Met Deco #11: Aurélie Malau, the tidying up ace
Quark continues to meet! Discover the interior of Aurélie Malau and her family. She had her house built based on her storage needs. You are going to discover all of his planning and storage tips to make your living space a warm and functional space.
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Aurélie. I have been living with my two daughters and my partner in Vendée near Les Sables d'Olonne for 9 years. We are on our second construction project.
Why did you decide to create a Youtube channel on storage? How did you come up with the idea?
My YouTube channel wasn't originally about tidying up. It was a channel where I talked about topics that interested me. With the construction of our second home, we focused our videos on interior design and storage. I thought it was fun to follow up on the work. This is the style of videos I like to watch on YouTube.
Our first house didn't match our storage habits. That's why we decided to build a new one. The first house was bought off plan. The second was designed by an architect. It had to be adapted to the needs of the family. Everything has been thought out.
We feel much better in this house. We can organize ourselves better.
How did you find the layout and decoration ideas? How was the process?
This house was built based on what we lacked in the previous one . I knew we needed an office. It was necessary to have a piece of furniture to be able to store my computer equipment and my papers. So we imagined a large closet in the office when designing the plans for the house.
In your opinion, where should you start when you want to rearrange your space?
We have a pretty minimalist lifestyle. We don't have a lot of furniture. We did a lot of sorting. The starting point is to say that everything must have a place . We knew what we needed. So we found furniture based on the storage we needed.
There are storage solutions that can really make your life easier.
How do you make a choice when it comes to keeping and throwing away?
First of all, don't keep duplicate things. There are a lot of clothes and toys in the children's rooms. We must separate them, recycle them or give them away when they are no longer useful to us. You have to focus on the essentials.
What advice would you give to a family so that they do not become demotivated in the middle of their cleaning process?
I really feel like minimalism goes with everything. We don't have to empty your house to become minimalist. To tidy up: do not go room by room, but furniture by furniture. The workload will be lightened. Let's say that for a month, every week, we sort a piece of furniture. We will not be discouraged.
I recommend making three stacks:
- What we keep
- What we give
- What you want to throw away
We update girls' wardrobes as they grow up. I wait the next week or month to sort the toys if necessary. We are waiting for them to be there for sorting. It's more pleasant.
Devoting a whole weekend to tidying up is not something that makes you want to. So we devote 3 hours a day to it and then we come back to it later. It's all about doing it right. It may take two months. Never mind. What matters is that we manage to have a tidy and organized house.
What are your house rules?
I arrange clothes by color. I don't have a lot of them, it doesn't take me a lot of time.
I sort the clothes:
- I put strappy tops in the closet first, because they're the lightest.
- Then I put on the short-sleeved tops.
- Then those with long sleeves.
What are the hardest items for you to store? What's your trick?
Papers take up a lot of space in an office. The easiest way is to organize them and store them in elastic binders and pockets.
Kitchen utensils are also difficult items to store. The furniture is not necessarily suitable. Shelves make organization complicated. I put everything in plastic baskets. It is more convenient and easy to wash.
I took small bookcases for the shoes. Each member of the family has 3 or 4 dedicated shelves. It's quite practical.
What is the most difficult space for you to organize?
We don't have a lot of furniture in the bathroom . Apart from a few beauty products, we try to go to the essentials. So we have two pieces of furniture. I sorted my beauty belongings in dedicated baskets or jars.
Find out the rest of Aurélie's interview by Quark in a week!
https://get-quark. com/blogs/createur-d-interactions/aurelie-malau-partie-2
Interview by Imane Charkaoui
Format by Coralie Mottu