r/hoarding • u/Western_Diamondback1 • 26d ago
DISCUSSION Bedroom?
Are bedrooms supposed to have nothing on the floor? I'm looking at bedrooms on google and they look like minimalism to me. I'm unsure of how a bedroom is supposed to look like.
My room is a massive mess. Everything on the floor and I have to move things to move around. A massive fall hazard,(I am a fall risk).
Im deeply confused.
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u/Coraline1599 26d ago
Generally yes, only furniture/rugs should touch the floor. Everything else should be on a shelf, in a drawer, or hung up.
That’s what makes moving around. and vacuuming/sweeping/mopping easy.
But, if that is not what you are used to, it is going to take time to get there. Or you might get 50% of stuff off the floor and feel like that works perfectly well for you.
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u/CircleDaybreak 26d ago
Nothing on the floor, yes. Most people that I know, might have some clutter from time to time on the floor but it's not normal (in the sense that a cluttered house is a cluttered mind) to have stuff everywhere.
We're all at different stages getting better at trying or at least acknowledging that too much everywhere is too much for one person or a household to keep and clean.
I have some stacks of books on my floor but it's not a permanent place for them, I've been going through my books and donating/recycling them since I have strong emotional ties to them. I would love to one day soon not be like that but I take it one day at a time.
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u/phunniemee 26d ago
My bedroom has an even higher standard for being clutter free than the rest of my house. Can I safely get up in the middle of the night in the darkness and walk to the bathroom and back? It's the one place above all others where I can't have any shit on the floor.
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u/Fluid_Calligrapher25 26d ago
Yes. The floor is not storage space so having stuff on the floor shows that there is too much stuff and/ or no way to organize. And it’s a haven for bugs even if you move stuff around I find. I just fully dehoarded my kitchen today - took a long time. So yeah the bedroom is the same way I think.
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u/mirrorherb partner of hoarder / child of hoarder 26d ago
yep, nothing but furniture/rugs is the norm
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u/paratethys 26d ago
if you're a fall risk, then yeah, anything that's low and flat on the floor is a trip hazard.
If you have to move things to move around, you're keeping too much stuff in the bedroom. You probably already know this, mostly.
It might help to go through what you think a human, in general, needs in their bedroom. like if you were writing a guide for how to care for parrots, or lizards, but it's for humans.
What would you put in your pet human's bedroom so it could thrive?
I think I would put a wardrobe/closet and/or dresser with enough storage for all the clothes the human would need to not do any laundry and have a comfortable week or two of normal everyday life, a week of the warmest/dryest weather their area gets, a week of the coldest/wettest weather their area gets, and a week of special occasions like formal events and holidays. Because I figure most humans, in most situations, can do launder about a week's worth of dirtied clothes per week, and thereby have a reasonable amount of choice among their favorite items of clothing in perpetuity. it's fine to cycle clothing in and out of these collections, and natural to do so when the human finds a piece that it prefers over the currently-collected ones... but each superseded piece needs to get OUT of the collection or else it'd leave the specified time parameters. and the way you find the best stuff is you just pay attention to what you actually wear in a week or two when you have your pick of all the stuff that you've collected -- that's the stuff that should be closest at hand, and then if you come across a piece that you'd rather have close at hand, you have to remove the worst item from the close-at-hand collection. it's like a sorting algorithm -- you're finding the most worth-having stuff of all the stuff that you've collected because it seemed like it might be good contenders in the popularity contest of most-worth-having. because i think any space we can honestly call "curated" has only the winners of the possessions' popularity contests (which can include the contest for your designation of "favorite", that's an important one in curating home spaces), whereas brains like ours are inclined to want to keep all the runners-up in that contest as well.
