Keeping your house clean is one thing; keeping it tidy is something else entirely. If you’ve tried every decluttering hack under the sun and still can’t get away from all of your stuff (even after getting rid of items you no longer need), it might be time to embrace the clutter closet.
A clutter closet is a dedicated space with a door, used to store all the miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t fit or belong anywhere else. It can be an entire extra bedroom that you transform into a walk-in closet and storage area, or even a small hall closet — whatever you have space for. And the best part? You don’t have to worry about home decor or making it look aesthetically pleasing; you can simply close the door and hide everything away.
Conceal the Chaos
This concept comes to us from Medea Giordano, the former commerce editor at Better Report, who transformed her extra bedroom into a clutter closet. “No matter how clean your house actually is, having random odds and ends around looks messy. At some point, an organized mess is still a mess,” Giordano says.
Before embracing this approach (which, admittedly, is more of a commitment), Giordano says she tried the basket trick, which involves collecting all miscellaneous items into a basket at the end of the day to be put away later. “It keeps the mess off surfaces and gives you time to figure out what to do with it,” she explains. After having a baby, however, her single basket became many baskets, and she realized she didn’t need a container for her clutter — she needed a room.
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With some extra space to spare, Giordano and her husband turned an unused dining room with a door into a clothes closet and storage space. “Stackable bins hold my camera accessories, my baby’s swim diapers and SPF, the pump to my yoga ball, and other random stuff that never seems to have a good home, but I don’t want to pack away in a box in the basement,” Giordano says. The goal isn’t for the room to be beautiful, but to be functional. “It’s not pretty, but everything has a place that I can easily see and access.”
With a room (or a closet, if you don’t have the space) dedicated to clutter, Giordano says the rest of her house “finally feels tidy, like a place I can relax and have people over.”
