A cluttered home can mean a cluttered mind; you don’t know where anything is, you don’t know where to even begin looking, and you’re just sick and tired of seeing piles of clutter and mess around the home everywhere you look! It can drive a person mad, and it’s something you often try to do something about, but too often this is to no avail.
However, we can do something about that! We can do our best to ensure that clutter stops piling up in the first place, by addressing the cause and not just the symptoms. We can change your home around a little, and make some very positive improvements to keep things off the floor and in the right space! But don’t worry – you won’t have to take on such a monumental task alone.
Here are some of the best tips we know of for ensuring that clutter stops playing havoc on your life, listed below for your convenience. Be sure to keep them in mind the next time you go around with a bin bag!
Install More Storage
Storage is something you’re probably severely lacking around the house. You don’t have enough places to keep things in safe and contained areas, but that’s a very workable problem to try and get around.
However, the storage you install can’t be any old chest of drawers or fitted wardrobe – you need something that’s affordable and practical for your home. You need something that fits you and your personality, especially in communal areas such as the living room, as they’ll really help to pull your home together and make it feel like the right place to be in.
There are plenty of ways to get creative here. Install a couple of shelves in that awkwardly shaped corner of the room, hang items off of bigger furniture (such as a mesh bracket off of the end of the sofa, if you’re a big reader and want to keep some books nearby), and make sure you always build up and not out. This’ll save so much space, mainly by keeping the floor clear, and add dimensions to your room.
Make it Simple
While still having plenty of personality elements to your new storage solutions, you’re also going to want to keep things simple, to make sure it’s easy to tidy up when things get a little messy from time to time. You want to be able to just pull a drawer or basket out and just throw something in, rather than have to push a load of furniture out of the way to get to your cabinet, or try to squeeze something in on a shelf that’s clearly overloaded.
So be sure to go for ideas like under sofa storage, if there’s enough space to slide some low boxes under there. This can help to keep items like dog toys or kids toys or even the TV remote and your favourite magazines out of the way.
This is also a good way to maximise on space if you’ve got a smaller home, which is always running out of breathing room anyway. All in all, keep it easy and simple, don’t go overboard, and you’ll have no trouble in keeping up with your decluttering habits in general.
Throw it Out!
Of course, a big part of keeping clutter out of your home is via permanently eliminating it. And because of this, you might have to get in touch with a bin hire service to unload as much rubbish as you can on. After all, you’re going to need to move industrial amounts of waste here, to make sure you don’t have to collect together such a big throw job in a month’s time.
However, it can be hard to part with items, especially if you’ve had them for a long time. And yet, when you apply something like the KonMari method, it can be much easier to make a decision about what to keep and what to not to keep.
After all, when picking up an item, all you have to think about is whether or not it’s useful and if it makes you happy or not. Because you want to keep as many useful and joy-sparking items as possible, while getting rid of everything else that’s dragging you down and taking up space. Take your time doing this, and commit to it properly – tackle as many places in your home as possible with a thought process like this to reduce clutter in its entirety.
Keep it Out of Sight
Next up is the idea that any kind of clutter or visual distraction you can’t get rid of needs to be kept out of sight. It’s a great way to help your home look cleaner and more spacious – if it’s not on the floor, and it’s not marking the wall either, you’re going to have a lot more open and workable ‘negative’ space to either dress up or make good use of.
After all, you’ll have more area on your walls to place pieces of art, or hang shelves, or place any other bits of furniture without anything getting in the way. And this is mostly true in the case of cables extending from appliances you use on a daily basis.
You’ll be able to keep any pets or young children away from the dangerous cords and wires that are draped all over the floor or behind the TV/desk, thanks to the availability of cable organisers and/or extension lead boxes. So not only will your room look great – it’ll be so much safer too!
In truth, clutter is something we all have to deal with, but it doesn’t have to be something you spend every single weekend trying to tidy up and put away. As long as you’ve got some proper storage solutions on hand and the ability to throw the unnecessary things out without feeling too sentimental, you’ll be just fine in keeping your home tidy.