How to Design Around a Slob
Home renovation pros weigh in on how they use design to help less-than-tidy clients stay organized
You may have faced this situation with clients before: One of the homeowners or family members is neat and the other is not. This dynamic can put you, the home renovation professional, in the couples counselor role, trying to make both parties happy and preserve the peace.
We spoke with three design professionals about their strategies to serve both clients in this situation. Read their solutions below, see what you think, and then please add your own ideas in the Comments!
We spoke with three design professionals about their strategies to serve both clients in this situation. Read their solutions below, see what you think, and then please add your own ideas in the Comments!
2. Redirect Energy to a New Habit Through Design
Messy habits commonly stem from a lack of time or lack of convenience, Hill says. The entryway is a great example. If there’s no convenient landing spot for keys, bags, shoes and coats, these items can end up all over the house.
Children might dump their stuff on the floor or leave a trail through the living room despite entryway hooks for hanging items up. When she sees this, Hill likes to ask why it’s happening. Perhaps, for instance, the family’s 6-year-old can’t reach the hooks. In that case, mounting a hook lower on the wall could solve the problem — or at least make it more likely to be solved.
For a client with a penchant for removing his suits and dumping them on the bed, Hill purchased a valet stand. This was an easy place to hang the suit and a more realistic solution than this particular client actually using the closet. Plus, it made his partner happier.
Messy habits commonly stem from a lack of time or lack of convenience, Hill says. The entryway is a great example. If there’s no convenient landing spot for keys, bags, shoes and coats, these items can end up all over the house.
Children might dump their stuff on the floor or leave a trail through the living room despite entryway hooks for hanging items up. When she sees this, Hill likes to ask why it’s happening. Perhaps, for instance, the family’s 6-year-old can’t reach the hooks. In that case, mounting a hook lower on the wall could solve the problem — or at least make it more likely to be solved.
For a client with a penchant for removing his suits and dumping them on the bed, Hill purchased a valet stand. This was an easy place to hang the suit and a more realistic solution than this particular client actually using the closet. Plus, it made his partner happier.
3. Determine Whether the Need Is for Storage or Decluttering
“Most ‘neatness-challenged’ folks seem to be unaware that there are alternatives. They just need clever storage solutions that make it easier to put things away than to toss stuff on the floor, counter, wherever,” says architect William Ruhl of Ruhl Studio Architects in Watertown, Massachusetts.
In some cases, the issue isn’t a lack of storage but rather a lack of decluttering. “If you get that 20-year-old stuff out of your closets, lo and behold you have space,” Hill notes. If your clients are open to the idea, it may make sense to bring in the help of a professional organizer before you determine how much storage is truly needed.
For clients who have trouble letting go, designer John Cannarsa of Cannarsa Structure and Design in Saugatuck, Michigan, recommends that clients purchase “a stack of matching clear storage containers that can become ‘Goodwill purgatory,’ where they can go into storage and be revisited a year later to see if they can be lived without.” Clearing out these potentially extra items can also help you, the pro, plan at least enough storage for what the homeowners definitely want to keep without going way overboard to hold questionable items.
“Most ‘neatness-challenged’ folks seem to be unaware that there are alternatives. They just need clever storage solutions that make it easier to put things away than to toss stuff on the floor, counter, wherever,” says architect William Ruhl of Ruhl Studio Architects in Watertown, Massachusetts.
In some cases, the issue isn’t a lack of storage but rather a lack of decluttering. “If you get that 20-year-old stuff out of your closets, lo and behold you have space,” Hill notes. If your clients are open to the idea, it may make sense to bring in the help of a professional organizer before you determine how much storage is truly needed.
For clients who have trouble letting go, designer John Cannarsa of Cannarsa Structure and Design in Saugatuck, Michigan, recommends that clients purchase “a stack of matching clear storage containers that can become ‘Goodwill purgatory,’ where they can go into storage and be revisited a year later to see if they can be lived without.” Clearing out these potentially extra items can also help you, the pro, plan at least enough storage for what the homeowners definitely want to keep without going way overboard to hold questionable items.
4. Create Storage Solutions to Corral Messes
For families or couples that include not naturally neat individuals, Cannarsa recommends using baskets or closed doors rather than open shelves or open cubbies. To keep that closed storage contained, “consider using drawer dividers and cabinet dividers to segment items that go together,” he suggests.
Cannarsa’s other go-to design solutions for helping a not-naturally neat person include:
For families or couples that include not naturally neat individuals, Cannarsa recommends using baskets or closed doors rather than open shelves or open cubbies. To keep that closed storage contained, “consider using drawer dividers and cabinet dividers to segment items that go together,” he suggests.
Cannarsa’s other go-to design solutions for helping a not-naturally neat person include:
- Murphy bed walls. The one shown in this photo includes a wardrobe closet next to the Murphy bed.
- Baskets in the entry for hats, scarves and gloves
- Closed entryway storage — such as beneath a bench — for shoes
- Baskets in the bathroom to corral toiletries, along with a place to stash them beneath the counter. The baskets can also be used as hampers.
- Tucking built-in shower niches around a corner so they’re not visible when you enter the bathroom. Such placement will hide the niche, which can become cluttered with toiletries.
- Offices with a “place for everything, including mail slots, printer and files”
- A hidden closet off the kitchen for a family message center, with key hooks, cork boards and a place for the printer
- Shallow dresser drawers for socks, shorts and other items. Limited depth helps keep drawers from becoming overstuffed.
- Potentially enlisting the help of a closet organizer, as these professionals are aware of all kinds of storage solutions
5. Make Room for Each Client
One way to make a pair of clients — one neat, one not — happy is to give each their own space. Consider for a moment how a bathroom with only one sink, or double sinks right next to each other, might bother the neater member of a couple.
“That’s a case where you would almost recommend redoing the whole bathroom,” Hill says. “Each person gets a vanity.”
Ideally, the vanities could be separated from each other — perhaps with shelves between, perhaps on different sides of the room if there’s sufficient space.
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One way to make a pair of clients — one neat, one not — happy is to give each their own space. Consider for a moment how a bathroom with only one sink, or double sinks right next to each other, might bother the neater member of a couple.
“That’s a case where you would almost recommend redoing the whole bathroom,” Hill says. “Each person gets a vanity.”
Ideally, the vanities could be separated from each other — perhaps with shelves between, perhaps on different sides of the room if there’s sufficient space.
More on Houzz
Read more stories for pros
Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions
Join the Houzz Trade Program
“I’ve never met anybody who is a true slob,” says Sarah Hill, designer with Urban Pioneering Architecture in New York. “You don’t really meet people who take their cereal bowl and throw it on the floor and pick it up four weeks later.”
Hill likes to think of a slob as a person “who has developed a habit that isn’t ideal for their other person.” As a designer, Hill doesn’t to try to change the messier person. Instead, she strives to resolve the issue through design.
1. Listen to and Assess the Needs of Each Homeowner
A key to finding a design solution is to listen to both parties’ perspectives, Hill says. “It’s about honoring and respecting the needs and priorities of the individuals involved and then finding the middle-ground solution between them.”
Take the example of a bathroom where he leaves out contact lens solution because he’s too rushed to put it away, and she can’t stand seeing bottles littered around the sink. “My solution would be to suggest mounting a small shelf somewhere near the sink on a wall — ideally right next to the sink — where he can put the stuff he uses all the time, regardless of the amount of medicine cabinet space he has,” Hill says.
“This way the bottles are off the edge of the sink — her priority — without him having to alter his grab-and-go habit so drastically that he can’t stick to the change. I have found that if the change is too drastic, people can’t stick with it long-term.”