Times 2 - UK (2020-09-15)

(Antfer) #1

the times | Tuesday September 15 2020 1GT 9


times


Thanks to a new


Netflix show, it’s


the hot interiors


trend. But what’s


the point, asks


Esther Walker


I


first saw books arranged on a
shelf not by size or title, but by
colour, about ten years ago at the
studio of the artist Jonathan Yeo.
“Look what he’s done to his
books,” my husband said. “What
a weirdo.” We saw it again when
we went to see an interior
designer friend. We goggled at the
beautiful ombre wall of book spines,
sweeping from deepest blacks and
blues to featherlight violets and
shimmering azure blues. “He’s done
that same crazy book thing as Jonny,”
my husband said.
Then, slowly, as if there were some
sort of rainbow virus spreading its way
round London, almost every house we
went to had shelves of books arranged
by colour. It was so silent and
pervasive that it was as if the books
were doing it on their own, shuffling
around in the middle of the night.
My husband turned ashen when he
saw yet another rainbow wall. “Why is
everyone doing this?” he hissed at me.
“Because,” I said, “it looks amazing.”
Now the whole world wants in on
this trend. Instagram has for a while
been home to the #rainbowbookcase,
but now a Netflix series, Get Organized
with the Home Edit, shows the
“professional organisers” Clea Shearer
and Joanna Teplin rearranging homes
so that every corner is aesthetically
pleasing; each nook an instagrammable
little nugget. Rainbow sorting is a key
weapon in their styling arsenal to make
any terrible jumbled mess of crap, not
just books, look organised.
I don’t think there is a single corner
of my cluttered north London
townhouse that is instagrammable.
Maybe some parts of the floor.
Perhaps that’s why my life feels so
wildly out of control at the moment.
I had thought it’s because I haven’t
seen my shrink since March. Or the
stress of my son starting a new school
or my daughter becoming a
“tweenager”, or coronavirus wrecking
the world, or that I recently turned 40
and I’ve got a painful hip and even one
glass of wine gives me a hangover and
I’m suddenly acutely aware of the
collagen draining from my face even
as I type this and oh God, oh God I’m
going to die and we’re all going to die!
But what if it’s not that? Perhaps the
key to internal happiness is to have a
more organised and beautiful house. A
more rainbow-y house. Where to start,
though? I would rainbow-sort my
books, but I’ve hardly got any books
and my husband will finally hit the
divorce button if I try to rainbow his.
Shoes? Fine. But I then remember
that I wear only white (now grey)
trainers or beige slippers. And what do
I do with my single pair of navy
Birkenstocks? I suppose they’ll have to

go. There’s no point in rainbow-sorting
my clothes because I only wear white,
blue, grey and black.
I am starting to realise that there is
no colour in my life, metaphorically
and literally. Is this the cause of it all?
Or is it a symptom?
Now I’m remembering that box of
nail varnishes I never use because my
hands are stubby with pointless little
good-for-nothing fingernails. Don’t
ask me why I continue to buy nail
varnish — I was getting to that with
my shrink when lockdown hit. Maybe
if I get them all out and arrange them
by colour my life will finally get better.
Then there’s my extensive collection
of skincare, ranged sluttishly across
the bathroom. If I collect it all up and
put it into colour groups, will that stop
the collagen leaking out of my face?
If I meticulously pick out our Lego
collection into individual-colour
boxes, might it inspire my children to
actually make something out of it?
In the end, I rashly start in the
larder, rearranging tins and packets by
colour. This is the maddest idea of all.
Do I group a red packet of biscuits
with a red jar of passata? Do the
bananas go next to the Soreen? The
carrots with the Wotsits?
And while I am sorting, a woozy
kaleidoscope of admin tasks slop in
and out of my mind: must fix printer
to print out all that homework for son,
must buy new ballet leotard for
daughter, must fix sat-nav, which is
stubbornly on the fritz. Is there any
dinner for the kids? No. PANIC. Then
the vet calls to remind me that the
cats are overdue for a health check-up.
“How dare you disturb my rainbow
sorting!” I scream at him. In my head.
I ring Jonny Yeo to demand the
meaning of it all. “Well, I’m not sure
I’m responsible for this,” he says, “but
about 15 years ago I moved into a new
studio and had an assistant helping
me. They were unloading packing
crates of art books and initially
grouped some by colour on the shelf,
but not for any real reason. When I
saw them it struck me that from a
practical point of view, this was a
much better way of storing books. I’m
more likely to remember the colour of
a book than its title or author.”
It all becomes clear. I don’t need to
sort my stuff into rainbows to improve
my life: what I need is an assistant.

I tried to rainbow my life


Before


After


GETTY IMAGES

Clea Shearer in Get Organized


c
b
a

la
c D w b c k a t m d

Esther
Walker and
her attempts
to “rainbow”
her home

Before After

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