The case for empty space
Am I the only one who finds half-filled closets relaxing?
Something I’ve observed over the years is that my stuff will expand to fill the space available. I suspect I’m not alone in this.
If we were to treat our spaces like the containers they are and respect their limits at all times, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. (Shoutout to Dana White’s Container Concept)
However, we don’t do this. We fill our closets, drawers, and bins to their limit.
And then we add something new and our whole system breaks down because the new thing has nowhere to go. So begins a pile, or else we buy some organizing doo-dad to Tetris in more stuff.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time in other people’s pantries over the past couple years and it’s interesting to me how people store vastly different amounts of dry goods. Sometimes it’s barely enough to fill a drawer. Other times it’s huge closetfuls (lest we forget Khloe Kardashian’s tower of cookies).
There is no “correct” quantity, but it made me reflect on my own bursting-at-the-seams pantry. There’s no reason that it needs to be so uncomfortably full, with bags piled on top of once-beautifully decanted jars (will decanting ever make sense to me?).
It would be so much more chill if I opened the pantry and it had just what I needed in easy view. Yet instead, I currently have 5 different kinds of pancake mix.
Insight: Your space shouldn’t determine how much stuff you have; your needs should.*
To resolve this, I’ve been dutifully using up our dry goods and freeing up pantry space. Let the stores store my food. No need to hoard like the apocalypse looms.
Beyond the pantry, I’ve been looking at my kitchen cabinets in a new light and slimming down any excess. My goal is to have empty space in my kitchen cabinets wherever I can. (I remind myself frequently of homes I’ve seen in Europe and Asia with 1/10th the space of my house, and people there manage just fine.)
It’s weirdly relaxing to me to have a half-full drawer. It tells me that even if I add something new, the system won’t break down; there’s room for the unexpected. Planning ahead for surprises is my love language.
I helped organize a reader’s pantry recently, and even without empty space as an explicit goal, we achieved it. Her pantry went from so-crammed-things-got-lost-for-years, to blissfully spacious:

In seeking inspiration, I remembered a friend’s enviably spacious closet. She does a seasonal rotation so there are two versions of her dreamily capacious closet. (The empty space continues out of frame to the left.)


My husband and I share a tiny closet so I will never achieve this level of chill, but I do pat myself on the back whenever I declutter and end up with an empty hanger or two. Small victories count!
Now You
How do you find space at home, even tiny amounts? Does anyone else aspire to underutilize their kitchen cabinets?
* I know I have readers who live in a very small space or in rural areas where a stockroom is a necessity. In these scenarios, your optimal solution likely looks different from mine. The goal isn’t to emulate my solution; it’s to figure out what your needs truly are.
“We used to let the stores store things.” Yes. Yes. YES!!! Why is everyone running little mini-markets inside their cupboards and pantries?
I love Dana’s container concept too and it’s one of the top ideas I use with my own clients as a newer organizer. And I’m with you on the rainbow effect 🙄.
I do have empty shelves at the top of all of my to-the-ceiling kitchen cabinets and pantry but it’s also just me in the home now and I did declutter when I recently downsized to a one-bedroom.
But my bedroom and closet are doing double duty until I make some additional biz decisions - I’m also a home stager who does occupied home consultations and light accessorizing for photos so the entire underside of my queen bed is filled with bags of throw pillows and a quarter of my closet stores art and accessories for staging. So my clothes are overfilling the remaining hanging space - I definitely could purge there. Most of my hanging clothes are from when I was teaching and had a different side business. Now that I spend most of my time decluttering and moving clients’ old boxes out of dusty basements, I don’t exactly have much need for all of the silk shirts, tailored dresses and heels! But sometimes I’m not very good at taking my own advice 🙂.