Every now and then, you may get the urge to have a good tidy up; and, as you’re tidying, you may notice that you have much more stuff than you need or use. All of these extra things are taking up precious space for no good reason.
If you’re short on time and budget to declutter your home as fast as possible, there are a few things that you can do to make it much quicker – and a little easier too! You may want to consider dumpster rental in elizabethtown pa. With a dumpster, you can pick up all the items you don’t want or need in one quick and easy step.
Rubbish
You probably only have a set amount of bin space, and that means you need to be strict with your space. One of the services that can help you quickly and easily and is worth the investment is a professional rubbish clearance company.
Instead of needing to hire a skip, you can gather up everything that they’re to take – and let them do the work.
As part of the process, make sure that, where possible, you’re recycling. For everything else, bag it up and get it ready to go out on bin day. It might take a few bin days or one very productive day driving it all to the tip.
Room specific
One thing that can make you feel like you’re living in a cluttered mess is when things aren’t in the right place – or don’t have a place at all. Books and bric-a-brac piled up in the kitchen, bath products that never made it to the bathroom – or anything else.
Go around your home with a box that’s destined for the bathroom, another for the bin, then the bedroom etc. Collect up the items and successively return them to their rightful place.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll notice a marked improvement. It can be trickier to achieve when you have young children, but it’s a job in which you can involve everyone.
Storage
It may not be that you have too much stuff, but rather your stuff simply isn’t well organised. Getting the right storage can be one of the biggest changes that you make. Using storage systems with drawers, boxes and compartments can enable you to put a lot of your things in one place.
Take a moment to have a look through Pinterest and other interior design magazines – and even the IKEA catalogue as they’re all full of great storage ideas for any budget and size of home.
When you’re considering a better way to manage things in the future, getting three or more storage bins that can be used to gather and move items to the right place is a great idea. They can also be used to help keep recycling going well.
Ruthlessness
People tend to get attached to ‘stuff’, and that makes it more difficult to declutter effectively. When you decide that you’re going to shed some of your belongings, you need to be as ruthless as possible. If you don’t need it, use it or love it – it’s time to say goodbye.
A big declutter can make your space feel incredible, but there are other things that can give your home a freshness: Giving your home a new look and feel.
If you’re someone who loves a tidy home then you need to be doing everything in your power to keep it that way. We know that if you’re the only person in the house who seems to be cleaning and tidying up, it can become a little overwhelming and you may even end up not wanting to do it at all. In this post, we’ll be taking a look at some of the things that you can do to ensure that your home stays tidy, so keep reading down below if you would like to find out more.
Everyone helps
The first thing that you should be doing is making sure that everyone is helping. If you think that people will stick to a chore list or chore wheel, make one of these for your household. It’s not fair for all of the responsibility to fall to one person when it comes to cleaning or tidying up; you should all be pulling your weight. Each person’s room is their own responsibility, and the family areas of the home such as the living room, kitchen and bathroom should be a joint effort. Everyone should be clearing up their own stuff, but if a mess does occur, it should just be cleaned when it’s noticed to avoid any kind of build-up.
If everyone helps, and if you manage to keep on top of it, then there is no reason for your home to be messy, fulfilling your tidiness goals.
Storage options
We also want to mention that you should look into storage options to put things away. If you’re someone who prefers minimal design rather than something that looks cluttered, you need to look into different options such as drawers and cabinets. These can go in every room in the house to keep things tidy such as the living room and the dining room.
If you already have a black dining table, then you might want to go for something that matches this, and the same with the other rooms you’re going to add these units too.
Make use of space
The final thing we’re going to advise is that you should be making use of space that’s available to you. If you want to ensure that your home stays tidy, make sure that things that can be put away or not left out. We’re not saying that you have to fill all of the available space that you have as this would be counter-productive, but what we are advising is that if you’re struggling for places to put things to keep it tidy, check if there’s any available space.
We hope that you’ve found this post helpful, and now see some of the things that you can do to ensure that your home stays tidy. It takes the entire house to make this possible, so it’s essential that you make this known to the people that you live with, ensuring that they all contribute to keeping the home in the best possible order.
There are people in this world who love nothing more than to label and organise every last detail of the homes; everything has a box or a specially allotted space, and their homes are neater than you could imagine. And then there are people who lose entire days simply looking through piles of their clutter trying to find their keys.
