Shhhhhh!
What’s the matter?
I’m trying to concentrate on the hum of my bookcase.
Surely that’s the bin.
The visual hum. All your possessions have one.
Says who?
The house hushers. Surely you’ve heard of house hushing?
Imagine we haven’t.
It’s the new way to declutter your life and radically improve your sense of wellbeing.
Right, so what are you doing with that bookcase?
Considering my emotional response to it – as though I were listening to music.
And what’s the verdict?
‘OI, SOFA – SHUT UP!’ AN IDEAL HOME, SAY THE HOUSE HUSHERS, NEEDS TO BE CALM AND CLUTTER-FREE
I agree with Guardian writer Emma Beddington.
What does she say?
She describes having piles of unconsidered junk everywhere as the equivalent of listening to ‘avant-garde free jazz’.
We may like avant-garde free jazz.
Do you?
No.
OK, so you need to hush your house then.
Will picking up the unconsidered junk and spraying a bit of Pledge underneath it do the job?
Nope, still too loud. Homes & Gardens says house hushing requires you to ‘thoughtfully examine’ your possessions.
Keeping only the things that you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful?
That’s exactly it.
So how do we get started?
Begin with the ‘eyelash test’: a technique advised by The Poetry of Spaces author Sarah Andrews.
Go on…
Which space in your house is most lacking in poetry?
Hmmmm. That would have to be the downstairs loo or the hall.
House hushing is a focused activity. I’m going to have to press you to make a choice.
HAVING PILES OF JUNK IS THE EQUIVALENT OF LISTENING TO FREE JAZZ
OK, the hall. We’ve got dogs and visitors and teenagers. It’s chaos.
So go to the hall and half close your eyes. Now tell me what you can still see?
The door.
You’ve closed them too much.
Oh, right, sorry. A satsuma. Or it could be a tennis ball – no, it’s a very elderly satsuma.
Right, bin the satsuma. Anything else?
A dog brush, a final demand for the car tax, the charger for the strimmer and every style of trainer ever sold by JD Sports.
Quite a hum, eh?
Nothing a blast of Febreze won’t sort out.
A visual hum.
Oh, yes, very loud. How would I achieve a more hushed hall, then?
The Guardian advises calming the chaos by introducing texture.
We’re not entirely sure that lack of texture is the issue…
Specifically, ‘sheepskin, raffia, wool, velvet, cord and bouclé’.
Have you ever tried mixing dogs with bouclé?
Well, you should know that Ideal Home is also pushing texture as a cure for stress.
It’s this insistence on bouclé that is really starting to wind me up!
In that case ‘warm neutrals will bring feelings of peace. A single palette throughout the home induces calm and fluidity.’
Or makes it look like a morgue.
It doesn’t sound like you’re on board with this trend.
Throw most of your stuff away and paint everything else beige?
Warm neutral.
Whatever. It’s not exactly radical advice, is it?
You’re just like those design philistines on the platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter.
Aren’t they impressed by house hushing either?
It’d be fair to say that responses to the article were mixed.
Give us a flavour.
There were questions raised over the name, with one contributor opining that it sounded more like a sex act.
Weird.
Or a musical sub-genre.
Bit less weird.
Another wrote: ‘Wow. Someone’s discovered… tidying.’
Bingo! We’ve also been browsing the responses to that article and one reader has come up with a better name for the trend.
Impress me.
Feng-shush.
