2019 Trend: less is more, and the less is pretty!

At Arriscraft, we try to live an environmentally-friendly life. Our efforts to use fewer resources have never stopped over our 70-year history. On a broader scale, we share this environmental consciousness in our home life too – like so many of you! In taking a look at the organizational craze, we noticed that simplification of our stuff is nudging us toward a circular economy based on the Reduce, Reuse and Recycle model. It’s a win-win really. Our purging and recycling can create some welcomed personal tranquility, and give the Earth a break from consumerism gone wild.

KONMARI

Have you heard about the fold to end all folds? Japanese organizer extraordinaire, Marie Kondo, has created a worldwide kerfuffle, shattering the norms of clothes folding. It’s a lot of buzz, but we have to admit it’s very cool, at least to watch!

Kondo’s recent book proves there’s much more to her methods than folding: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing details a brutal and decisive way of evaluating and purging your stuff. Here are the two essential principles:

1. For every item you have, ask yourself if it sparks joy; if not, you toss it.
2. Your remaining joy-giving belongings must be visible, accessible and easy to put back

This cleansed and joyful state means you never have to clean again. In our opinion, your interest level and capacity to go on this journey is deeply individual. We remain neutral – it’s a big ask, although a valuable perspective for anyone wallowing in their own stuff. Still curious? Check out Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix.

In our research on this, we did find a thoughtful article about one design editor’s experience and wanted to share a couple of her valuable takeaways: Respect your belongings and Nostalgia is not your friend!

THE HOME EDIT

The experts at The Home Edit will help you organize and feel stylish while doing it. That sounds a tad more rewarding to us. And while the pretty pictures are distracting, their advice gets right down to the inside of your fridge. Maybe you’ve committed this year to doing your master closet or mudroom – this resource may be a great spot to start.

Including a line of storage products for all areas of your home and life, plus cool décor items. If you don’t know where to start (need a push), maybe get inspired on their Instagram. Fear not, have fun.

Tips for 2019

1. Start small and edit (take on a small project and edit down to the essentials).
2. Categorization (create order in closet chaos with bins and labels)
3. Containment of items (rethinking your containers to fit your space)
4. Focus on how the room is used, not what the room is (take a look at how you are actually using a space.. instead of the concept and organize what you need)
5. The organizational pieces everyone should own (a lot of super functional and well-priced options on their site)

ROYGBIV

You may have been employing this method of visual organization your whole life and not known it has an official name. This acronym stands for the sequence of hues that makes up a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. You can read more about it on Wikipedia, something about physics and the electromagnet spectrum… but if you’re organizing your clothes, we’re pretty sure you already get it. Our own technical term is ‘making a rainbow, so you can find things.

COLOUR OF THE YEAR

We couldn’t sign off without a mention of Pantone’s Colour of the Year: Living Coral, which is light, fresh and tropical – precisely how we’d love to feel in February, in Canada. We love the coral and aqua colour combination and have found tons of design inspiration on this Pinterest collection. Maybe once that room or two is decluttered, you can spruce up the place with this uplifting colour! May it bring you joy.