Being Home With Hunker is a podcast where each week we chat with designers, artists, and creatives in the spaces that express and shape their identities: their homes.
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On the Being Home With Hunker podcast, there's a home-related topic that has come up in a few conversations, and I can't stop thinking about it.
It's the ONE room that both organizing experts AND feng shui experts agree upon as the most important room to keep clean and clutter-free.
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And it's not what I expected. Think about it for a minute. What would you imagine is the most important room in your home to attend to and give attention to? To make sure the energy feels good? And supports us in other areas of our lives?
I thought it would be the kitchen, which is often referred to as the heart of a home.
But no — it's the bedroom.
Every night before you go to bed, the last thing you see is your bedroom, and it's the first thing you see in the morning. And so when we can focus on this space, it has a shift that affects every other area of our home. — Cass Aarssen
On this podcast episode, Cass Aarssen, organizing expert, founder of Clutterbug, host of HGTV's Hot Mess House, explains why she thinks the bedroom is the most important room, and shares a really easy cleaning tip that she promises will change your life.
And then, feng shui expert Kate MacKinnon talks about why she believes we should pay extra attention to our bedrooms, and then shares some feng shui tips on how to set up this space for optimal support and good energy.
Read the full transcript below or click here to listen to the episode.
Listen to the Full Episodes of Cass and Kate
Read the Full Transcript
New Year, fresh home. Welcome to 2023. If you're like me, you enjoy creating a list at the top of every year with things you want to accomplish or experience or create. Something related to my home is always on my list. For instance, last year I was finally able to zhuzh up my backyard, which was long overdue.
This year, I'm concentrating on something specific within my home. It's an idea that's surfaced and a few different conversations I had on this podcast and I can't stop thinking about it. It's the one room that both organizing experts and Feng shui experts agree upon as the most important room to keep clean and clutter free. And it's not what I expected.
Think about it for a minute. What would you imagine is the most important room in your home to attend to and give attention to? To make sure the energy feels good and that it's supporting us in other areas of our lives? I thought it would be the kitchen, which is often referred to as the heart of the home, but no, it's the bedroom. First we hear from an organizing perspective. Cass Aarssen, an organizing expert and founder of Clutterbug and host of HGTVs Hot Mess House, explains why she thinks the bedroom is the most important room and shares a really easy cleaning tip that she promises will change your life.
Cass Aarssen:
If you're listening to this and you have no idea where to start, you're like, "I want to focus somewhere." Start in the bedroom.
Laurie:
Okay.
Cass Aarssen:
Specifically, start in your closet because this is the most empowering thing that you can do. And it will have the biggest shift on your mindset and your self-respect and your self-love. And once you've done this, every morning is easier. Every night before you go to bed, the last thing you see is your bedroom. And it's the first thing you see in the morning. And so when we can focus on this space, it has a shift that affects every other area of our home.
Laurie:
It's so interesting you're saying that because I was talking to someone, maybe it was a Feng shui expert, and they were saying that often our bedrooms get the least of our attention. It's like the last place, whether we zhuzh it or organize it, because we're thinking about the kitchen or we're thinking about other places. And this Feng shui person also said, it is the most important place of the home, as you're saying, but we often don't think that.
Cass Aarssen:
We really don't.
Laurie:
So I love that you're tying all of this together as well as someone just saying the energy of the home with Feng shui. Also what you're saying is about energy for ourselves and for our home. So everyone listening, go to your bedroom. I love this as an actionable step in the new year, starting with that closet.
Cass Aarssen:
And I have a really easy tip, a really easy tip to help you declutter in your bedroom because there are people who love the Marie Condo method. I do not recommend taking all of your clothes out. It's a lot of work, okay. And it's... Now you've trashed your bedroom and you've made a big disaster.
