Lounge
This is the public hub of the home. Often people have far too much furniture crammed into the living room. Only keep what you love and use. There is great technology these days like flat screen TV’s and dinky sized sound systems that take up less room than the traditional bulky sort.
- Declutter your photographs and use your favourites as art work.
- Invest in a combined footstool/storage cube to store your bits away.
- Think about buying a good sofa bed for your overnight guests.
- Be ruthless with your sentimental clutter and store bits that you want to keep in a lovely memory storage box.
Bedrooms
This should be a pleasure palace where you can retreat, be comfortable, relax and sink back into downy pillows. Now is the time to throw out unwanted clothes that are tatty and no longer fit, things you will never wear again, shoes, books, hats, handbags etc.
The goal should be to keep quality garments and not quantity.
Kitchen
The kitchen is the busiest room of the house. Time to ditch the out of date foodstuffs, unused china, mismatching cutlery, rusty pots and pans and tatty recipes ripped from magazines.
Office/library
The home office can be one of the worst clutter spots, drowning in the sea of paper. The thought of tackling dusty mountains of paperwork is mind boggling ! Start throwing out old brochures, magazines, scrappy post-it notes, old bills and guarantee’s, old instructions for items you no longer have and dog eared stationery. There are good incerators that can be easily purchased from B&Q etc for about £20.00. You need to cherish legal documents, medical records, tax records etc. A good filing system means that you can easily find what you are looking for, store all paperwork in one place, start to categorise, which will help control the process and keep a hot file of documents that need urgent attention.
Top Tip – Always work on things that you do not want to do first.
Bathroom
This should be a luxurious sanctuary where you can lock the door and emerge clean and revitalised. Time to throw all unused bottles, body lotions, make up and Christmas presents that you have never used, old medicines, tablets and old toiletries.
Airing cupboard/utility room
Get rid of old thread bare towels, unused bedding and duvets and keep only the bedding sets that you will definitely use.
Garage and sheds
This will probably be the biggest declutter of all. Remembering that if you will no longer need to mow that grass or take care of those borders – you can dispose of all that gardening equipment, unused pots and half used bags of compost.
Cellar and lofts
The loft and cellar are scary places – places for clutter that is hidden away, out of sight and out of mind as the saying goes!! Time to roll up your sleeves. There are probably boxes up (down) there that have been untouched since the last move. Now is the time to be ruthless. There may be items that you can recycle to other family members or sell on ebay or recycle to charity.
