People always say that you grow to fit your home, filling every corner with different items as the seasons change and you live in a home longer. I’ve certainty been one to purchase items I don’t need later, but not sit down to think about what is needed and what is not. As the seasons change, it’s always a good time to declutter your house and make room for any new items you might want to purchase for your home! Even if you are the neatest, cleanest person, it’s very easy for spaces to get cluttered up! We wanted to share some tips on keeping your home nice and tidy.
Pick a Small Area to Start
I normally start with a part of a room, a corner that has been piled up with items, a bookshelf that now is a bit too packed, a dresser that has drawers full of stuff I haven’t touched. Once you have decided what area you want to start with (you can go as big as an entire room) you’ll want to pull everything out of the area and sort through them. This shouldn’t be too difficult of a task – you will want to decide if the items you are looking at still hold value, then decide what to do with them. Some items might need to be thrown out, others donated, others might need a quick clean and to be placed back or to be placed into a new and better space. If you have larger items, from re-organizing a room, or just a lot of little items that you don’t want to get rid of but don’t have a place for in your house, it’s worth considering personal storage. I use to purchase items for further down the line, so having a place to store these items so that they could be used later has been a big help in keeping my living space clutter free.
Maximize Your Space
Often, out of site is out of mind, but you can really take advantage of the space that you don’t always look at. If you need more space in your bedroom, consider finding storage options for under bed frames – whether that be built in storage in your bed frame or containers that can be easily moved out of under the bed, for good access. The most important thing is access – if the items being stored are something you want to access on a regular basis, you need to make sure you still can reach them easily, even if they can be tucked away. We love to have blankets in the living room in the wintertime, so we got a couch with built in storage to hold these blankets, as well as extra pillows and bedding, which allows them to be in a safe and clean spot for the summer! These blankets are still stored in the room they are most used in, which is worth thinking about.
Consider Your Furniture
Sometimes, we end up with items that are just too big for the spaces we are in. A coffee table that you can’t walk around easily, a desk that doesn’t have room for a chair to pull out from it, a cabinet that can’t quite open all of the way. These sorts of things may seem like small annoyances, but they can make your home seem so cluttered. Not being able to access different items and having to make a deliberate effort to get around your home can have an impact on how you interact and use these items. You’ll want to consider your furniture and their placement when decluttering your home, as sometimes moving items around to give them more of a flow can change the entire feel of your home, allowing more space by just adjusting what you have already placed. It’s also important to consider the focus pieces of the room – what draws your eye – to make sure those areas are easily cleaned and kept tidy.
Give Everything a ‘Home’
Items within your home should have their own home or place that they belong. These homes should be easy to identify, so that cleaning up can be a breeze. Having a place that you know items go into, like a spice rack for all of your spices, mean you can easily find them and make sure they are where they belong. When these spaces get too full to fit any more objects, it’s time to look through what you have and get rid of anything that no longer fits into that home or space. This is especially helpful when it comes to make-up, spices, and other things that expire as once the place these belong in become too full, it’s a good time to get rid of old, used, or expiring products!
Keep Control of Wires
Wires are a necessary evil. Everything needs powers, and most items use wires to get this power. As a tech-forward house, we have cables everywhere – plugged into multi-sockets to run the Xbox, charge tablets, keep computers running, etc. There are lots of different items that allow you to set up charging stations throughout your house or to expand outlets to put more plugs into, but it’s important to keep these wires at bay. This takes a little bit of forward thinking – labeling your wires can help keep them tidy, but making sure your cables are tucked away is something that really helps declutter your home. Instead of seeing cables everywhere, you can use cable tidies to grip gables to the sides of furniture and desks, keeping them towards the back so they are out of site and out of mind. This way, they don’t connect dust or drag across the floor. You might even be able to put your sockets into a drawer or Velcro it against your TV unit so that your multi-socket doesn’t even need to touch the floor.
Hopefully these tips help you love your home and fix any clutter within them. What are your decluttering tips?