So here's what you do. You start with one thing, take it out on the hanger. You have to remove it from the space, you do. You have to look at one piece of clothing and ask yourself, "Does this fit me? Do I love this? Would I buy this again?" And if the answer is no, it goes. If the answer is yes, we put it back in the closet, but we turn the hangar backwards. And this does two things. Now, when we go back in, we can know where we stop. So say you're tired after 15 minutes, you can come back at it again tomorrow or next week. And you know, any hanger that hasn't been turned back, I haven't made a decision on. And the second thing that does is six months from now, any hanger that hasn't been turned back, you're not wearing. And you can just let it go.
Laurie:
Yeah.
Cass Aarssen:
But this is so empowering because, especially my weight fluctuates a lot, and I've found that when I would go in my closet in the morning and I would pull out an article of clothing and it was too small or I didn't like it showed my muffin top or I felt bad about myself in it. I was allowing that shirt or those pants to call me fat, to call me ugly, to shame me. And that's the first thing I felt in the morning when I went to get ready. I'd open my closet and I'd feel horrible about myself. And that stayed with me all day. Whether I realized it or not.
This is a subconscious thing. Clothing in your closet that doesn't make you feel good, is toxic. And if you can remove that, you don't even have to necessarily get rid of it. If you're like, I want to lose weight again, vacuum seal it and stick it under your bed or in storage, but it cannot stay in your closet.
Laurie:
I love this.
Cass Aarssen:
Because you deserve better. And every morning that you wake up and you're not bombarded by clothing that makes you feel like crap, it means you can find clothes that make you feel great. It's easy to find that same feeling of good positivity, self-love. It lasts with you all day long. And I promise you, it changes your life. This small thing that you can do changes your life.
Laurie:
And then we hear from Feng shui expert, Kate MacKinnon, on why she believes we should pay extra attention to our bedrooms and then shares some Feng shui tips on how to set up the space for optimal support and good energy.
Kate MacKinnon:
Now, Feng shui ultimately is about health. So we say without health you have nothing. And so how energy enters space is important. I always say bedroom is probably the most important room because it is the place of rest and restoration, right? And I always say, it's where you go and you get restored, so you can go get ready and go back out into the world, right? I think of our homes as an oasis, a sacred space where we come and we can get recharged. So yeah, the bedroom is very, very important. Again, going back to the basic principles of Feng shui, balance and flow. The principles that I'm talking about are creating balance and balance in that, like you say, the position of the bed, people talk about it as very important.
And there's a fundamental principle that we use in Feng shui for a lot of things. It's called the Command Position. So ultimately the idea, and again it comes back to protection and safety from 5,000 years ago, it's like wanting to see your enemies coming. You don't want to have them coming behind you, right? So the idea is that your bed position in your room, first of all have a headboard. They want your bed with the head against the wall, like a solid wall, not a window. And the best position of a bed is being able to have the back to the wall and be able to face and see the doorway. You don't want to be right in the doorway because that energy while you're sleeping, it's too much. That's too much is very disturbing.
But those are the ideal principles. And the idea is you're getting support from the wall and you're also protected from... You can see people coming in. And then the placement of that is that the bed itself, we recommend a solid bed. A lot of people get bed frames and then they put a headboard against the wall. It's not connected. We don't recommend that. We want solid bed. You have a bed that you get in, you're solid, you're protected. Right?
Laurie:
Yeah.
Kate MacKinnon:
It's like, you think about it, your bed has your back, like the headboard is your back. I love the analogies, or the metaphors. Like your bed has your back, the universe has your back. It gives you a much more solid sleep than if you're got this wobbly bed frame that's not even connected to the headboard.
Laurie:
Yeah, that makes sense.
So there you have it. Go on and give your bedroom a little extra TLC this year. I know I will.
About the Podcast
Being Home With Hunker is a new podcast where we explore the idea of "home" – not just as a place where you live, but as an expression of your identity. Each week we talk with designers, creatives, and artists about who they are, how they create meaningful spaces, and what "being home" means to them.
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