JONAXEL Shelf unit, white, 80x38x160 cm (31 1/2x15x63 ")

When we want to tidy up at home, it might make sense to throw things into a dark, confined space and then forget about them. But there’s a downside to it. It can transform your closet into a monster. “In the long run it becomes hard to keep track of your belongings, things disappear and you get a clutter that can feel stressful,” says Paul Hughes who’s been involved in developing JONAXEL.

To find out how to best help people with issues like this, Paul and his colleagues visited different homes on three continents. They took pictures and bombarded the homeowners with storage-related questions. “We got to see the hard truth, and it wasn’t always pretty,” smiles Paul. “Many have closets with just a shelf and a rail underneath. It’s simple, but not very functional. They stuff the shelf and hang as much as they can on the rail – the rest ends up on the floor.”

It’s quite common that other parts of life get in the way for a clutter-free everyday, either we don’t have the energy, time or interest to fix it. “That’s why we had to come up with a simple solution that’s easy to put together,” says Paul. The smallest JONAXEL unit fits almost anywhere, and you can create more storage by simply stacking units on top of each other. “It’s a system that lets you take control of the spaces you have. Help on the way to a more organised life and a strategy for keeping closet monsters from growing too big.”