It seems that Japanese decluttering consultant Marie Kondo’s ‘KonMarie’ tidying method is everywhere I read at the moment. Her book ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organising’ apparently offers pretty radical advice on how to rid your life of stress-inducing clutter, based mostly on what brings you joy, and how you store it. While I’m not quite ready to thank my belongings for their service before I throw them out, I can definitely agree that getting organised and decluttered makes me feel good.
I’ve been doing it on a smaller, much less radical scale during January and as well as throwing things out, am building a steady collection of boxes marked ‘eBay’, ‘Boot Fair’ or ‘Charity Shop’.
I started to go through all of my jewellery last weekend and realised that while there is not that much of it, I do have some nice things that I never wear, mostly because they are tucked away in a box and I’ve forgotten about them. So I got all the boxes out and opened the lids, but I pretty quickly realised that takes up tons of space and looks messy. And you still can’t really readily see everything and access it quickly in the morning.
The obvious answer was to have something hanging on the wall, visible and organised so I sat down with Andrew from Very Woody Things and we quickly designed the answer on a post it note. Four days later my lovely jewellery organiser arrived in a neat parcel.
It was easy to put up, on one hook and looked great on the wall straightaway.
Made from recycled wood and rope, and backed with cork board, the design incorporates pegs that are deep enough to hold earrings, rings or necklaces, but also allow for necklaces to hang freely. I can accommodate everything apart from ear studs – but I’ve only got one pair of those and they can hang in a pretty bag.
While I didn’t actually do any of the hard work of making the board, being part of the quick design process and seeing something you envisage come to life is great. Owning things that you are part of making brings much more happiness than ordering from Ikea, so if that’s what Marie Kondo means about the whole ‘joy’ thing then maybe she has a point.
