an app but I can just see the possibilities especially for people who have so many picture frames and pictures and don't know what to do with them. This is a great way to decrease visual clutter but now I'd love to know what are some of your tips and tricks that you use at your home to decrease your visual clutter and when you're done with that check out some of these other videos on creating holistic clutter free spaces. I'll catch you next week!