Decluttering Your Main Rooms- Part 1 Picking Up & Removing

Decluttering Your Main Rooms- Part 1 Picking Up & Removing

The main rooms in our homes are our living/family room, kitchen, and dining area.  These areas are top priority, since we spend the most time living in these spaces.  After these rooms are finished, we are already going to feel tremendously better.

Our Recommendations: Turn up your favorite music and have fun with this!

Main Objectives:

1. Tidy up the room and remove everything that doesn’t belong.
2. Clean the room.
3. Organize what gets to stay.

Task 1: Tidying

This process can either be an easy one or a tough one, depending on how attached you are to the things in your home.  I try and think objectively about what I really don’t need or haven’t used in this room in a while.  For instance, I had been collecting my shopping bags by the front door to take to the car (someday).  It had been there so long that I stopped seeing it.  Look on top of your surfaces, then below it.  Have you been storing things on higher surfaces, so that your kids can’t get to them?  We have! 

Everything that doesn’t belong in that room either needs to return to the room where it belongs (e.g. shoes by the front door need to go back in my closet), or it needs to find another home. 

Here are some suggestions:

Craigslist

Garage/Yard Sale

Thrift Store

Freecycle

Everything we decide is going to leave our house is going to be stored in one place.  My rule: Once I put it in that area, it’s not going back in the rest of my home.  You’re welcome to give yourself a couple days to think it through before you let it go.

Give yourself a day or so to do this.  In my house, I rarely get a long time span to devote to anything.  It’s bits and chunks of time (and often depends on how well the two kids slept the night before!).

What's your favorite local thrift store?

Next Objective: Cleaning the Room!

This will include moving furniture, simplifying your cleaning products, removing the dust bunnies, and more….stay tuned!

Good luck and have fun!

Jen Starks, Owner www.ecologicalbabies.com ecologicalbabies@gmail.com 850.284.5887