Long ago I read Karen Kingston’s enlightening book, “Creating Sacred Space With Feng Shui,” and much of what I read has become a building block for how I work with my clients to define their current and future space. When it comes to clutter, Kingston’s belief is that we are tied to everything in our home by invisible strings of energy. If you have loads of meaningless clutter, you are tied to all of that, wasting your valuable and beautiful energy on junk. That imagery stuck with me and I was thinking about this book recently while working on a guest room/office for one of my favorite people. Her room had been the designated drop zone for all kinds of day-to-day ephemera. It was “sad” in a home that is exactly the opposite. You should begin every transformation by getting rid of the baggage – literally! It is now an amazing space, and I will post pictures shortly.
I strongly believe that if you have so much “junk” that it can fill its own room, you are harboring objects you don’t use, love or need, and you weigh down your space and your psyche in ways you may not have realized. If you are lucky enough to have that much space, why not enjoy it?
You don’t need a queen size bed or an enormous desk to create a great guestroom or workspace. A daybed doubles as a sofa, and adding a trundle lets you sleep more than one. A sleek console table fits a laptop perfectly and still allows for a cup of coffee and a stack of papers. Adding shelving utilizes the wall and adds display space while baskets and fabric covered boxes can stack in a corner and keep things organized. The picture above is a great example of how to maximize your square footage. The closet was turned into a work nook but the shelving still allows for ample storage.
If you don’t need or want a guest room or work space, you could turn that extra room into a wardrobe area by adding open racks, painted vintage dressers or armoires and a chic vanity table.
Possibly you want a space dedicated to watching movies and/or playing video games that isn’t your main living space. Stylish seating, a few well-placed small tables, some storage for the DVDs, games, snacks, great lighting, and some art and voila, you have a mini-media room!
It may take some imagination and patience to find the diamond in the rough but we’re always here to help if you can’t find it under the orphaned socks, deflated exercise ball and last year’s tax receipts!
M
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