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Six Simple Secrets for a Less Cluttered Home

by | Feb 7, 2020 | Decorating Inspiration, clean + simple, Organization

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Six Simple Secrets for a Less Cluttered Home

Greetings! Who needs to declutter? {raises hand}. I wish I could say that I decluttered once, years ago, and that was the end of the “excess stuff” in our home. But alas…. it’s an ongoing process for me. We decluttered a lot before we moved here four years ago but we still ended up with far too many things we don’t need or have room for in this house. Our garage became more like a storage room.

Moving is an excellent time to declutter, but it’s also tricky because you are making a transition to a different home. It’s easy to misjudge what you will have room for or need. Plus, moving is exhausting :). If you are not starting over from scratch with all new furniture, it can take some time to figure out what fits and what works best in a new home.

And it’s not just moving that causes chaos. Busyness, delayed decisions, design indecision, procrastination … I wrote all about my decluttering issues and challenges and how I deal with them in Simply Home and Make Room for What You Love.

Deadlines are super motivating to me, though, so with Courtney moving in this weekend, we are decluttering, rearranging and making room for her in our lower level :). It feels great to finally have the motivation and a deadline to work on some “out of sight, out of mind” spaces (like the basement and garage!) in our home.

Even if you don’t have time for a big decluttering project right now, there are lots of little ways you can make your home feel less cluttered right now.

Here are six tips I use to make my house feel less cluttered:

1. Clear the floors.

My husband taught me this tip when our kids were small. If there is stuff covering the floors or piled up in the corners of the rooms, your house is automatically going to feel cluttered. Now we spend a few moments every day picking up clutter from the floors. Instantly the whole house feels cleaner and tidier.

2. Empty the surfaces.

Take a look around your room. Are all the tables covered with unnecessary stuff? Even if you just have time to clear one surface, your room will feel less overwhelming. Start with one table and then move onto another! It helps to set a timer for 15 minutes; you’ll be surprised how fast you can clear the surfaces when the clock is ticking!

3. Make some room.

Give your closets, drawers and rooms some breathing room. Donate, toss, or store even a third of the items from a closet or half the accessories from a room and you’ll be amazed by how much tidier it feels! 

4. Close the drawers and cabinets.

When cabinet doors and drawers are left ajar, the whole room feels messier. Walk around the house and close every drawer and cupboard to give your rooms a tidier more streamlined appearance.

5. Straighten the dining chairs.

It’s a little annoyance, but when the dining chairs are turned every which way and not pushed in straight to the table, the whole room will feel a bit haphazard. Take a few moments and push the chairs up to the table and straighten them out. This will give your dining area an instantly tidier look!

6. Clean the kitchen sink.

When your sink is piled with dishes, the whole kitchen will feel cluttered and messy. Make it a habit to clean the dishes in the sink—and the sink itself—every day.

I’ve written many organizing posts featuring tips I use and ideas that have inspired me in my own home. 

Always start with decluttering, but getting organized feels great, too.

Here’s a round-up of some of my top decluttering and organizing posts!

The Secret to Getting Organized

10 Minute Household Tasks to Organize Your Life

Do you make any of these common disorganization excuses? >> Kick Excuses to the Curb: Confessions on Organizing & Decluttering

A Bag A Day Keeps the Clutter Away

9 Clever Organizers to Tidy Your House

How to Get Organized in a Small House

How to Organize Papers You Don’t Want to Lose

Pretty and Functional Bathroom Storage Ideas

Happy Drawers: Simple Organizing Ideas

10 Habits of People with Organized Houses

How to Set Daily Routines that will Transform Your Life

5 Takeaway Tips from a Small Office

My Kitchen Pantry and Tips for Pantry Organization

MY DIY Organized Free-Standing Command Center

How to Clean Your House When You’re Busy

How to Eliminate Paper Clutter Forever

Habits for an Organized Home

How to Organize a Small Kitchen

9 Ways to Get Organized Now

5 Minute Baking Drawer Organization: Using What You Have

Find inspiration and the strategies that inspire me to declutter and simplify in my book Make Room for What You Love.

More Books by The Inspired Room:

Simply Home (my new 2 in one book combining my bestsellers Simple Decorating and Simple Organizing)

Love the Home You Have (NY Times Bestseller)

All books

Room and kitchen sources are found here.

Six Simple Secrets for a Less Cluttered Home
Six Simple Secrets for a Less Cluttered Home
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6 Comments

  1. Nancy Lou

    I’ve been taking advantage of the snowy days here in Iowa by going through closets and cabinets, cupboards and shelves! I think decluttering is an on-going project in order to keep things simple. That works for me, anyway!
    Good luck to Courtney on her move.

  2. Jo Jo

    All great ideas! I, like you, de cluttered in a major way when we moved to a new state and a new home 4 years ago. But, we still find we need to Decluttering on a routine basis. We’ve adopted the rule new thing in, one thing goes out.

    I need to do a closet Decluttering and organizing for Spring since I’ve lost weight and need some new items and never really did the winter switch out like I usually do.

    Thanks for the reminder and inspiration to get to it.. even in small ways. It really does make a huge difference in how our homes look and FEEL.

  3. Amy

    Every day as soon as I get home, I walk around and straighten up all the things the dogs mess up while we are at work. That way things are neat and orderly before I start cooking dinner and relaxing during the evening. We have 2 big baskets of dog toys and they are usually strewn everywhere when we get home, partially because we have 2 Labs and they both insist on carrying toys around the house, especially when we get home or the petsitter comes to let everyone out at lunchtime.

  4. susan maclean

    Oh, Melisa! you caught me at it…. this morning I removed the blanket that I had thrown over a corner containing the bag full of cotton shopping bags, my yoga bag, my swimming bag and my recycle packaging bag on Christmas Eve. What a mess. So the blanket went into the washing machine, the bqgs were sorted and tidied, and I have earmarked a cupboard shelf for the recycled packaging bag (as soon as I find permanent homes for the things I stuffed in there! Thank you for the tips. Particularly agree with the kitchen sink one!

  5. Patty

    Been cleaning out spaces here, too, in South Dakota and winter in full force. Loved your comment about dining chairs…..some say it is a teacher thing and so be it, but I seriously push in chairs as we leave restaurants. It takes two seconds and makes me feel better! LOL

 

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