10 tips to help declutter your home

10 tips to help declutter your home

20th January 2019 37 By Rachael Stray

I am on a mission to declutter our house and I thought I’d share some tips to help you do the same!

I don’t know if it’s because it’s the start of a new year or what but once the Christmas decorations were down our living room felt so much bigger but I still felt like we were drowning in stuff.

Paperwork, clothes, boxes, old beauty products you name it we have it and I’ve had enough!

Last Friday the decluttering mission in our house began and we are both determined to tackle the entire house.

We’ve made a good start but there’s still a lot to do.

In the meantime I thought I’d share my top 10 tips to declutter with you.

10 tips to declutter

Work out which parts of your home need a declutter

Before you start any decluttering it’s best to think of all those secret messy places that might need a bit of TLC.

It’s not just your living room, kitchen, bathroom or bedroom that might need a declutter.

Have you considered tackling:

  • Junk drawer
  • Computer
  • Toiletries
  • Linen cupboard
  • Medicine cupboard
  • Keepsakes
  • Crafts
  • Toy box

Once you’ve established the problematic areas in the home, you’re decluttering mission can begin.

The four-box method

Before getting stuck into decluttering a room I brought four boxes: rubbish, give away, keep, or relocate.

Each item in every room was placed into one of the four categories.

No item was passed over and I recommend you do the same.

Try the Oprah Winfrey Closet Hanger Experiment

While this idea didn’t actually originate with Oprah, she was the one to help give it exposure.

To identify wardrobe pieces to clear out, hang all your clothes with the hangers in the reverse direction.

After you wear an item, return it to the closet with the hanger facing the correct direction.

Then after six months, you’ll have a clear picture of which clothes you can easily discard.

This experiment could also be applied to a number of clutter areas in your home (cleaners, toys, linens, tools, hobbies and craft items).

Throw out expired products

When was the last time you checked the expiration date on a bottle of sun cream or medication?

Try to set aside even just 20 minutes every three months to pull everything out of your bathroom cabinets and check expiration dates.

Then throw out all expired products and items that you just don’t like.

This also works in the kitchen especially with those packets and tins left at the back of the cupboard.

Here’s our tin and jar cupboard looking pretty neat following a quick decluttering yesterday.

Create storage for everything

It’s so much easier to keep your home clutter free if you have enough storage but I recommend you empty any existing storage and go through it before you try to organise it.

I find IKEA a great place to get nifty storage like this unit we have in our bathroom.

Also don’t forget about places like Wilko’s where we got this ottoman for our living room which fits loads in and doubles up as an extra seat.

Keep surfaces clear

The fewer things you have on your surfaces – the kitchen counters, the bathroom units, the sideboard in your living room – the less cluttered a room will feel.

Of course having some nice items like picture frames and knick-knacks help to make your home feel more cosy but too much stuff looks messy and simply gathers dust.

Season your wardrobe

Change your wardrobe by the season.

Once you’re sure the summer and winter are over, swap out your summer and winter clothes.

Use vacuum storage bags for storing out of season clothes in the top of your wardrobe or your attic.

I put my holiday clothes and flip flops in my suitcase so they are out of sight and mind.

Invest in some shoe storage boxes – they take up less room than just keeping shoes in their original boxes – and store away out of season footwear as well.

Let go of useless, broken, outdated and otherwise unusable stuff

Whether it’s a broken toaster, an old MP3 player from seven years ago or old magazines you need to ask yourself is this item useless, broken, outdated and unusable?

Broken, busted and otherwise unusable stuff just becomes a headache over time in your home and sits there taking up space and gathering dust.

If the answer is yes to the above please question then get rid!

Go through every declutter item and make a decision

Now you’ve sorted everything into piles or boxes, don’t just leave it by the door, on the stairs or in the garage.

Take that bag to charity, sell those items on eBay, recycle those old magazines.

You’ve done too much work to get rid of the clutter, so make sure it all leaves the house, in one way or another.

Throw / Recycle old magazines, leaflets, unopened mail. It can all build up. The good thing about it is most of it is recyclable. Get rid of expired food, items that are on the verge of falling apart. Be ruthless.

Donate all those items that still serve a purpose, but you never touch. If you don’t want it, someone else might. Give your old belongings to a charity shop or Freecycle. You will be helping people as well as yourself!

Sell items that are too good to give away. Why not sell it on eBay, at a car boot sale, or why not take a look at Facebook selling groups in your area? There’s so many ways to sell items online now and sometimes people will even come and pick up an item if it’s good enough, so you won’t even have to leave the house.

Undecided items are those things that you might not know what to do with. If you’re really unsure why not try a one-year box.

Seal it and grab a marker pen and write a date of one year in the future. If you don’t miss the items you won’t open the box.

When that date comes around, donate the box WITHOUT opening it. You probably won’t even remember what was in the box anyway.

Declutter regularly

The best thing to do is try to keep on top of the clutter in the first place.

Even just spending 20 minutes a week making sure things go away, get recycled or put into a box to be donated will make such a big difference.

You don’t have to do everything in one go you can just do little bits at a time – a room, a shelf etc so you don’t spend an entire weekend decluttering unless like me you’re on a mission!

Are you having a good clean and clear out too? Have you got any tips to share? Let me know in the comments below.

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Other home related posts

Here’s 10 tips to keep your home cool in summer

If you’re worried about your energy bills I’ve got a post packed full of useful information.

Here’s 10 tips to tackle condensation in your home

Tips to sleep well in a heatwave

Here’s 10 tips to stay warm at home this winter

Keep in touch

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