It’s not even spring yet but I feel as though I’m ready to declutter before the warmer months arrive! Are you like me, if your rooms are a mess you feel like everything is in a total shambles? I have some friends who don’t mind mess (I avoid going to their houses ;)) and other friends who spend their weekends obsessively cleaning their kitchens.
A few years ago my mum gave me a copy of Marie Kondo’s The Joy Of Tidying Up. I laughed and asked her why she was giving me a book about cleaning up when I was the neatest child she’d raised (don’t ask about my younger brothers…). But after reading the book I had a huge urge to unpack my entire wardrobe and turf 40% of it! It was therapeutic. It felt great. So from then on I became a little bit obsessive about decluttering.
Moving house is a great opportunity to do a huge clear out because you’re forced to see and touch every item you own before moving it into the next place. But what can we do outside of those times to keep on top of the mess?
Here are my top tips for decluttering your living space:
Storage
For most of us, storage, or lack of, is the reason why we’ve got so much “stuff” on display. If you can work out what you might need more of in the room, like storage baskets for small items or do you need a bigger storage system like a sideboard or buffet? Can you rework some of the furniture in the space, upsize your TV unit to a buffet so you get more storage in the TV Unit. Or add pull out baskets to your bookshelf to hide some of the items you need but aren’t necessarily nice to look at?
Stuff
Alright, confession time, who’s going to put their hand up and admit they own too much!? Yeh, didn’t think you would confess to that but that’s okay, you can live in denial a little longer 😉 If you are brave enough to admit you may have a little addiction to ‘stuff’ then let’s find a way to work through this. Do a physical inventory check of what you own, start pondering other uses for them or if a big chuck out is an easy place to start.Â
Categorise
Once you’ve worked out what to keep and what to chuck, go back through the ‘keep’ pile and work out the categories the items belong in. You might find that seeing it all lumped into categories means you can chuck more out too! Once you have the categories identified (decor, books, electronics, etc etc) you can then decide what storage systems will work better to house the ‘stuff’. It might mean you need a coffee table with a lower level for magazine storage, or it might mean you need a bookshelf to store your books. They don’t have to be expensive changes, re-working what you’ve got might be enough.
Overwhelm
It’s totally normal to get overwhelmed in the decluttering process. Start with smaller areas first, don’t try and tackle the entire project in one hit. Break it into areas of the room, like the TV unit or the bookshelf and then work your way around the space. Give yourself a set goal so it does eventually get done. Maybe two Saturday afternoons in a row is all you need to get on top of things. Or set aside a whole day and sit down with your partner to tackle it together – a problem shared is a problem halved!!!
What are some of your decluttering tips and tricks?!
Emma x
