‘Tidying feels like a delicious massage for the mind’

If you have a question for Luke about design and stylish living, email him at lukeedward.hall@ft.com. Follow him on Instagram @lukeedwardhall

I’m in the middle of a big spring clean and I need help with storage solutions (baskets and boxes), plus nice household tools — brushes and the like. What can you suggest?

Contrary to what some people may believe when they look at images of my home, or when they pay me a visit, I am an organised, tidy person. I have
a lot of stuff, yes, but there is a place for everything. Trinkets are arranged fastidiously, and everyday items are housed in an assortment of jars, boxes and baskets.

I have the odd cupboard or two that is (much) less organised, but who doesn’t? (Open one of these at your peril: you’ll be hit by a volley of miscellaneous objects: an iron, maybe, a discarded lampshade, a box of jam jars for all that marmalade I definitely did not make.)

I have several drawers that I stuff with receipts, masks, loose change and boring-looking letters I don’t want to open, but we’ll gloss over this . . . It is spring, and we all feel like getting things gorgeously in order in spring, don’t we?

In fact, I find it rather thrilling, shopping for storage solutions. It must be the prospect of things being filed away that makes my head feel lighter, even before I get involved with the act of physical sorting (aka the boring part). Here are my top picks.

Arket is a good source for practical odds and ends for the home: I like its lightweight rattan magazine holder very much. I’m big on magazine holders and I think all sitting rooms benefit from one.

I love nothing more than a lazy Saturday morning, pot of coffee on the go, dog asleep on legs and ensconced in a fortress built from newspaper supplements (it does, after all, go with the job), but I get antsy come Tuesday when I find them all over the house, us having taken them to read in the bath, in bed, over breakfast. Best to keep them in one tidy place.

Pentreath & Hall in Bloomsbury, London, is where I go for all paper-related storage solutions. It does an exceptional line in box and magazine files, covered in papers featuring geometric patterns and marvellous faux wood and stone finishes designed by Bridie Hall. If incorporating one of these into the VAT return won’t spice things up, I’m not sure what will.

Choosing Keeping makes some lovely things too: I’ve been eyeing up its red faux-lacquer storage boxes for storing old notes and postcards. A Fornasetti waste-paper basket is also on my wish list — one to save up for. (Excruciatingly expensive but so beautiful; truly the Rolls-Royce of little bins.)

Now, I love a basket. Leave me alone with an assortment of objects and before long I’ll have conjured a charming little woven number and squirrelled those objects right away.

Most days Duncan will ask me where his secateurs are and my answer is always the same: “But have you checked the gardening tools basket?”, those three words drawn out and said through ever so slightly gritted teeth.

I like the bright green Ivumbu and natural Rahisi baskets made by The Basket Room.

London’s Labour and Wait makes an assortment of useful objects for the home, from bright red cylindrical leather tool bags (apparently also useful for transporting a Thermos flask) to galvanised buckets and towel driers.

Labour and Wait is a firm favourite of mine because its stock is always highly stylish — it sells an American-made aluminium dustpan, for example, that features such chic lines I’d consider having it on display among my tulips and Grand Tour fragments.

As for other useful bits and bobs to help with spring cleaning: take a look at The Oxford Brush Company’s website for the most astounding range
of — you guessed it — brushes. Brushes for things you never imagined you might need a brush for. This company has a great little shop not far from me in the Cotswolds town of Burford and I can never resist popping in for a browse. It’s only after I’ve spent about 10 minutes ogling a beekeeper’s broom I realise that I own no bees. Beautiful object, mind.

Keeping things in order keeps our minds in check. We all have our special ways and these help us to feel calm and safe. In our mugs cupboard, for example, everyday mugs are kept on one shelf, preferred mugs on another. My bathroom cupboard is divided into “districts”: hair stuff in one bit, skincare in another and so on. I really can’t handle it when these districts get muddled.

What is it they say? Tidy house, tidy mind. There is certainly something in this expression. I find I’m able to concentrate in a much more focused way when my objects are in their rightful place. I expect I will find tidying one of my packed drawers to feel like a kind of delicious massage for the mind.
So, get the proper gear (brushes, boxes, whatever you need), get those districts in order and reap the soothing benefits.

Follow @FTProperty on Twitter or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram to find out about our latest stories first