09 Jan A New Year Plan for Decluttering Your Custom Home

Each new year brings new resolutions and we’re suggesting this new year plan for decluttering your home as one to add to your list.

It’s not just a new year, it’s a new decade. Time to start fresh! And a great time to clear out some of those items that have been cluttering up your home for the last 10 years or so! Once the decluttering is complete, your home will feel calmer, more relaxing. You’ll have a sense of accomplishment and that overwhelming sense of stuff everywhere will be gone!

Ready to get started? Here are our thoughts for starting fresh in 2020:

1. Make a list of all the areas of your home to be decluttered, sorted from easiest to hardest. Start with the easiest area and work your way down the list.
2. Decide how much time you’re going to commit to decluttering and stick with it. It could be 15 minutes a day or 1 hour every Saturday. Be realistic about how much time you can spend.
3. Set completion dates for each area to be decluttered, giving yourself plenty of time for each one.
4. Share your decluttering resolution with close friends or family, asking them to keep you accountable and give moral support.
5. When you have trouble deciding what to do with an item if it doesn’t have sentimental value and you haven’t used it in the last year, get rid of it.
6. Set up 4 boxes to put your unneeded clutter in and label them “Recycle,” “Donate,” “Sell,” and “Trash.”
7. Make sure everything you keep has a place to live in your home. If it doesn’t have a designated place, create one.
8. If the expiration date on any food, spices, medication, toiletries, etc has passed, dispose of them properly.

Decluttering Tips for each Area of Your Home:

The Entryway: Your entryway for! The first thing a visitor sees when they walk into your home and sets the tone for your guests. If you have a large, dramatic entrance designed to “make a statement,” there will likely be less to declutter, but you’ll still want to remove what doesn’t belong and create some functional areas for your entryway.

If your entryway is not large but is a highly trafficked area that needs to be functional, these tips are for you. Keep this area of your home simple. You want it to be an inviting and welcoming space. Because it also has the role of accepting things like mail, briefcases, purses, handbags, backpacks, shoes, etc, things can really pile up in your entryway.

Take 15 minutes, grab a laundry basket and remove anything that doesn’t belong, or place it in an appropriate storage area, room or stylish basket. If it truly doesn’t belong and doesn’t have a useful purpose, then discard it.

Clean and clear all counters. Consider some stylish storage baskets for items that need to be attractively stowed away. You may want a key ring to hold keys and other smaller items that you need on-the-go. A plant or a photo you love will help make this space inviting.

Kitchen Pantry: It happens to everyone. That overfilled pantry and those kitchen appliances. Is that new Instant Pot still on the kitchen counter or butler’s pantry countertop? You are not alone. Start with the panty. Pull everything out, check expiration dates and chuck everything no longer usable into the trash. For items that have not passed the expiration date, but that you know you want to use, put them in the donate basket. Wipe down all the shelves, and then reorder and restock your fresh, new space.

Closets: The Hall closet is a good place to start. Like the pantry, take everything out, get rid of things you won’t use and put items that haven’t been used in the last year into the donate basket. Those old towels, board games, sporting equipment you no longer use – purge or donate! Do the same with each closet in your home.

Home Office: No matter how you use your home office, this is a place that spawns clutter. Start by revisiting your filing system. Make sure you have a place for getting all the paper out of sight. Determine what can be scanned and saved digitally so the paper can just go. Consider autopay for bills so the paper doesn’t pile up, avoiding future clutter.

Great Room: Every great room is different, and lifestyles have a lot to do with clutter here. If you have children, likely some clutter is related to toys or entertainment items like video games, console controllers, TV remotes, etc. Decide what your storage issues are and create places to keep these items. Baskets for loose items keeps them accessible but still organized. As with the pantry and closet cleanups, if there are DVD’s or CD’s that no longer have any use since live streaming has replaced them, consider donating them.

There you have it. Our short guide for decluttering your home for the new decade. Set aside some time and put this into action. You won’t regret it decluttering your home. It will have you feeling more relaxed than you have in years!