ELLIE comfort in chaos

Ellie, an engineering student, has a room that is anything but rudimentary. The walls are plastered with collages, pictures, and an out of date calendar that work together to create a wildly expressive, albeit chaotic, environment. Ellie aims to create a space that serves as a creative respite from her more rigid professional environment. To an outsider, the space looks like a mess, but to Ellie everything from the heap of clothes to the shelves of trinkets are right where they are meant to be: “Even when my room is chaotic I know where to find things. It is organized in a very chaotic way.” In a way, the mess itself is the greatest expression of her day to day life. A room that is lived in displays an even more intimate side of someone’s reality.

Themost interestingpartof Ellie’sroomis undoubtedlythe collectionof trinkets displayed onevery available surface:“Iliketohave things everywhere.I collect thingsand display things.I holdonto things longerthanI should.”Herroom hasbecomea museumof sentimental objects, witheach figurine representingan intimate partof Ellie’s identity.Whatshe describesas borderline hoarding,isreallya manifestationof herfavorite momentsfromherpast. Collagesof herown creativity,aboxof lettersgiventoher overtime, hundredsof imagesand dozensof trinkets,allcome togetherto createa chaoticbut personalmapinto Ellie’sinner world.

Q: How would you describe your personal style?

A: I would say very chaotic. Chaos, but somewhat organized chaos. Everything in here has a home but isn’t necessarily always there. Even when my room is chaotic I know where to find things. It is organized in a very chaotic way. I also love lots of color, in fashion or in my room. A lot of the correlation between my clothes and my room is the amount of color, and that most things I wear and most things in this room don’t traditionally ‘match.’ They match in the way where you would say ‘oh I guess those kind of go together’ and not in a curated, expected way. I like to be around color, which is interesting because when I was growing up I wanted a black room. But today I am drawn towards colorful chaos. I like things to be thrown together in an aesthetic-ish way.

A: Recently it’s been pretty akin to this, however typically there is sh*t everywhere. That pile of clothes for example is very normal. They’re all clean clothes, I just need to fold them and I am too lazy. I know exactly what clothes are in there right now so in that way it’s organized. Typically my room is an explosion of clothes everywhere. I like to clean my room once it is not manageable. Having a clean room isn’t necessarily a priority to me. I feel a little more of a reset when my room is clean, but when it is chaos it doesn’t necessarily bother me. My room is more so a reflection of what is going on in my life.

Q: How messy is your room usually? How important do you think it is to keep an organized space?

Q: What does interior design mean to you?

A: I put pictures up because I wanted to cover the walls so it is full of color and you can’t see as much of the stark white walls. Interior design means something in the way that I feel like I can express the people and things I love through it. It’s nice to look at the walls and have things on them. I am definitely not a simple interior design person. I like to have things everywhere. I collect things and display things. I hold onto things longer than I should. I have a collection of every card, letter, anything that has ever been sent to me. That’s probably the most sentimental thing in my room. My collages are things I made and display to express my creative side, especially as someone in STEM I want my room to be an expression of the creativity I don’t express in my career or studies. It balances out my everyday life. I like my room. It makes me happy, And to me that’s the point of my room, to bring a little joy at the end of a long day and help me relax. It feels very much like home.

Q: What draws you to color and chaos?

A: I like the way it looks. I like to observe people and things, so I feel like the more things there are the more interesting a room is to look at. Color to me is chaos and I love that. I like to look at the details within the chaos that create the full picture. The more contrast in a room, different colors, textures, random sh*t, even if they don’t go together I love how they come together to create a big picture. This rug for example is so cool to me. It pulls everything together, brings so much color to the space in a chaotic way. This room is a display of things I like, and if they match they match and if they don’t, such is life.