Within the world of ADHD interiors, I am on a quest to create spaces that help us in finding visual dopamine. This isn’t exactly the same as the ‘Dopamine Decor’ trend as that was a specific look. I am more interested in thinking critically about our homes and creatively finding ways they can support us.
To that end I am currently working on organizing our ADHD closet as part of the annual One Room Challenge. The ORC is an 8 week challenge that anyone can participate in with the goal of finishing one space in our homes. Please be sure to hop over and check out the many amazing projects that are in the works for this year - I promise it will not disappoint. Previous posts on the ADHD closet; ADHD Friendly Closet Design, Organizing an ADHD Closet, & ADHD Closet Tips. In the past few years I have tackled our kitchen, patio, vestibule and our boys shared bedroom.
There is a narrative within the organizing community surrounding ADHD and the best way to help the ADHDer have a calm/collected/decluttered/organized home, one of the common underlying principals is the idea that ADHDers need a visually calm environment which is best achieved with soothing, neutral colours. While I definitely think organisation, the ease of tidying our spaces and decreasing the overall amount of things we have is absolutely crucial, I am not sold on the idea that we need to be surrounded by only neutral colours nor live in spaces devoid of pattern. Definitely that is the right fit for some ADHDers and I suspect, but don’t know for certain that there may be a link between the type of ADHD someone has and the environment that is best suited for them.
What I do know is that those of us with ADHD are always on the lookout for dopamine. What if we could arrange our homes in such a way that we were getting hits of dopamine throughout our spaces. Along that vein we also know that ADHD is not a lack of attention but an excess of attention and I know personally I can actually relax more in a space that is visually interesting which I believe is because those space engage my excess attention allowing me to do other things.
I have been gradually incorporating these principals into our home. For the closet once I settled on the ways to improve the function I next started to think about ways to incentive myself to keep it tidy. If the system is right in terms of things being easy to put away and access then what about a visual reward that I can receive everytime I go into the closet? I know from past experience that the more I love and enjoy being in a space the more motivated I am to keep it tidy and organized.
I am a colour persons and I love pattern! The closet was an ideal space for wallpaper given its diminutive size. Bearing budget in mind I started looking around for something I both loved and could afford. I was super excited when I discovered that the venerable textile brand Scalamandré had partnered with Wallpops to create peel and stick wallpapers. I found a few patterns I loved but landed on Bloom Shantung Garden. I really felt the lighter background was key to keeping the closet feel light and be functional and the variety of colours in the pattern gave me lots of scope. An added bonus was that one of the blue tones pairs beautifully with our existing bedroom colour which is colour dipped in Opera Glasses by Behr.
It was my first time installing peel and stick wallpaper and there is definitely a learning curve but I got there. I was really pleased when I discovered that Bloom Shantung is a halfdrop wallpaper meaning it has more visual variety and is closer to a mural. I covered most of the visible walls and the shelf risers. I am now considering painting the trim in a luminous green, stay tuned for that!
I started installing the wallpaper a few days ago and I already love it! I am definitely getting a hit of positive feelings every time I see it and for the first time I actually want to leave our closet door open to enjoy the beautiful pattern.
