Whether you are downsizing, clearing out the spare room to make space for a new arrival, or simply want to try simplifying your life, then clearing out your clutter is a great first step. The job may appear daunting at first, but once you break down the process into stages, and focus on a single room, or single cupboard at a time, then you will start to make visible progress.
Before you start to declutter, it is a good option to find some large containers and define them for the following purposes:
- Put away: Items that you want to keep and have been left out.
- Fix/mend: Items that you want to keep and use in the future, but that need a small fix before you can use them again, such as sewing a button onto a shirt or adding new batteries to a clock or watch.
- Recycle: Items that you no longer want but can be recycled.
- Rubbish: Items that cannot be recycled and designated for the rubbish.
- Donate: Unwanted items that are still in good condition and can be donated to a charity, friend, or family member.
- Once you have the decluttering boxes sorted, you are ready to start decluttering your home room-by-room.
How to declutter your bathroom
The bathroom is often one of the easiest rooms to declutter so it should be done first to give you an early sense of satisfaction, which will help you continue to declutter the rest of the house.
Go through the medicine cabinet, making sure that you only keep the bottles and tubs that members of your family currently use or plan to use in the near future. Gunky bottles that have not been used for months or years, or anything past its use-by date should be immediately thrown away or recycled.
Next move onto any drawers in the bathroom, and follow the same process. Remove everything so you can see what is hiding in there and put things back as you decide you actively want to keep them. Anything you do not want should, again, be thrown into the trash or recycling containers.
Now look at any shelving you have around the room, taking everything off to give yourself a good overview of what is there and sort through each item one-by-one. Once you have sorted through the items of the shelves and discarded what you do not want to keep, if the shelves still look a bit cluttered, then think about investing in some pretty baskets to keep your items in, or possibly another cabinet to keep things out of the way and looking neat.
Lastly, look around the bathtub? and sink, and throw away any old shampoo and shower gel bottles, or old toothbrushes that were left behind by guests.
How to declutter your bedroom
If you have not done so already, start by making your bed as that will immediately make the room look neater and make the job of decluttering feel more manageable.
Next to your bed, start with the nightstands and take a look at what you have sitting next to your night-light. Have you just emptied your pockets here and created a pile of coins, keys, and other items? If so, put the coins into a piggy bank and sort through the rest of the items to decide what you want to keep and what you want to discard. Similarly, do you have a stack of books sitting on your nightstand that you either finished reading months ago or that have been sitting there staring at you for months and you still have not started? Move them to a bookshelf. You only need one or two books on your nightstand at any one time.
Then move onto your dressers, chests-of-drawers, and other items of furniture. Start by clearing the items on top. If something needs to be put away, either do that immediately, or toss it into the “put away” box to do so later. If you have clothes draped over these items that are clean then put them away, and if they need a wash, then put them straight into your washing basket.
Now go through your drawers one-by-one, taking everything out and making a decision as to whether it still fits, is in a good condition, and whether you plan to wear it over the next 12 months. If you cannot see yourself wearing this item in the near future, or it no longer fits, then stop holding on to it and either put it in the charity box if it is in a good condition or throw it in the rubbish container if not. For the items you decide you do want to keep, neatly fold them and put them away in an organised way – keeping clothes for each season together.
Lastly, it is time to attack your wardrobe. Just like your drawers, take everything out and lay it out on your bed so you can have a good overview of all the items you own. Decide whether you have a real plan to wear these clothes over the next year, and dispose of anything that does not match that criteria. Carefully hang up the items you do want to keep, and anything that is missing a button or needs a seam restitched should be placed in the repair box, so you can mend it and start wearing it again.
How to declutter your kitchen
London kitchens tend to be relatively small rooms and so can quickly become cluttered.
The first part of the kitchen to clear is the counter top. It is common for people to leave papers, notes, and various other items scattered across the counter top, which immediately makes the room look cluttered. Sort and clear these away first, pinning important notes to your noticeboard, putting other papers away in the appropriate places, and recycling any paper rubbish.
Once the counters are clear, you have somewhere to put your pots, pans, kitchen appliances, and other items whilst you clear out the cupboards. As with other items around your home, it is good to work out whether you have used all the items in the last 12 months and whether you have any specific plans to use them in the coming months. If an item is not being used, then it is worth considering disposing of it, whether that is a bread-maker or ice-cream maker that has been gathering dust for the last decade, or a worn-out pan with peeling non-stick coating that has been sat at the back of the cupboard “just in case” you might need it.
Once you have put back the items you want to keep and boxed up those you want to dispose of, it is time to approach the tupperware cupboard. Everybody stores used old soup pots and takeaway cartons to use as storage containers, and eventually the cupboard just starts to overflow. These containers can be reused, but a much more efficient use of space would be to throw them all in the recycling and buy a set of plastic containers with interchangeable lids. You will end up saving almost a whole cupboard’s worth of space, and trying to find a matching lid will no longer fill you with a sense of dread!
How to dispose of your household clutter after a clearout
After a major home clearout, you will be left with a number of boxes and bags of unwanted items. To dispose of these, the easiest and cheapest option is to call your local junk clearance company – if you are in London then that would be BBOJunk!
Get in touch and we will agree a time to come and pick up your unwanted junk, and take it all away in our tipper van. There’s no need to think about skip permits or anything so complex, with just a friendly BBOJunk driver in our van collecting all your unwanted items and disposing of them in the most environmentally-friendly way possible.
