For most of my life, I’ve been the type of person to like an equal amount of clutter and space, although my habits may not have always expressed that. Now, though, with a small shared dorm space, I’m almost forced to be more conscious of the space I take up and the space I choose to leave empty.
Daisy and I tend to have a similar ‘level of neatness’ and we collaborate well together. For example, her bed is lofted while I kept mine the same height I found it; we use the space under mine as storage and the space under hers as a reading nook. By keeping the space under Daisy’s bed more open, we’ve effectively created active space to make the room seem much larger and more open than it actually is.
I ended up removing the shelf from the top of my desk and adding it underneath her bed to add to the nook, which also made the room seem more open, thanks to the newly acquired active space on, around, and over my desk. The extra room allowed me to fit my books, pen cups, computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard with active space surrounding these items and plenty of empty space to spare.
By leaving space for future and/or temporary objects, such as a laptop or notebook, I effectively created empty space; a space that draws attention to what is most important at a given moment. By removing the shelf from the top of my desk, I created enough room to have active space between my permanent items so that it feels clean, orderly, and generally nice to look at.