This article is mostly for the latter type. Now, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t room in this world for both kinds of people – it just means that they should probably never meet and they should never marry each other.
The following seven steps in this article will show you smart ways for organising your kitchen; you don’t need Marie Kondo just yet!
That is possibly the single most hated cupboard in the entire kitchen. Plastic containers have a nasty habit of getting all kinds of out of control, seemingly overnight. Control your plastics cupboard by putting some simple rules in place.
Start by buying a plate rack and vertically stack all of the lids inside. Separate the lids from the containers and store the containers from largest to smallest – Russian doll style. Store the mismatched containers in a separate cupboard or drawer – if, after a year, you haven’t managed to find their missing partners, you should dispose of them.
2. Organise your fridge
If your fridge regularly throws things at you when you open the door, this means you need to de-clutter – and fast. Filling every inch of space in your fridge can lead to reduced energy efficiency and excessive food waste.
The warmest spots in your fridge are inside the doors and the top shelf. If you store your milk and eggs in either of these places, they’re more likely to spoil. Milk or eggs should be stored on the middle shelf and condiments inside the door.
The top shelf of your fridge is better used for storing leftovers, but make sure to consume them within two to three days.
3. Keep the most used items in the front
Keep your food cupboard or pantry shelves in check by storing your most used items at the front to freshen up your kitchen. If you have the space, dedicate the middle shelves to commonly used items like flours and rice on the left, and store your tinned goods in alphabetical order on the right.
By organising your tinned goods alphabetically, you can easily see when to replenish them.
4. Create a space for the kids
Dedicate a shelf, cupboard or hooks l09op90p;o’for your kids to store their school items like their books, sports kit and lunch bags. Make sure the shelf is big enough to comfortably store a sports bag and a large lunch tote.
This space will help keep your kitchen clutter-free, and it will also teach your children to keep all their school things in one, dedicated place. It will save you from hunting for items in the morning when you’re already running late.
5. Install shelves
Open or floating shelves in the kitchen are a lovely way to keep your kitchen neat and organised. This is a helpful tip if you have a small kitchen with limited counter space. Use the walls around your kitchen to store items like coffee, tea and sugar canisters. To make the space look extra cute, add hooks under one of the shelves to hang your tea & coffee mugs.
6. Use clear storage containers
Clear storage containers are a godsend. They help you organise your space and allow you to know what’s inside them at a glance. For ease of reference, add labels onto the containers.
No more shaking of boxes to see how much is left inside. If you store foodstuffs in these containers, be sure to add the date to the label each time you refill.
7. Buy a chalk and dry erase board
Chalkboards and dry erase boards are an attractive way to take control of your kitchen. Use the chalkboard to keep track of grocery items you need to buy, and use the dry erase board to map out your schedule for the week/month.
You can also buy dry erase style calendars to add to the kitchen wall or fridge – they’re super handy for when plans change, and you need a bit of extra help remembering everything that you and the family have on the go.
Organising your kitchen doesn’t have to be a nightmare – spend thirty minutes organising it here and there, and you’ll notice what a difference it makes within a couple of weeks.
The blogging world likes using euphemisms like “clutter” to describe messy homes, but the reality is often different. It’s not just the odd book piled up here and there. It’s chronic mess that never really goes away. The vast majority of home-owners simply have too much stuff – and it’s turning bad.
So what’s the solution? Well, it’s rarely just one thing. Instead, home-owners need to take a comprehensive approach, dealing with multiple aspects of clutter and adjusting the way that they live. If you’re serious about having a pristine home, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices. You can’t afford to have a 1000-strong DVD or book collection in a small one-bed flat. It needs to go.
Before we delve into the meat of the post, it’s worth thinking about why we might want to rid our homes of clutter in the first place.
The major reason is to control stress. Research shows that people who live in cluttered homes tend to have a much higher degree of psychological tension than those who don’t. In some cases, it can lead to depression and even obesity if not brought under control.
By contrast, actually dealing with clutter and living in a beautiful home brings benefits of its own. People who clean up the clutter and live in clean, bright spaces often feel a profound sense of accomplishment in what they’ve achieved.