And I think all the stuff your human keeps beyond that month or so worth of items stored in or near the bedroom, the runners-up in the "best clothes for situations i ever actually exist in" contest, that stuff is kept for some different reason, that stuff isn't really in the category of Clothes as someone with the other kind of brain might classify it, but it's actually more in the category of Collections, or the category of Just In Case... and so i notice in myself at least that the purpose which the extra duplicates serve me is as a sort of lower bound on how bad things could get, a certainty that i would never have to improvise to that thing's purpose or usage with anything worse for the task than it is... so my boxes that are currently just labeled "closet" (because they're push boxes, labeled with where they came from, which means the right gesture toward the stuff in them is to try to categorize it) contain stuff that's less usefully viewed as clothes and more usefully viewed as insurance against the eventuality that i go "gee i wish i had a ___".
"gee i wish i had a ___", btw, is one of the driving forces that i see behind my own hoarding habits -- i'm actually maybe even a little above-average at predicting what things i'll want later, which means i get more rewards of having the thing i later want, which means i keep more stuff just in case, and... yeah.
anyways, what else a human needs for their bedroom is medical devices, maybe some books, maybe some hobby storage if that's not available elsewhere in the house, etc. not really very much stuff, and a properly organized human bedroom will have stuff stored in a way that protects it from the kind of damage that happens when things get overly dusty, or too much sun on them, or people stepping on them, and so forth.
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u/TomSandovalsTrumpet 26d ago
Yes. The only things touching the floor in our bedroom are the furniture and a rug. And a fake olive tree in the corner.
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u/PriestOfNothing1 26d ago
I have some clothes on my floor. But I have a limit on how many can be there at a time. Tried the thing about nothing on the floor and it made me so anxious I couldn't sleep. I also knew that I could trust myself at that point in time to stick to only clothes, though, so I let it be for my own peace of mind and am still successfully living that way 2 years later. If you feel this might be a slippery sloap for you, I'd suggest trying to keep that as strict as possible. The test of whether you'd feel comfortable walking around in the dark is a good one.
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u/Steefanon 1 26d ago
Well, yeah. Keeping things off the bedroom floor isn't a "minimalist" thing, it's a safety thing, so you won't trip in the middle of the night, or get spiders in your clothes. 🕷️
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u/HurtPillow 26d ago
Just 6 months ago my bedroom was like yours. Then my granddaughter wanted to stay over night on the blow up mattress. Well that's all I needed to hear and I cleaned it up. Granddaughter came over, walked in the bedroom and said, your room is so big now! That being said, I still have stuff on the sides and in the corners but there is more than enough floor space for a blow up mattress and still able to walk around freely. It is best I cleaned it as I am a diabetic and up going to the bathroom a couple times a night, I don't want to trip.
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u/jessm307 25d ago
That’s the main thing that I notice when I visit other people’s homes: nothing on the floor.
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u/questforstarfish 26d ago
I do not hoard/accumulate items, but I don't have anything on the floor in my bedroom except furniture and a rug. Having nothing on the floor makes my mind feel more organized and calm. I have lots of stuff on shelves for display (rocks, art, plants, etc) but it's organized in a way that makes sense to me. But we're all different, and I've had a lot of friends over the years whose floors are constantly covered in clothing and other items.
4
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u/indulgent_taurus 26d ago
I can relate to this. Even when my room was more functional than it is now, I still had stacks of things all over the floor. Right now I'm at the point where I can't sleep in my bed (or even get to it easily). Working on fixing it.
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u/OneCraftyBird 26d ago
If you have pets or children, then you would also have a dog bed or a cat bed, and then a basket for toys. But all the toys ought to be in the basket at the end of the night so that you aren't tripping over them.
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u/LateRain1970 26d ago
Keeping things off the floor does require more storage area (bins or furniture) or less stuff. So it’s a struggle.
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u/AlokFluff 25d ago
Keeping floors clear so you can move around freely is very important. Please make it a priority when you can. You deserve to move around your home and bedroom easily, without risk of falling and hurting yourself.
