Decluttering the House

Now that the holidays are over, your house might look similar to your local toy store, but not nearly as organized. It’s a great time to purge toys (sshhh, don’t tell your kids), Christmas items and all the extra stuff that you don’t need. Here’s some tips to get you started.

Start With The Closet

I don’t know about you, but in my house the closets tend to be cluttered. It’s pretty easy just to put everything in there and forgetting about it. Even though everything is on a shelf or neatly placed inside, it can be difficult to find everything when you need it. For me, the easiest way to clean my closet is to pull everything out and divide everything into piles: keep, donate, throw away or undecided. That way once I have gone through everything I can look through the “keep” pile and decide how I am going to put everything back in there in an orderly fashion.

 

Donate Items You Haven’t Used In A Year

You know that old saying that if you haven’t used something in a year then you probably don’t need it? Well it’s true. With the exception of holiday items, you should be using items that you have more than once a year. Really, is that decorative plate you hold onto “just in case” company comes over worth the space it takes up if you haven’t used it in two years?

 

Properly Store Items That You Are Keeping

We know that you can’t get rid of everything, but the items you do have should be stored properly. Consider getting things like clear bins for your kid’s toys and labeling them based on what you put inside of them. A block bin, doll bin and book bin are all great places to start. For things like seasonal clothing, use a large plastic container with a lid and store the items inside of it in the garage or on a shelf in the laundry room. Just don’t forget where you put it when it comes time to use it!

 

Try To Go Paperless

You are probably inundated with things like mail and your kid’s artwork. To lessen the amount of paper that comes into your home, go paperless when it comes to bills and other mail items. I know it might be hard to let go of some of your kid’s artwork, but you really don’t need to keep every little project. Pick some that are your favorites and display them or keep them in a file folder. For those that you are going to throw out, take a picture of it before doing so and you will have a memory of it that you can keep forever! If you simply can’t throw out any of their creations, consider sending their beloved artwork to Grandma for her to enjoy.