One of the biggest problems in any home is an overabundance of clutter. Obviously, no one goes to a store and deliberately buys “clutter,” and we all try to keep the mess down as far as we can. Yet, somehow or other clutter always builds up. It can take the form of old newspapers and magazines, obsolete documents, clothes that the kids have grown out of, or toys that are broken but you just don’t have the heart to throw them out (or the kids won’t let you!)
So the time has come to get to grips with the clutter and to start clearing it up and clearing it out. Look on this as a badly needed operation. You might have to do some surgery, but your home will look and feel much better. And of course, you’ll have plenty of space left to accommodate the next lot of clutter. …
If you are busy working every day, don’t lose heart and think that you will never have time to declutter your house and that you will end up being buried under a huge mountain of garbage. You can just divide up the task and take it slowly, one step at a time. For example, each day you could do a single drawer or shelf in a cupboard and gradually you will find that you have cleared out a lot of stuff over the space of a month.
So what do you do with the things that you find?
Make three piles: garbage, storage, and giving away. Things that you have decided should be kept can either be folded up and put back in the drawer or stored somewhere more useful and convenient. When it comes to giving stuff away, the trick is to actually make sure that you do get rid of it and that you don’t end up holding onto it indefinitely. Find out if there’s going to be a garage sale near you or if there is a welfare organization, church, or school that could do with it. If the stuff is in good enough condition to sell, put up an ad on the web or in the local press. And if you can’t sell it and nobody wants it for free, be ruthless and throw it out.
If you have to, purchase some extra storage items, such as files for important papers and magazine racks for the special journals that you want to keep. This way, you can find good homes for everything you own and your home will look a lot less crowded. Then arrange them nicely. For example, your living room can look very good with a magazine rack in one corner, a bookcase along one wall, a sofa and an easy chair, with an attractive flokati area rug in the middle. Any coffee tables and sideboards should, of course, be kept clutter free. In fact, by banishing the clutter to the bookshelves, racks, and the garbage, this might be the first time in a long time that you actually notice the design on your area rug …