So, if your house is disgusting and you want to sort it out, what should you be doing? Read on…
Follow the 80-20 rule
The 80-20 rule appears repeatedly in articles on successful living – and it applies here too. When it comes to decluttering, focus on tidying up 80 percent of the time and don’t focus on the small 20 percent of jobs that will drain your energy. Big things, such as rinsing plates quickly after you use them and folding away clothes are much more effective at keeping your home tidy than little things, such as making sure that you store all your mops in a neat row in your utility cupboard.
You can also follow the 80-20 rule when it comes to throwing out stuff that you don’t need. Research shows that we only regularly wear 20 percent of our clothes, with the remaining 80 percent remaining idle in our drawers and closets.
The 80-20 rule can also apply to where you generate the mess itself. Hallways usually remain clutter-free while kitchens can look like a bomb site after preparing a single meal.
Ignore sunk costs
Many people are loath to get rid of stuff that they own because of the so-called “sunk costs”. In other words, you hang onto things that no longer serve you, only because you spent money on them originally.
When you think about it, this doesn’t make much sense. Furthermore, stuff you own is unlikely to go up in price, so all you’re doing is providing storage for it.
You might think, “Storage in my home is free, so it doesn’t matter”. But, as we’ve seen, there are hidden costs. Keeping clutter in your home increases stress levels and may even lead to illness. It also prevents you from enjoying your property in the way that you’d like.
Check your items actually work
Sometimes you hold onto things believing that they will “come in handy in the future”. But that argument doesn’t work as well if things are actually broken.
That coffee machine that’s just lying around in your kitchen cupboard – check that it actually works. Try to make coffee with it. You’ll often find that you can’t. The same goes for your grandfather’s old gramophone. Wind it up and see if the turntable works properly. If it doesn’t, do you need to keep it?
Start with small projects
If your house really is like a bomb site in every room, it can be hard to know where to start. In many cases, you may feel overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task before you.
If that’s how you feel, start with small projects and build your way up. The best place to begin your decluttering projects is in the bedroom itself. If you can make your sleeping area tranquil and beautiful, you’re much more likely to feel positive when you wake up in the morning, setting you up for the rest of the day.
Small, manageable projects give you a sense of success and put you on a roll. The more projects you complete, the better you feel.
Farm it out
If you really do have too much quality stuff in your home and you can’t get rid of it, you can always farm it out to self storage units. This way, if you notice your home becoming cluttered, you can get rid of it quickly, without having to take it to the dump.
Another thing you can try is sleeping on it. If you’re not sure whether you want to chuck something or not, go to bed and then see how you feel about it in the morning. Often, when you wake up, you’ll feel more decisive about whether an item stays or goes.
Clear all the flat surfaces
Take a look at all the flat surfaces in your home; kitchen counters, living room sideboards, coffee tables etc. Are they cluttered? If you’re like most people living in messy homes then they are. You’re using them for all sorts of things that should really be tucked away in storage cupboards.
Clearing flat surfaces can make a tremendous visual impact on your home. All of a sudden, all that clutter disappears and you feel like you’re back in control.
In the kitchen, for instance, don’t leave piles of plates or glasses on the sideboards. Instead, only leave a couple of pieces of equipment that you absolutely need, such as the kettle or the coffee machine. If you have a rice cooker you only use a couple of times a month, put it away somewhere.
Start categorising
Just putting stuff away randomly, though, probably won’t help you deal with your clutter problems. The moment you need something, you’ll have to go digging through all your drawers and cupboards, removing stuff in the process, adding back to the clutter.
The trick here is to start categorising everything by type. Once you have a good filing system in place, you automatically know where everything in your home is, without having to go searching around all the time.
Get rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy
Marie Kondo says that home-owners should get rid of anything that doesn’t bring them joy. What she means by this is actually very interesting. Her philosophy is that a home should be all about you and your well-being. However, so often, we hang onto objects that no longer serve our needs, just because we feel we have to.
If this sounds like you, put everything you own to the “delight” test. If it doesn’t delight you, get rid of it.
Consider the last time you used something
If you’re still struggling to get rid of things, try considering the last time you used them. For example, if you bought a mandolin set for your kitchen, think back to the last time you actually used it to prepare veggies instead of a knife. If you’re honest with yourself, it was probably a long time ago. Anything over a year, it almost certainly isn’t worth keeping.
So there you have it… how to sort out your home if it’s a disgusting mess.
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