Smart interior design is making the best of existing features, furniture and decor in your home. However it’s hard to appreciate your surroundings when your drowning in clutter. Decluttering keeps your home fresh but can seem like a daunting task. Here’s how to get your house in order.
Decluttering made simple - Ok so lets get organised
- Write a list of all the things that you’d like to deal with - are there whole rooms that you need to clear, wardrobes that need organising or work surfaces and desks that need clearing.
Prioritise the list - which are the worst offenders? Number them in order of which you want to tackle first.
Set some dates of when you’ll have time to complete the tasks. It helps to have a goal in mind - perhaps you are planning a party, expecting visitors to stay or clearing your home ready for photographing and home viewings for resale.
Be realistic. Some rooms may need a quick tidy up of a couple of hours whereas other places like basements or lofts might need you to set aside a whole day to complete the task of decluttering.
Now look at the last date on your list and there it is - Voila you now have a plan!
Stick to your plan and confidently say to yourself “by this date I will have all my clutter clear and my house will be ready for anything!” Whenever the going gets tough and you are knee deep in boxes this will help keep you on track.
Get started
Try and tackle one room at a time. The satisfaction and sense of achievement of seeing one task achieved will help spur you on to tackle the next room on the list.
Look at everything in the room. Aside from large items of furniture such as beds, sofas and storage units everything in the room will fall into one of three categories. Get three large containers and mark them up.
1. Staying put
2. Going away
3. Leaving the building goodbye, so long, farewell and thanks
Staying Put
Things that you want to keep where they are or re-home somewhere else in the house. Be realistic and consider the sage advice of 19th Century designer William Morris, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Considering keeping items? Think about how often you have actually used them in the last six months. If you decide to keep them make sure you use them in the next six months otherwise they need to go.
Going away This consists of things you want to keep but store away. Think carefully about what goes in this pile. Putting things in boxes isn’t necessarily dealing with the problem and may be storing up clutter for later on. Reserve storage for seasonal items which you will need to use at some point soon. e.g. Christmas decorations, winter boots, summer camping gear etc.
Leaving the building goodbye, so long, farewell and thanks.
This should be the easiest pile to decide. Things that you no longer use, are broken and unusable or you’ve simply decided you don’t want hanging around anymore. The broken and unusable are easy to deal with. Put them in a pile and take them to the local refuse and recycling centre as soon as you possibly can.
Things that you no longer use sort easily into two piles - resale and charity.
If you have some items of value that you want to resell there are lots of quick ways to get rid of them. Set aside a day for a car boot sale. Remember the objective is to get rid of as much as possible and not bring stuff home to store again. After the sale donate what’s left to charity as soon as possible.
Selling online is really easy to do.
Photograph items and put them on Gumtree, Shpock or your local Facebook selling pages. For books, DVDs and computer games use an online seller such as MusicMagpie.co.uk. Simply enter the barcode of the item and they will offer you a price. Accept, box up your items, they’re collected from you and you receive a payment. The best thing about online selling is that buyers will come to you at home at pick up the items which is really convenient.
Finally, before tidying and replacing and reorganising the items you wish to keep, have a really good spring clean. With all of this done you’ll be able to enjoy your space and appreciate the things you love and cherish. If you rather someone do it for you then please do get in touch - we work with many organisation angels!