How To De-Clutter Your Home In A Weekend

We’d all love more space in our home, but instead of going through the expense and hassle of moving, it’s usually easier to just maximise the space we already have. One way to do this is to de-clutter thoroughly, getting rid of anything unnecessary and making your home instantly feel more spacious. However, we all have busy lives, and many of us simply don’t have the time to spend days de-cluttering. Here’s how you can do the job of de-cluttering over a weekend, and all it takes is a bit of organisation in advance, and some determination.

Identify the issues

If you live in a city like Liverpool, then you may find houses and flats are generally smaller than in the surrounding suburbs. While the location may be great, you might wish you had more space, and so it’s important to identify what’s using up the space in your home. Some issues could include:

• Keeping old toys and clothes that have been outgrown
• Holding on to items for sentimental reasons
• Having too many ‘decorative’ items that just clutter the space
• General disorganisation

Identify some of the areas where you really need to focus. If you don’t have much time to de-clutter, then prioritising the jobs is very important. If you can tackle the worst areas in one weekend, then the smaller jobs can be done at your leisure.

Hire a skip

Running junk to and from the local tip will eat into your de-cluttering time, and a skip makes life much easier. Even if you live in a flat, or down one of Liverpool’s narrow streets, you can often find space for a smaller skip. Thomson Local list reputable skip hire companies in Liverpool, and you can get a skip delivered on Friday, then collected early the next week. Skips will hold huge amounts of rubbish, and will encourage you to throw out more. You simply throw things you don’t want in the skip, without having to worry about sorting them first.

Buy boxes and supplies

Before you begin a de-clutter, get a few supplies in to make things easier. You’ll need bin bags, boxes, labels, and cleaning supplies. These things can then be used to easily sort items you want to keep, and those you want to throw away, and you can clean the items you wish to keep before you put them away.

Give everyone a task

Sit down with your family or house mates and discuss the de-clutter before you begin. If you only have a limited amount of time, then you’ll need to make the most of every second, so set a rota of chores for everyone. Even younger children can help by sorting their toys and putting things away, and keeping them busy will stop them from getting under your feet.

Donate to charity

Any items that are still useable could be donated to a charity shop. Bold Street in Liverpool has quite a few charity shops, some of which specialise in clothes, while others focus on books or vinyl records. If you can’t get to the city centre for drop off, give the charity a call and find out if they’ll do a pick-up. Some charities will also pick up large items such as furniture, which is great for when you’re trying to create more space.

Box up items

A good strategy for de-cluttering is to label some big boxes. They could be for:

• Storage
• Charity donations
• Stuff to sell
• Throw away
• Keep in room
• Move to another room

This then makes it easy to sort through everything in the room, and once you’re done you can throw out the rubbish, get items taken to the charity shop etc. You’ll then be left with boxes of things to keep, and after giving the room a clean you can put these items back in locations that make sense. In some rooms, you’ll throw away a lot, while in others you may only get rid of a few items. That’s OK, as even a small amount of de-cluttering makes a big difference.

Follow the simple rules of de-cluttering

Ideally, you want your home to only consist of items that are useful, beautiful, or joyful. Practical items are important, although you should throw away anything you’ve not used for more than a year, and make sure you don’t have duplicates. You can then focus on beautiful items, although you should limit them to a few items per room to avoid a cluttered, dusty atmosphere. Joyful items include anything sentimental, but be careful about clinging onto things that you don’t need. Be harsh, and consider putting things in storage if they’re in the way.

Find a place for everything

Once you’ve de-cluttered it’s important to ensure your home doesn’t go back to its former state. Ideally, everything should have its own space, and things should be put back in their place after being used. By organising your home properly, you can avoid clutter creeping back, and make sure your home looks neat and tidy at all times.

Think before you buy

The best way to stop yourself from cluttering in future is to buy a lot less. Before you buy something, consider whether you really need it, or whether you can live without it. Not only will this save you money, it’ll help you reclaim the space in your home and make the most of it.

When you live in a city, you’ll often have to live in a smaller space than you’d like, and this means you need to make the most of what you have. It’s easy for spaces to become cluttered over time, making your property feel smaller and making it more difficult to clean. By putting a weekend aside for de-cluttering, you can get a large amount done in a small space of time, and can see results quickly. This means you’re less likely to go back to your old ways, and can enjoy your more spacious home.