The Underestimated Value of Effortlessness

The ultimate quality of an exceptional home is a sense of effortlessness and ease: a lofty awareness that you belong there, where you feel deeply relaxed and can be yourself. If you enjoy an evening Martini, keep the tools and ingredients close at hand, so that the process of making it — and not just drinking it — is a joy. If you have school-aged kids, make space for their school bags and paraphernalia in an area that makes sense and is easy to maintain.

Wherever you make room for sitting, create easy access to a surface where you can rest a glass of wine or cup of tea. This could be a coffee table or cluster of smaller tables, a side table, or even a bookshelf or stool. Well-considered furniture placement and storage are vital to maintaining a life at home that is effortless.

No matter how stunning a space is, if it makes you feel on edge or odd in any way, it is not working. A pristine sofa with immaculately positioned cushions, all lined up in a row like soldiers, might look great in a magazine spread but feels too perfect to disturb, and so has failed at its core mission —to provide a place for you to comfortably sit. Regardless of whether they are commercial or residential, spaces need to be inviting, enticing you to relax or eat or work in, or to socialise or for sleep. An exceptional interior should be unpretentious, confident and comfortable. Good design enables people to relax on a very deep level and be their true selves.

We live in ever increasingly vibrant, engaging environments: screens, devices, ringing, flashing and demanding our attention crowd our head-space. Decreasing the clutter in your environment decreases the noise. This is not about being a minimalist, but about everything in your space being something you love and that has a function. Ease does not mean lowest common denominator. It means your environment should be effortless to maintain and keep looking great.

Effortlessness comes from making thoughtful decisions about what you share your home with. It means a natural place, one that has a purpose for everything. This is not about utility, for many of our possessions are more important for their background than their usefulness. An object may remind you of a person, time or place— but you have chosen to share your life with it, so that giving thought to where it is going to live is part of that process.

The decluttering phenomenon led by Japanese ‘organiser’ Marie Kondo has deep appeal for many of us who feel we are drowning in ‘things’. She challenges us to examine our possessions carefully and divest ourselves of those that no longer bring meaning or purpose to our lives. This is true luxury as well as comfort, a place where we feel there is space to breathe and grow. Where we are not hemmed-in by redundant objects, a design that is not half as clever as we are, or the simple after-effects and stimuli of everyday life. As the nineteenth century artist and designer, William Morris, famously advised, ‘Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ If you take this to heart, you will create an exceptional, deeply human space that can be inhabited with ease.

Kate Challis