I’ve heard some great names for the part of your home or office that is “organisationally challenged”.
- The Scary Room
- The Room of Requirement (A Harry Potter reference)
- The (s)Crap Room – A scrapbookers creative place.
Then there’s one of my favourite terms for disorder: khazeray. I’ve been told this word has German/Yiddish origins. The Yiddishdictionary Online tells me it means: filth, mess; dirty trick
What about you and your space – have you a name for the best or worst space at your place? I’d love to hear!
In Ireland and England (I think) they sometimes have a room called the ‘Box Room’. You try to confine all the crap to one room and close the door. A box room often arises when moving house until you are entirely unpacked … which may never happen.
Oh yeah, The Box Room! So cute. I think The Box Room is sometimes under the stairs…. at least the one I saw was.
I call me spare room, which WAS my office – the Box Room, because it’s filled with boxes, mostly containing books which I have yet to read!! Meanwhile my office is the rest of the flat!
“me” spare room – a cross between THE and MY!
Many of my clients call theirs the Scary Room, though I’ve heard Hell, Pit and Junk Room. The house in which I grew up is pristine (owing to my mother’s divine organizational skills) with the exception of 2/3 of the basement (which has no name — it just evokes a pained groan) which is filled with everything my father has refused to throw out for 88 years, from cardboard boxes to broken suitcases.
I’ve segregated my clutter — it all lives in “the library” — which is what it’s called on the floor plan — and is full of things for which I keep hoping the manly equivalent of a fairy godmother will fix. A broken chair. A painting that’s too heavy for me to hang by myself. A chair I can’t carry down the stairs to donate. Yes, even we professional organizers have our clutter.
As for chazerai (or, y’know, “khazeray”), I grew up thinking that was what *everyone* called their crap. It’s pronounced with that guttural “ch” like at the beginning of Chanukkah or challah (bread): cha-zuh-rye
Oh, your dad is a collector!
And yes, even us PO’s have stuff issues…. good to hear from you Julie!
My room is the “study” yes it does have a desk under the old makeup (my daughter can still see a mirror to use) boxes and boxes of filing. photos albums all waiting for my project to sort and label them (now 20 ears worth, ironing, mending but room is off a side hall most people dont see it so it is my place of sanity – throw everything in it leave me feeling sane looking at a neat house
The ‘Jesus’ Room … because you open the door, say “Jesus!”, and shut it. This is the name given to the junk room by the highly religious mother of someone I know – so I think it deserves an honourable mention!
The holding bay….because hopefully the stuff is only there temporarily, on hold, until sorted….and usually tossed! Love your work, Lissanne.
When I was a young child, my grandparents house had a “Rat’s Room” where we were hardly brave enough to look in. The house then became my parents and we lived there until it was demolished when I was 7. Every room full of stuff since has been “The Rat’s Room”!