The journey to a simple home can be a long one. Here are eight things I, as a neurodivergent woman did to make my family’s home an overall better place to be.
The story.
I stared at my computer screen, entranced as the YouTuber made basic changes to the basement apartment she’d been tasked with redecorating. No. No! Could it really be that simple? How had I missed it?
Excitement swelled within me until I thought I would burst.
This makeover gave me the answer I’d been looking for, on a silver platter, no less. I’d been watching her channel for weeks, hoping for the barest glimpse of inspiration as to how I needed to change my home. Now I had not just a bare glimpse, but a clear, fully-formed idea.
And in a day, I went from hating my house to loving it. Just by switching a few pieces of furniture around.
The autism and ADHD-friendly home MUST jive with our brains.
As women, we spend our lives being bombarded with scenes of what the “ideal” home should look like. We’re told how to store, how to organize, how to clean.
The thing is, many of those ideals clash with what our neurodivergent brains need. Even neurotypical women dealing with menopause brain fog, low energy, and lowered executive function find the expert ideas harder and harder to live with.
If we’re over the age of forty-five and neurodivergent? We have to simplify in order not to go crazy.
I wanted to share the big changes I’ve made during the past seven years or so to inspire you. Each woman is unique in what she needs, and what her home is currently like, so what worked for me may not work for you. But if your home isn’t feeling neurodivergent-friendly, I encourage you to read on to help the right ideas spark inside of your brilliant mind.
Decision #1 for an ADHD-friendly home: a major declutter.
It’s amazing how much stuff can accumulate even in a small home.
Okay, maybe not so amazing when one of the occupants is under the age of thirteen for several of those years, and all three occupants are neurodivergent.
But I’d determined when we moved to our rural property that we would no longer collect junk. Or, that we would get rid of stuff when we were no longer using it.
What I hadn’t bargained on was perimenopause kicking me in the rear end. Or a husband who had much less energy for homesteading than I’d realized. Mood swings, crashing fatigue, and familial conflict shoved dealing with “stuff” to the bottom of my priority list.
Three years ago, I couldn’t take it anymore. The bookcases were a mess. I couldn’t find a lot of things stored on the shelves in the bathroom. I didn’t remember what we had stored in the loft above the bathroom.
So I went through every bookcase, every shelf, every box, every drawer, every nook and cranny in the house and decluttered.
It took me about a month. My husband and son stayed clear as books, papers, and various items went flying into various piles and cardboard boxes and trash bags.
Then, I reorganized. Oriented my husband and son to the new locations of what remained.
Life has been simpler – and happier – ever since.
Read how to declutter without regrets.
Read my ten best organization tips for neurodivergent women.
Decision #2 for an autism-friendly home: I bought a loveseat.
When we moved out of our suburban home, all of our big furniture had to go. That included two full-size sofas. I convinced myself and my family that the few chairs we were taking would be sufficient.
Except, they weren’t. Our home has concrete walls and a concrete ceiling, and a tile floor. The chairs were all wood, nothing soft about them except the two or three that had seat cushions.
My autistic brain couldn’t deal with all the hard material. It needed something soft, something cozy.
I bought a loveseat, and it instantly changed our space, the very atmosphere of our home.
Most simple living gurus will tell you that buying new things or adding more furniture to a space is a no-no. But for those of us with neurodivergent brains who need an ADHD-friendly home, creating a visually pleasing space is non-negotiable.
Read this article to learn how to create your ideal sensory-friendly home.
Decision #3 I made for a simpler home: we repurposed furniture we had.
We had our earth-sheltered house built from scratch. There were no kitchen cabinets or pantry. But we did have a pair of three-drawer nightstands, and an extra tall bookcase of the set of three that had graced the family room of our suburban home.
The nightstands now hold tea, spices, freezer bags, and various dishes within their drawers. A two-burner appliance, a lamp, and a container with large utensils take up most of the space on top of them.
The bookcase is an open pantry, housing nuts, seeds, beans, grains, oils, vinegar, and so on.
We also have two tall, vintage-looking nightstands, each with a small drawer at the top. We use them as a “bedroom” for our phones at night, as well as to store a few other small gadgets. On the bottom shelf of one sit two Kindles and a box of facial tissue.
They’re not much for storage, but corral a few miscellaneous things while beautifying the wall between our bedroom and the bathroom.
