Tips to declutter your home

SPRING is finally here and with it comes warmer weather, beautiful blossoms and spring cleaning.

After spending winter indoors, the time has come to open the windows and let in some light, and fresh air.

This is always a good time to sort out cluttered spaces which make a home more difficult to clean, tougher to find things in and, most of all, adds to a general sense of stress in what should be a welcoming, relaxing space.

While decluttering the house can be intimidating, home organising pros often say that slow and steady wins the race: a daily 10-minute declutter is often better than an overwhelming mammoth session every six months.

Cleanipedia suggests the following five quick wins. With these small changes you’ll not only notice huge improvements, you might just be inspired to declutter your whole home.

1. Decluttering the study: Sort out the stationery drawer

One of the easiest places to tackle is the stationery drawer. Start by testing out all those pens and throwing out any that don’t work anymore.

Remove old receipts, shred any old mail and ditch any mystery junk objects.

Then, use small jars or boxes to hold objects like your staples and stapler together, for example, or all paper clips and thumbtacks in one spot. Opening it up will feel so much nicer.

2. Decluttering the bedroom: Get rid of excess hangers

How do we end up with so many hangers? From those pesky wire ones handed out with your dry cleaning to the plethora of tiny plastic ones you often get with kids’ clothing, our wardrobes can be packed with hangers we neither like nor need.

The thin, velvet versions are the most space-efficient, with wood ones being a good option for chunkier clothing. Drop the rest at your local charity shop, where they can be put to good use on the rails.

3. Decluttering the living room: Trim down those toys

Does your living room floor look like sale day at Toys ‘R’ Us by the end of the week? We wouldn’t wish standing on a piece of Lego on our worst enemy, yet often find ourselves doing it multiple times a day due to overly full toy bins and messy play areas.

Explore the idea of toy rotation, which will instantly remove at least half the toy clutter from your space. Donate or store toys the kids have outgrown (making sure to give soft toys a good wash) and set aside toys they may not be ready for yet to bring out later.

4. Decluttering the bathroom: Cull the cabinets

An almost empty tube of toothpaste, some old skincare samples, nail files and an ancient bottle of cough syrup – our bathroom cabinets are often one of the first places clutter builds up. And no doubt you’ve noticed that when a cupboard or drawer becomes full of things we don’t use, we tend to avoid it, hence losing very useful and functional storage space.

People often resist cleaning out bathroom cabinets as they don’t want to throw out “perfectly good” unused products, but bear in mind that most cosmetics do spoil, so that half-empty container of shampoo you didn’t quite love the smell of isn’t going to do your hair any favours in six months’ time. Bin the product, rinse out and recycle the packaging and keep the cabinet for things you actually do use on a regular basis (bonus: it will keep clutter from accumulating on bathroom countertops).

5. Decluttering the kitchen: Tackle that Tupperware

Constantly searching for the lid to a piece of Tupperware? Got a stack of mismatched food containers? Take 10 minutes to go through them all. First, make sure everything has a lid and get rid of any cracked or broken containers (these can often be put to good use as drawer organisers).

You’ll be surprised at how many are no longer fit for purpose and just taking up valuable space. When you’re done, nest the containers from biggest to smallest and store the lids vertically alongside them in a big storage box or drawer for easy future access. |