RKR Jan/Feb 2025 with VBRL - 54

Homes
Making the
Most of a Mess
written by Stephanie H. Fallon
Living through a home project can be messy, but small steps like
gradual decluttering, starting with exciting tasks and styling
temporary spaces can make the process more enjoyable.
upgrading furniture, or even just rearranging a
room can require lots of temporary solutions
like boxing up shelves' of books and picture
frames and leaving them stacked in less-thanconvenient
places as you work. Sometimes
you have to remove old items before the
replacements arrive, which at best, might
leave an empty eyesore; at worst, a functional
nightmare. Losing the use of a bathroom or a
kitchen appliance might even be more than
an inconvenience, depending on your needs
and whether or not you have another option
during the waiting period. Maybe your project
requires kids moving into the same room, or
the whole family sharing one toilet, or maybe
you have to actually live somewhere else for the
interim. Logistics, planning and flexibility are
all components of design that require time and
emotional bandwidth and sometimes there just
isn't enough to go around!
But if you have a home project that you're
tired of delaying, there are ways to make the
WIP (work in progress) stage a little bit easier.
Don't let the idea of short-term inconvenience
or mess put you off turning your dreams into
a reality a moment longer: This is your year to
make your home dreams come true.
DECLUTTER: SLOWLY,
WITHOUT DELAY.
Start off the new year by
clearing out the clutter
and organizing your
home, one step at a time.
The number one way to minimize the annoyance
of living in a space-in-progress is to clear
out the extraneous clutter. If you've got to put
things in boxes or in temporary piles to make
room for your project, nothing will make it
more frustrating than the presence of the stuff
you less-than-love. Take the opportunity to do
a quick clear out and give yourself the blankest
canvas you can muster.
The best way to keep a decluttering objective
P
54
ost-holidays, it's not uncommon
for the decoration clearout
to snowball into a bit of a
decluttering spree that might
reveal some of the ways your
home isn't as functional or beautiful as you'd
like. You might find yourself looking around
your home in January and feeling the itch to
refresh and the " new year, new me! " energy
might inspire you to address these gaps now.
But we all know that creating the home you
love doesn't come as easily as the desire to do
so. While it's one thing to put together a vision
board or scroll through Pinterest with decision
and excitement, the implementation process
often goes much less smoothly...and much,
much more slowly. Whether you're DIYing or
working with a designer and a larger budget,
delays are inevitable. Chances are high that you
will have to live in a space that is, at least for a
time, in progress. AKA: kind of a mess.
The prospect of living in the in-between
states of a design project can sometimes be
enough of a deterrent to even start. Repainting,
from turning into its own enormous project is
to not think of it as a project at all. Instead of
designating a whole weekend to clearing out
the entire house, adopt the compound effect
approach and do it piecemeal, over a longer
period of time. The trick is to strike a key balance
between immediate action and slower
overall progress: The moment you find yourself
thinking " We should really donate that
lamp, " unplug the lamp and put it in your car.
Similar to the five-minutes-or-less rule, where
you challenge yourself to do any task that takes
less than five minutes the moment you become
STEPHANIE H. FALLON is a writer and artist originally from Houston, Texas. She has her BA in English and Studio Art and her MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University. You can check
out her portfolio at stephaniehfallon.com or find her on Instagram: @shlohbo.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
TheRoanoker.com

http://www.stephaniehfallon.com https://www.instagram.com/shlohbo/ http://www.TheRoanoker.com

RKR Jan/Feb 2025 with VBRL

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of RKR Jan/Feb 2025 with VBRL