Principles of Divergent Design (first in a series)

(This is the text of today’s Instagram post, with additional examples, discussion, and photos below!)

When designing an interior space, design for how you actually live, not for how you aspire to live. 

Don't think about interior design, in the first instance, as being about changing "bad habits."

Neurodivergent people are so often chided and shamed for "bad habits" that on the one hand, we are always aspiring to "fix" them, but on the other hand, we are always primed for failure.

Good design may eventually help you change habits, but it 's not magic.

If you design your environment aspirationally—as though you have already changed your habits—then you will feel like the design failed when it inevitably turns out your old behaviors are alive and well.

But perhaps even more importantly, if you design for how you actually live now, you may find out that the habits themselves are not so much bad as they are just reality—and that your space must be designed to accommodate the reality of your life, without shame or judgment.

For example, I am such a morning person that by the time I get into bed, I'm usually exhausted and completely out of bandwidth. I generally just peel off my clothes and drop them on the floor before climbing into bed.

Now ideally what I would do is put clothes that need to be laundered in the laundry room and put clothes that can be worn again in my dresser or closet.

This is what I feel like I should do—it's my aspiration. So when I initially designed my bedroom, I didn't accommodate for my lack of bandwidth at the end of the day. Instead, I created this lovely space , and thought the sheer loveliness would be enough to change my habits. This is so nice, I thought, I'm never going to let it get messy again! I've turned over a new leaf!

Riiiiggghhht.

And of course, I felt ashamed and dispirited by the inevitable mess next to my bed. But the truth is, dumping my clothes on the floor is not so much a "bad habit" as it is just the reality of my bandwidth at the end of the day.

Even when I put a hamper in my closet, literally walking those few extra steps often feels like too much. I'm not "bad," I'm just so tired at the end of the day. And good design isn't going to increase my bandwidth.

My new plan is to put some hooks on the wall right beside my bed, so I don't have to take even one extra step to hang up clothes that aren't dirty yet.

And I'm to stop shaming myself on the days I'm too tired to take even a couple of steps to put dirty clothes in the hamper in the closet. At least now I will know that the clothes on the floor are ready for the laundry!

Another example of a “bad habit” that turns out not to be a “bad habit.”

I used to feel ashamed that my husband and I often eat dinner in bed in front of the TV. There are so many voices in our culture—especially “respectable,” “middle class” voices—that look down on TV’s in the bedroom and insist that the only proper way to eat a meal is slowly with the whole family and lots of meaningful conversation at the dining room table.

So when I was designing my bedroom, I had to decide if the TV was going to go in there. I knew that what I really wanted was to have the TV in the bedroom, but I had to wrestle with my shame first. Fortunately, analyzing and banishing shame is kinda what I do for a living, lol! So it didn’t take me too long to tell shame to fuck off! Because you know what? I LOVE the end of the day when Joel and I get in bed and watch some of our favorite British crime drama. What could possibly be wrong with that?

And you know what else? I LOVE eating picnic-style in bed with my beloved! I love it so much, why on earth would I let anyone talk me out of it?

So the TV was incorporated into the bedroom design, with no apologies and No Fucking Shame.

But the design challenge wasn’t over.

The first iteration had me and Joel blissfully picnicking on our bed while indulging our love of British crime drama … but then another problem cropped up.

Dishes. Ugh, dishes are really the bane of my existence!

It’s bad enough that the kitchen is often a mess of dirty dishes. And I guess it didn’t used to bother me so much when the bedroom was kind of ugly—honestly, I don’t even really remember the bedroom pre-reno being cluttered with ugly dirty dishes. But now it just feels like a constant ugly blight.

And you know what the shaming voices are saying inside my head, right? If you weren’t such a lazy slob, you would just take your dishes down to the kitchen as soon as you are done eating. It’s disgusting that you leave them all over the dresser and the bedside table! Disgusting, I tell you!

But remember what I said above about how much I treasure those last moments of the day being all cozy in bed in front of the TV? Also, what I said my bandwidth at the end of the day? It’s ok for me not to have the energy OR the desire to take my dishes down to the kitchen in the evening. It’s ok for me to love having a picnic in bed in front of the TV, and for me not to want to interrupt that pleasure by marshaling my last bit of bandwidth to take the dishes downstairs. I don’t need to be ashamed of that.

At the same time, I just hate the dirty dishes all over the dresser. It’s just not nice to wake up to. For awhile, I was just taking the tray to my studio, which is on the way to the bathroom. But then there’s the “out of sight, out of mind” problem… Ugh. So many problems!

But the solution is always to keep iterating!

The spot where the utility sink is going in my studio.

My new plan is to install a utility sink in my studio, and a sort of counter next to it where I can put the tray of dirty dishes at the end of the day. My theory is that they will be out of the bedroom, tucked away in my studio, and there will be a sink right there where I can wash them the next day. Somehow I feel like it will be easier to motivate myself to take down a pile of clean dishes more than a tray of gross dirty dishes. I do think, somewhat ironically, that at least in part it’s the grossness of the dirty dishes that makes me avoid taking them down. I know that doesn’t make sense, because they are even more gross littering my bedroom, but the motivations of my neurodivergent mind don’t always make sense.

This iteration may or may not work—that’s why it’s an iteration—but I need a utility sink in my studio anyway, for cleaning brushes, and there’s a space right next to the washing machine, so the water hook up is already there. So if the utility sink doesn’t solve the gross dishes problem, it is still a good idea.

And if it turns out the utility sink doesn’t solve my dishes problem, then I will just need to move on to yet another design iteration!

Stay tuned!