In a couple of weeks, the designer’s attractive and thoughtful interior turns into a sloppy apartment littered with things. Sound familiar? Chinese designer Lu Wei thought about how to store clothes and all items in the house in general. Luxury bathroom vanity store New Bathroom Style found out the details of her approach.
Of course, you have heard of the Japanese woman Mari Kondo, who invented the method of cleaning and decluttering: she wrote the book “Magic Cleaning,” which is famous worldwide. Her Chinese colleague went further: after completing the projects, designer Lu Wei asked permission to visit her clients to see how they live and find out what of her ideas turned out to be helpful and what was not. Each time she was surprised to find a cluttered house. Even the interior, thought out to the smallest detail, could not withstand the onslaught of things.
It was then that she conceived a system that would allow not to lose what was needed, but at the same time not to give half of the apartment for storage systems and not force it with cabinets.
Rule 1: “diet” the house
Regardless of the dwelling area, up to a third of the apartment will have to be given for storage systems. True, this will not be a third of the room but a third of the volume.
For example, if the apartment has high ceilings, it is better to place hanging cabinets for rarely used items under the awning. Or, conversely, raise the bed or other areas to the podium, inside which the built-in storage systems are hidden. Such furniture will not take up additional floor space.
But the designer reminds us: we allow ourselves whatever we want, except for the space to live. This means that it is not enough just to figure out where to store things. This means that it is not enough just to figure out where to store things. Something will have to get rid of in order not to turn the apartment and your bathroom with your high end bathroom vanities into a warehouse for living. Therefore, you will have to “put the house on a diet” – to throw out all non-working, unnecessary, old, unpleasant things for you.
Rule # 2: think of everything as a container for things
Any limited space Lu Wei calls a storage system. For example, an apartment is an enormous container, inside which there are cells-rooms and in the smaller containers – cabinets and dressers, inside which the most miniature containers are boxes and boxes. If there are not enough containers for all things, nothing can be done about it.
Therefore, the designer offers an exercise – to draw the layout of his apartment and highlight all cabinets and containers with things with a colored marker. This will allow you to understand if you have enough storage systems and provide additional ones.
Rule number 3: each room – a wardrobe
Sometimes it seems that the right solution would be a warehouse to store all the family’s belongings. But in practice, this is not at all convenient. Things should be close at hand, otherwise sooner or later, the owners will become too lazy to carry them to their place, and they will settle again on all surfaces in the room. It is difficult to do in a bedroom without a closet or dressing room – it would be foolish to go to the living room or hallway for clothes every time. Likewise, it would help if you did not place cabinets with dishes and products outside the kitchen and dining room.
Therefore, the painted storage systems from the previous rule should be evenly spaced throughout the apartment. Each room will need its own storage system, even if it is small. For example, it is necessary to provide a medicine cabinet with light or install shelves above unique bathroom vanities to store household chemicals and bath accessories in the bathroom.
If each room has its own place for storing things, then the chances that the owners will put them in place are increased – after all, this does not require superfluous efforts.
Rule number 4: give 12% of the apartment for storage
The total area of all storage systems must occupy at least 12% of the location of the apartment. Lu Wei found a simple way to estimate what this figure is rough. It is enough to cut out the painted elements from the plan and put them next to each other, close to each other, on the plan of the apartment. It will become evident whether there are many or few of them compared to the size of the dwelling.
Moreover, a strange paradox operates: the smaller the apartment, the greater the percentage will have to be allocated for storage.
True, in a small area, the approach will be different: suppose you can also use a bed with built-in drawers in addition to a regular wardrobe. Its location on the plan will be two to three times larger than that of the cabinet, and its capacity will be about the same.
Rule # 5: sort and group things
Sometimes, it will be possible to fit much more things in a small area if you organize storage correctly in your room, small bathroom, and 24 inch bathroom vanity with sink. Lu Wei compares this to a one-story house and a skyscraper, which stand on the same plot of land. Which one will have more tenants. Likewise, dressing rooms and pantries can hold more items than nightstands and wardrobes combined. Even a built-in closet, which occupies the same area as a regular one, can keep twice as many things.
And so that the massive closet with the entire wall does not seem too huge, Lu Wei reveals several life hacks. For example, smooth and light facades look lighter than dark and framed ones.
Many handles also make the cabinet heavier, so instead of them, it is better to use a latch-stop – the doors will open when pressed. And to hide the volume of the cabinet, it can be built into a specially created niche or at least hang a mirror panel on its end.
Rule # 6: hide 80% of things, leave 20% insight
The more visual information a person perceives, the more cluttered the room seems to him. And the feeling of cleanliness arises if there are not too many objects, they are all pleasant, pleasing to the eye. Therefore, designer interiors usually look great, but they lose their appeal after a week due to the heaps of things everywhere.
The designers empirically deduced the 80/20 rule: she makes 80% of storage systems closed – she hides most things behind doors and facades. The remaining 20% of open shelves and surfaces are designed for beautiful things and things that the owners regularly use several times a day.
For example, a coffee table with built-in drawers will solve the problem of storage in the living room. It is enough to put everything that usually settles on the countertop in them – the room will be visually cleaner. In the kitchen or bathroom, more things can remain insight because they are used too often, and it is pointless to put them in the closet. But the 80/20 ratio is still worth striving for.
Rule # 7: Use the Great Power of Uniformity
By the same principle, designers organize the storage of all sorts of little things: the less visual information, the better. Therefore, instead of assorted boxes and boxes, the designer advises choosing the same containers and containers. It is enough to pour shampoos and shower gels into them in the bathroom, put shoes in a unique cabinet consisting of identical containers, store children’s toys in matching boxes, and store food in the refrigerator in matching containers.
For the “trick” to be successful, the containers must be the same or at least from the same series. Therefore Lu Wei recommends choosing famous brands, which will be able to pick up the same containers after a few years.
It is good if the containers are rectangular (they fit a larger volume), multifunctional (from the refrigerator – directly into the oven), and stackable (easy to put on top of each other). An attractive appearance is important.
It’s great if the container has a transparent section to don’t have to guess its contents. But this issue is also solved with the help of signed labels.
Rule # 8: make custom furniture
Standard furniture isn’t perfect. Its problem is precisely the standard because it does not take into account the needs of the owner. Lu Wei notes that this option is usually chosen for reasons of the economy when the budget is limited.
But after a month or a year, things will no longer fit in a wardrobe or chest of drawers, and you have to buy another one. Therefore, sometimes it makes sense to order a spacious closet according to individual sizes immediately and not buy several wardrobes and force them into an apartment.
The requirements for custom-made furniture are particular. For example, shoe dressers are often set on 10cm feet to accommodate casual shoes. But there is not always enough space for her. The same chest of drawers would solve the problem with two open shelves at the bottom. There would fit the shoes that the family uses every day.