Read more about our DIY kitchen.
Decision #4 for an ADHD-friendly home: I store only the kitchen items we actually use.
I have extra eating utensils and a few extra dishes in boxes in an outbuilding. But I’ve given away most of them to the local Goodwill. Having only what your family uses in kitchen cabinets and drawers cuts down on a lot of clutter, making things a lot easier to organize, making them easier to find.
Read why you might need a kitchen downsize, and the three easy steps to achieve it.
Decision #5 to simplify our home: We bought an extra freezer.
A loveseat. Now a freezer. You might think I’m not as frugal as I’ve claimed to be.
But hear me out: this is not so much about buying an extra appliance as improving home organization.
Things were getting lost in the one freezer we had, even though it was of a moderate size. I had to dig to find this and that, and when I needed to freeze bananas for smoothies, I often had a difficult time finding a place to put them to where the fresh bananas wouldn’t contact the frozen fruit and partially thaw them out.
Buying a small second freezer has significantly cut down on my food prep time because everything is easier to find.
Sometimes, for an ADHD-friendly home you need to buy a little extra something to enhance organization.
Read more on why “simple” doesn’t always mean “cheap” for neurodivergent women.
Decision # 6: I decreased the number of chore days.
Ladies, listen up: the housecleaning police have gone on a permanent strike. Unless you have a super-particular husband (in which case he should be doing at least half of the cleaning, or be in counseling), you don’t need to sweep every day or dust every week.
I went from sweeping four days a week to two. Then from dusting every week to every other week (now it’s more like every third week, or whenever the dust actually starts to bother me).
I do laundry by hand, and I’ve gone from doing a small load every day to washing larger loads three times a week.
Reducing chores means more room in the executive function part of your brain. And more room to engage in the special interests and hobbies that keep your nervous system happy.
Read all about building an effective home routine for neurodivergent women.
Decision #7 for an ADHD-friendly home: we have capsule wardrobes.
Given the size of our home, having capsule wardrobes was more of a necessity than a decision. That said, we do have extra storage space that we could be using for out-of-season clothing. So instead of me having one shelf in our (literal) wardrobe for warm-weather clothes and one for cool-weather clothes, I could pack all three of the shelves that are mine with shorts, T-shirts, and sundresses in the summer, and sweats and sweaters in the winter.
If I did, I would have the nightmare that a lot of women with ADHD face every morning: increasing anxiety over having to decide what to wear.
Besides reducing my stress levels and saving money, having fewer items of clothing means it’s easier to find what I want. And because we’re not storing out-of-season clothes, we have a lot easier time finding what we need in the other storage spaces.
When you don’t cram every potential storage space full, life is a lot simpler.
Read here about micro-capsule wardrobe challenges.
Decision #8 to create a more neurodivergent-friendly home: I reorganized furniture.
Remember the story at the beginning of this post? At the time, what I had deemed as our “living room” consisted of my rocking chair, and old wooden arm chair, a side table between the two, and my desk pushed up against the wall.
The chairs were against the backs of two short bookcases that had been shoved together like a wall.
I was the only one who ever sat in the space, and only when I needed to rock. Instead of being cozy, it felt hemmed in and isolated.
Then I watched the video I mentioned earlier, and a light bulb went off. The bookcases needed to be separated. I’d turn one so it could act as a divider between what would become the new living room area and what we call the “entrance,” the space near the door where we keep shoes and toss things that need to go out to one of the sheds.
The other was going to switch places with the loveseat, which at that moment had been sandwiched between the two tall nightstands mentioned earlier.
I turned the two chairs to face the loveseat, put my treasured decoupage side table between them, and voila! We had an actual legit living room.
It made setting up for the three of us to watch a movie a lot simpler. It improved foot traffic in two different directions.
Best of all, it created a welcoming, open space that was nonetheless cozy.
Here’s an article on six tips for simple room makeovers.
Simplifying your home: it’s a lot more than storage boxes and decluttering.
For a neurodivergent woman, sometimes a simple home means purchasing an extra appliance or shelving unit.
Sometimes it means repurposing something you already have, rather than buying new.
Sometimes it means rearranging a single shelf. Or an entire room.
It means one in which function and efficiency meet with warmth and security.
What could you do in the next day or two to turn your home into more of a sanctuary?
