Decluttering your home is the best way to make it more desirable and inviting. In order to declutter your home, you will need to sort your belongings and give away or store things you don’t need or use very often. This will help you free some space for things you need and create openness in your home. Also, make sure that everything has a designated space and keep your home tidy. You might also need to practice minimalism for better use of your space.
To some people, decluttering their homes mark the line between happiness and mental stress. Having a clutter-free home also makes it easy to manage. Decluttering your house is not a one-time thing. Instead, you need to keep working on your house and make sure that everything brought into the house is needed and placed in its designated space. You also need to make sure that every person in your home follows the same standards designed to keep your home clutter-free.
Before you declutter your home, you also need to have a distinction between wants and needs in your home.
For example, you need a couch or two in your home. But, you don’t need to display 15 chairs in your living room, unless of course, you have a large family to occupy them. You also don’t need 10 cooking pots in your kitchen. You can still own 10 pots. But, you don’t need to keep them in the kitchen where they occupy valuable space. Know what you need and use the most and store or give away things you don’t need.
Home decluttering tips
Decluttering your home is not a one-day process. You will first have to understand why you need to declutter your home in the first place. Understand where you need to declutter and make a list of things to work on. Not everything in your house needs to be organized or require the same level of urgency. That is why you need to do an inventory of your home and make a list of things you need to start with when decluttering your home.
Although it is possible to declutter your whole home at once, it might be overwhelming to take on such a challenge. Having a busy schedule could also hinder your progress. For this reason, it is a good idea to declutter your home one section at a time. For example, you can declutter your bedrooms first. Then, declutter your closets and work your way out.
This strategy will allow you to divide your home into different sections and declutter them one at a time. You also need to allocate daily or weekly time to declutter your home. For example, you can decide to spend one or two hours every day decluttering your home. In case you have a busy schedule, start with the most important things first and declutter the least important space last.
This article will walk you through 9 tips to declutter your home and make it habitable and desirable.
1. Lower your belongings through giveaways
The first and most effective way to declutter your home is to reduce the number of things you own. By default, the more things you own, the harder it is to manage and organize your home. People with cluttered homes also develop home-related stresses. Your space is limited which makes it harder to cramp everything you have in the house. By decluttering your home, you will gain extra space to accommodate other belongings. Too many people struggle with having too many clothes, kids’ toys, furniture, etc. Buy what you need and efficiently organized them in your house.
If you have a lot of clothes that you don’t use, give them away. Do you have extra chairs and other furniture that have been sitting in your storage for many years? Donate them or sell them.
How do you know if you don’t need clothes? If you have clothes you have not worn in a year, you don’t need them. Instead of having those clothes all over your house, give them away. You can also sell them and raise extra cash to help you meet other financial responsibilities you have.
Repeat this process for all the stuff that you own and keep only what you need. You don’t need to hire a professional designer to organize your house. What you need to declutter your house is to understand the benefits of organizing your home or owning fewer things. Minimalism is a perfect way to keep your home clutter-free.
2. Organize your home the way you want it to be
If you don’t feel at home when you are at home, it is a strong indication that your home needs some decluttering. Maybe you have not decluttered your house for a while or people living in your house do not act responsibly. To resolve this issue and declutter your home, organize your home the way you want it to be.
Design specific spots for everything in the house and make sure that everyone is aware of these changes. Also, make sure that everyone follows your design. For example, you allocate specific space for every piece of furniture in the house. Then, make sure that nobody puts this furniture in random spaces. If a particular piece of furniture is not supposed to be in the bedroom, make sure it does not get there. Things become easy to control when everyone in the home works as a team and knows where they should be.
3. Sort items
Sorting your items is a crucial strategy to keep your home clutter-free. If your home looks like a dumping ground where clothes, shoes, food, utensils, etc, are all mixed together, it is time that you declutter your home. You need to create order by separating your belonging. You cannot make peace with your home if it is disorganized.
4. Keep items you use more often close and accessible
It is not easy to keep your home clutter-free. But, there is one important step you can take to reduce your stress and make your home feel and look like the home you want to live in. Since you will not use everything every day, it is important that you prioritize the things you use and organize them accordingly. Things you don’t use very often can be pushed way in the back so that they do not interfere with your daily activities.
For example, if you have a lot of cooking pots, utensils, plates, cups, etc, keep the ones you will use the most and store the rest. You will never have to worry about stored items since you don’t need them.
5. Pack and store items you don’t use very often
If there is an item in your house you don’t use very often, keep it out of your sight. A home that is disorganized can be difficult to live in and hard to manage. A mistake a lot of people make is to assume that everything they own must be displayed in the open. What they don’t realize is that displaying everything in the open makes it harder to find things you needed.
The truth is that everything you displace around does not make your job easier. For example, you don’t need to display every piece of furniture you own in your house. Having a free space in your living room or dining room will be helpful. So, the furniture you use during specific events should not be displayed anywhere in the house until you need them. That is why you need a storage area. Why would you keep certain items displaced in your house if you will use them once a year?
6. Stop buying useless and trashy things
Decluttering your home starts with the things you buy. If you buy more things than you need, your will end up with more things you don’t need and your home will become harder to manage and organize. Buying useless stuff leads cluttered home. So, if your home is cluttered already, stop buying useless stuff and get rid of things you don’t need.
In case your home is not cluttered already, do not start accumulating more things than you need. Things you don’t need occupy space in your home that can be used for other activities.
7. Practice tidiness
Decluttering your home becomes effective only when you practice tidiness. The lack of order in your home is the source of anxiety and clutter. That is you should have an allocated space for everything and organize your belongings in order. This makes it easy to figure out where things are without searching the entire house.
Tidiness also makes it easy to evaluate the space you have and know when to buy more stuff or keep what you have. You will not buy more things where there is no room for them.
8. Do some landscaping
To further make your home desirable, consider landscaping when necessary. There are times when you might be overwhelmed by your job with no extra time to take care of your home. If this is the case and your yard has been taken over by grass, do some mowing. You can also do landscaping that requires less work such as planting fruit trees, edible landscapes, etc.
This kind of landscaping keeps your home desirable and requires less maintenance. Before you modify the design of your yard or turn it into a garden, check with your local city or HOA office. Some HOAs do not allow such designs. Your city might also put limitations on what you can do to your yard.
9. Take your time
Making desirable changes to your home and making it clutter-free is not a one-day process. It will take time to sort things out, get rid of things you don’t need, and organize what you need. It might also require that you think outside the box and be true to yourself.
All of these activities will take time. In case you are not seeing changes right away, don’t give up. Keep decluttering your home one step at a time. You will eventually make the changes you need to make your home more inviting.
