How to Make a Room Look Less Cluttered: Living with Lolo in Martha Stewart

We were featured in Martha Stewart this week, in a piece on the small habits and design choices that quietly make a home feel messy. The article pulled together three interior designers, and our founder Lauren Lerner spoke to three of the ten culprits: too many competing prints, not giving every object a home, and the unmade bed. Here in Scottsdale, most of the rooms we walk into are not messy because of too much stuff. They look unsettled because of a handful of fixable decisions. A room can hold plenty and still feel calm, and a nearly empty room can still feel chaotic.

Reduce the number of competing prints

Pattern is not the enemy. Competition between patterns is. When a room carries three or four prints that all fight for attention at the same scale, the eye never gets to rest, and the space reads busy even when it is tidy. Our rule is simple. Let one pattern lead. Support it with solids, natural texture, and a quieter secondary print at a different scale. In a Silverleaf living room we finished last spring, we used a single graphic drapery print and kept everything else in warm solids. Clients keep calling it the calmest room in the house.

Give every object a home

Clutter is usually not a volume problem. It is a location problem. When things do not have a designated place, they land wherever a hand sets them down, and the surfaces of a house slowly disappear under mail, chargers, keys, and the small debris of a busy family. The fix is storage that matches how you actually live. Baskets by the door for the things that come in with you. A drawer near the coffee maker for the cords that would otherwise camp on the counter. We design a lot of Paradise Valley and Arcadia homes for families with real weekday chaos, and the homes that stay looking good are the ones where putting things away takes three seconds, not thirty.

Make the bed, and then make it better

An unmade bed can pull down an entire bedroom, even when the rest of the room is in order. It is the largest object in the space, so the eye goes straight to it. Then take it one step further. A tailored coverlet or a bed skirt, crisp corners, and two or three well chosen pillows instead of a pile of ten. Layering is what separates a bed that looks slept in from a bed that looks designed. You can see more of this thinking in our portfolio.

What the research shows

• A 2011 Princeton University Neuroscience Institute study found that visual clutter competes for your attention and measurably reduces your ability to focus.
• Research in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Saxbe and Repetti, 2010) found that people who described their homes as cluttered had higher daytime cortisol than those who described their homes as restful.
• The 2024 Houzz & Home study reported that whole-home organization and storage remained among the top motivations homeowners cited for renovating.
• The National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals reports that clutter and disorganization are among the most common problems professional organizers are hired to solve.

Across our own Scottsdale projects, the single most requested outcome at the start of a design is almost never a specific style. It is some version of "I want it to feel calm." You can read more about how we work on our design process page, or start a project with our luxury interior design studio in Scottsdale.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make a room look less cluttered without getting rid of my things?

Start with location, not volume. Give every category of object a designated home, ideally behind a door or in a drawer near where you use it, so surfaces stay clear. Then reduce competing patterns down to one lead print supported by solids and texture. You can keep most of what you own and still make a room feel calm if the things you own have somewhere to live.

How many throw pillows should I put on a sofa or bed?

Fewer than you think. For most sofas, two to four well chosen pillows read as intentional, and a bed usually looks best with two to three rather than a full pile. The goal is a balanced arrangement that leaves room to actually sit or sleep. When pillows have to be removed and stacked on the floor every night, there are too many.

What is the fastest change that makes a bedroom look more polished?

Make the bed every morning, then add one layer beyond the duvet, such as a coverlet or a bed skirt with crisp corners. The bed is the biggest object in the room, so it sets the tone. Two minutes of bed making does more for how a bedroom reads than almost any single purchase.

Do I need to hire an interior designer to fix a cluttered home?

Not necessarily. A lot of the fixes are habits and storage decisions you can make yourself, which is exactly why we shared them in the Martha Stewart piece. Where a designer earns their fee is on the harder calls: getting scale and pattern right across a whole home, and building storage into the architecture so tidiness is effortless.

How does Living with Lolo approach storage in a new design?

We design storage around your actual routines before we choose a single finish. That means mapping where mail, keys, chargers, and everyday clutter tend to land, then building closed, convenient storage into those exact spots. As a Scottsdale design and construction firm working under one ROC licensed contract, we can move walls and add cabinetry rather than only styling around a problem.

Where can I see the full Martha Stewart article?

The full feature is on Martha Stewart's site. Lauren Lerner is quoted on prints and patterns, designated storage, and bed making.