The Tetris Family Challenge

Recently I've grown weary of the Tetris Family Challenge. I've been playing for a few years and my affection for the game is temporarily wavering. I say temporarily because it is unlikely I will stop participating in this particular challenge anytime soon. And to resign myself to permanent frustration about my living situation would be pretty miserable. So I will persevere on the condition that you indulge me this opportunity to vent.

If you're not familiar with the challenge I'm bemoaning, it's the one where you live in a relatively compact space and your life starts to resemble the computer game, Tetris, that you may have played as a child or a bored adult on a plane. The computer game involves moving and rotating shapes to fit into neat rows. It gets harder as the number of shapes grows. The real life version involves moving and rotating every-day items in your home to access other every-day items in your house on a really regular basis. Similarly it gets harder the more you, and your family, grow.

For example, take the hair-dryer. It either sits on the washing basket which means every time I put clothes in (frequently) or put a load of washing on (also frequently) I have to move the hairdryer. This usually involves it falling into the basket and getting tangled with said clothes. The alternative is to place it under the bathroom cabinet. To make room for it in there I have to move the toilet paper, bathroom bags, washers, spare soap and not-every-day cosmetics that live under there, shove it in and forget about the precarious balance until I next open the cabinet and everything falls out. Repeating this exercise every second day is grating.

Granted, neither scenario is particularly arduous but it is the cumulative effect that makes this challenge ever-so-slightly painful. Because the hairdryer is only one tiny piece of the puzzle. Or Tetris screen. Sheets, towels, the washing basket, a soaking bucket, the drying rack, the ironing board, the iron, the vacuum cleaner, chopping boards, the bathmat, overnight bags and blankets are among the other key offenders in the NABM household. Because storage is limited none of these objects has a particularly comfortable or accessible home. It's always a matter of moving one to get to another to get to another.

Washing is particularly challenging because as far as wardrobe space goes we're better off when there are two loads of washing either in the machine, folded in the basket or hanging on the rack. There's just not enough room in our drawers and cupboard for all our clothes to be in there at once. This is frustrating when I'd love to remove the hanging rack from the living room or an overfilled washing basket from the dining table. Anyway.

I thought I had mastered all of this quite well from our time living in England. Our student flat there was small for two adults and decidedly cramped with a third family member mostly because of the amount of clobber and equipment that our small flatmate necessitated. With just a bar fridge and very limited cupboard space the Oxford version of the Tetris-Family Challenge was admittedly more advanced than the Sydney game we're now playing. Here, we have a full-sized fridge, decent kitchen cupboards and spare bench space.

As I contemplated a small melt-down prompted by an unsuccessful attempt at finding space for four loads of washing I remembered an interview I did last year. The head of IKEA in Australia was explaining that when they send consultants into homes around the world we all share the same frustrations in our living spaces. Whether you live in a five bedroom house in America's mid-West or a tiny apartment in Tokyo, apparently, we all struggle with the same little details. And I find that quite comforting. Obviously I just need an IKEA fairy to come and sort us out*.

*This post was not sponsored by IKEA**.
** If it were I would OBVIOUSLY have stated it right up front. Can you really imagine me NOT sharing that potentially amazing development?? Hell. No.