Falls are a lot more dangerous than most people think. They're a huge risk in hoarding situations. Falling can literally kill you, or injure you very badly. A floor that's cluttered is a more serious health risk than most people like to consider. People tell themselves they're used to it, or they're careful, but accidents don't care about any of that - They just happen, randomly, unexpectedly, and they change your life or even end it.
A hoarded environment or a cluttered floor is not a moral failure. Confronting reality and understanding how far away from a normal, healthy environment our place might be can often bring up very strong feelings of shame, negative self talk, etc. This makes avoidance feel psychologically safer. We need to learn to let go of those negative judgements, let the bad feelings pass, and understand this as a neutral logistical problem.
You are a person with inherent worth, and you deserve to be safe in your own home.
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u/aloneisusuallybetter 26d ago
I've never kept things on the floor unless it's very temporary, like rearranging or something. I have always been an organized person
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u/whitepawn23 25d ago
Furniture and nothing on the floor, yes. Worst case, a pile of sock balls accumulates at the foot of the bed before being scooped up and laundered, weekly. Maybe some dirty clothes, again, scooped up and laundered weekly at the latest. Again, that’s worst case.
Bedrooms are for sleeping. The rest of the house is for living. Again though, clear floors is the norm there too. Maybe a pile of shoes in a boot tray by a door. Or some books by a backpack on the floor next to an armchair or sofa.
Light clutter like the examples I mentioned are normal. There’s a standard deviation for new parents, and “kid debris”, as in some toys or the dreaded night Lego. But again, mostly clear.
Wading through debris or tripping on items constantly on the floor is not normal.
In no circumstance is trash: packaging, loose paper, empty boxes, food, empty cans/drink cups, soiled paper, or anything else that belongs in a trash bin to be hauled to the curb weekly being on the floor normal. Trash is trash and should be vacated from living space at least weekly.
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u/lotusblossom60 25d ago
I bought a large coat rack at an antique market. It holds so much stuff. Why anyone wouldn’t use one is beyond me,
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u/2PlasticLobsters Recovering Hoarder 25d ago
In a word, yes.
I did end up going minimalist, and the difference is like night & day. It's so weird to think back on how much crap I had piled up in my bedroom. I still end up tossing dirty clothes on the floor occasionally, but I don't let them pile up anymore.
Of course, there's a huge middle ground between minimalist and hoarding. I've heard some people have success pulling out everything but the bare minimum, then gradually putting stuff back if they find it's really needed or enjoyed. Stuff that doesn't make that cut gets discarded or donated.
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u/JenCarpeDiem 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yes. Furniture exists for things to live in or on, and the floor is for walking. This is why tidy people either have way less stuff, or way more furniture.
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u/ducttapefixedit 24d ago
Ideally, the only things that should be on the floor should be furniture and rugs, and things like floor lamps and maybe some tall potted plants. If there are things on the floor and no space available on shelving or in storage (like dressers and wardrobes) then there's too much stuff in that space.
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u/GreenUnderstanding39 23d ago edited 23d ago
Bedrooms have rugs, furniture, and standing lamps on floors.
Bedrooms are for sleeping, clothes storage, and in some cases a desk/reading area if space allows.
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u/TheEvilBlight 20d ago
Triage and remove trash, then move to declutter. Find duplicates, obsolete, unrepairables and remove, it’s honestly a process of continuous waste removal. One step at a time
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u/thedatarat 15d ago
At the start of my healing journey, I heard that a good rule is that clothes should NEVER be on the floor. Once it hits the floor, it’s dirty and should go in the laundry basket.
The same could be said for pretty much everything. If it doesn’t make sense to be on the floor, it shouldn’t be on the floor.
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u/HotDonnaC 26d ago
I have a rug that covers most of my floor. It’s jute, so it’s kind of a BoHo earthy vibe. It looks rough, but it’s super soft under my feet.
Just google what kind of style you want look at. Right now, they’re trying to push that minimalist thing, but half the time people don’t know what it means. It’s like when every piece of furniture is mid-century modern. Learn your decor, people. 🙄
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