Clutter – a bane of modern life and something many of us seem to spend half our own lives fighting. My favourite definition of clutter is “a lot of objects in a state of being untidy”; it sums up the sheer number of items in our homes, plus the fact that they’re very often in the wrong place. (Although “in a state of being untidy” could apply equally to some of the people I love best…)
But back to objects, things, you know – “stuff”. It lies around, being untidy, getting in the way, making us feel dissatisfied, lazy and guilty. (Or is that just me?) People have built successful careers and businesses helping folk like me curb our enthusiasm for acquiring stuff, or encouraging us to let it go once we’ve given it house-room. But it’s all very well decluttering experts like Marie Kondo saying “Never keep anything you don’t use or love”; I use and love all my vintage bags, frocks, gloves, 50s costume jewellery, etc. They just takes up a heck of a lot of space, is all.
Which is where Jali comes in. The brilliant thing about our fine furniture is the way it can make the utmost of all your space. Every last millimetre. With an almost infinite choice of drawers, shelves and cupboards (there’s a brilliant way of combining all three with our luxury online designer available here). And it looks fabulous. Interiors expert Vanessa Holden says “Don’t think about storage and design as two separate ideas when they should really be thought of together. Storage doesn’t have to be utilitarian – you can have great storage and interesting design in one.” Add in the made-to-measure aspect, plus around two weeks from order to (usually free) delivery, and she’s pretty much described Jali.
The Good Housekeeping magazine article in which I found Marie and Vanessa’s advice (Feb 2015) also says, to get on top of clutter, “Don’t just rearrange the things you don’t need”, which when you think about it is sound advice. Like many of us, I do hang on to things I don’t actually require; at least, not in the immediate future. But I’m making a huge effort to ditch/recycle/move on the stuff that really isn’t earning its keep, or isn’t genuinely precious for sentimental reasons.
Finally, I’m going to try one of Marie Kondo’s practical tips for saving space. She says “I now fold as many clothes as possible and store them on shelves. You can fit 20 to 40 pieces of folded clothing in the space required to hang 10. Fold each item into a neat rectangle and stand it up rather than laying it flat. You can see garments at a glance, like the spines of books.” Worth a go, I’d say. And if you need the shelves, well, you know where to come for those…
