February makes me think of cozying up in the winter with your spouse. Likely it’s Valentines Day that inspires me to think about how we manage our relationships with others and how effective those relationships are. Clutter in your environment can put a strain on everyone in the household. The master bedroom is especially vulnerable to the well being of your relationship with your spouse. This month, let’s concentrate on clearing the bedroom space and watching what that can do to our love life. Seriously, the feng shui experts will verify this. We spend about one-third of our life in our bedrooms, but it’s usually the space we put the least effort into furnishing, decorating, and keeping neat – because it’s tucked away from visitors. Here are some hints to help you elevate your relationship with your lover, AND yourself, by unveiling the serenity, romance, and peace that your bedroom inherently holds.

1. Edit everything from sightexcept for a picture of the two of you, a candle, a bud vase of silk flowers or pussy willows. On your bedside table, just your lamp and clock radios are necessary. Bedside tables with drawers are a necessity. The principal bedroom is the most important room in the house for allowing the ambiance of intimacy in your life. Remember, clutter represents postponed decisions. You don’t want to look around, just to get your brain and your sensual limbic system busy with that!
2. Be a good example Once you have cleared away a hot spot or two, it’s bound to be noticed. But there has to be a system in place to prevent that area from getting cluttered up as fast as your Quaker oats boils. When you have the spouses’ attention, try a teamwork approach to maintaining the momentum. Gather together and brainstorm some ideas!
3.  Make your bed as soon as you get up. An unmade bed looks sloppy, and will drag the rest of the room down with it.
4. Put away clean clothes as soon as you come across them, and buy an attractive hamper for storing dirty clothes – no one wants to look at a cracked plastic laundry basket.
5. The one out of five rule: If your spouse has a collection of things, like books, tools, baseball caps, etc that take up valuable real estate, try editing with the one out of five rule. Pull out 5 items and ask them to donate one to a lucky recipient. If you do this once a week or so, you will notice a difference in a few years! Aren’t we sly?
6. The most common bedroom clutter is furniture. Is everything in your bedroom there because it has to do with the two of you, or are you storing other family belongings? Edit your clothes and stuff so that you can get rid of a piece of furniture. Ideally, the closets will be organized enough to accommodate all the clothes, anyway. Closet organizing is another topic.
7. Simplify with colour: Keep your colour choices for the master down to one soft neutral and one other colour. A classic black accents and sophisticates a room in the right place. Soft green is serene and can blend well with most artwork. A muted light blue can soothe the soul like a clear blue ocean. Try not to allow too much masculinity in the bedroom, as it’s always a little subliminal fun for the ‘fellow’ to be entering the feminine ‘boudoir’.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Patti's Paraphernalia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.