How To Declutter Your Home: Effective Household Cleaning Tips

How to declutter your home (for your own use or for prospective buyers): Here are some really effective household cleaning Tips.

You Need to Declutter For Clarity

There always comes a time when you have to start de-cluttering your house or office. Be it for making space or moving house, de-cluttering is something you have to do no matter how much you may want to avoid it. At times, we tend to hoard/pile so many things unconsciously, that we don’t realize how or when you started accumulating things in the first place.

And then soon you find yourself in the middle of this dump, that needs to be cleared ASAP for better peace of mind.

Where to Begin?

The first question when we start to organize is always – where do we begin? At times, seeing a lot of things might overwhelm you. But there is a simple first step you can take:

• Get some boxes and label them: recycle, garbage, for donation and storage.
• Start sorting out items and put them in the respective boxes
• At any point if you can’t decide weather to keep something or throw it out, you can put them in a box labelled “memories” and keep it away in your garage and revisit them after 6 months to a year to see if you feel differently about those items. If you missed any item that was stored away, you can always go back and get it from the box. If you didn’t even remember it existed until you revisited the box, you know you can give it away or throw it out for good.
• You can alternatively also take a photo of the item you have stored away and make a photo book with notes on the memory attached with that item. If a photo is good enough, you can give away the item.

Useful Tips to Stay Clutter Free

Once you have organized everything and removed the unwanted clutter, try to keep it up by staying organized and by avoiding hoarding on unnecessary items. Cleaning takes a lot more energy than making it messy. So, once make it a daily ritual to clean for at least 20 minutes. File your papers regularly, put things away without procrastinating and you will realize your everyday ritual can help keep your house clean and clutter free.

You can also use the reward technique to keep you motivated. Mind you, that doesn’t mean you should buy something unwanted every time you throw something out. But you can treat yourself to a movie or a manicure instead!

Small steps can get you a nice clutter free life and home.

Keep One Week of the Year for Cleaning – Hard Work But Such A Payoff

In most parts of the world, there are occasions/festivals when people clean their house inside out. Mind you it takes them a few days to clean, and that’s when you realize there’s so many unwanted things in the house.

Remember that ritual called spring-cleaning, or the cleaning activity before Christmas or Diwali? Although it takes time, its a great way to keep your house clutter free.

Some of you may share some fond memories of spring cleaning like me, where we clean the entire house inside out. Some of you may hate it while some others may enjoy doing it but it does help in putting to practice the chore of decluttering.

You can actually feel the weight lift off, a change in the energy in the house, a feeling of being lighter and brighter. When you get all that with spring cleaning, how can you not like it? Try it and you will see a positive change in you and your home.

Common Household Issues

Most house cleaning activities involves dealing with things such as: dealing with a accidental water seepage or unclogging a drain or dealing with stains etc; these can be the cause of un-necessary stress and keep you rattled.

But there are tricks and tips for everything. Once you learn these tricks, you wont find it that hard to keep your home spic and span. For instance,

• How do you keep moth away from your fresh clothes? No, it is not with mothballs which only end up with a bad stink on your clothes. You can instead try placing slivers of old used soap in tiny net drawstring bags and hanging them alongside your clothes in the closet. This will keep the the moths away and your clothes will also smell nice and fresh.
• What is the best way to store fresh herbs and keep them from spoiling within a few days? Try wrapping them in a slightly damp kitchen towel and placing them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
• How do you get your entire house smelling fresh and sweet? Simple, place a quart of water on the stove and add a few sticks of cinnamon, some orange peel, and a little grated nutmeg and let it simmer away gently on the stove until the water has evaporated and your house smells heavenly.

Cleaning Tips, Hints & Suggestions

Today, people have busy lives where they get little or no time to indulge in an elaborate cleaning ritual. What they look for instead is a quick fix method to clean. Unfortunately the only way you can truly achieve that is by an elaborate cleaning process but in case of a surprise guest or a unexpected visitor at home situation, you can try out some of these cleaning tips or suggestions:

Compile a cleaning, or a chore, checklist
Make a list of things to do for cleaning. Pin it up in a place where you will see it everyday and follow it through. This will give you structure, a clear goal for cleaning and eventually you will realize that small steps everyday will help in keeping your house clean with little effort.

Use furniture with storage
Invest in furniture with storage such as futons, beds with under-bed storage, coffee tables with storage etc. You can always store away things in these rather than dump it in plain sight in some corner of the room.

Avoid dumping in your room
Avoid dumping things in your room or putting it behind your couch or under the bed. You can keep a fold-able hamper ready to dump things into it to avoid clutter. You could also try some other things out such as:

• Incase of a sudden guest at the door, you could do a rushed cleaning job by stacking everything into piles. It will at-least look better than things strewn around.
• For an absolute emergency situation, you could try to put a throw-rug over your mess and clutter and any other furniture which is remaining and claim that you were just in the middle of renovating /painting.

Speed Cleaning Tips

You may have heard of speed dating, but have you heard of speed cleaning? Yes! Its true, you can also speed clean your house if you don’t want to spend hours and hours on it. All you need to do is go about it systematically in an orderly fashion. Start from one room and then go to the next. Here are some tips for speed cleaning:

• The first rule of speed cleaning then, is never to go around the room twice.
• Start from one corner and work your way through to the other end and go from the top of the room to the bottom in an orderly fashion. In other words, don’t do the floor, or the lowest shelves first because when you get to the top, all the dust and dirt from the top will just fall back onto your newly cleaned surfaces.
• Keep a pocketed apron in handy. You will need it to keep your cleaning tools in hands distance for your speed cleaning.
• Keep a black bin bag with you while cleaning ang take it along with you as you go from one room to the next. These bags will help when you want to clear the junk, you can just dump it in the bag. You can carry a bigger bag, so that saves you the time of going to the dustbin every time you have to dump something.

De-cluttering Before Packing

If you are moving houses, that is the best time you can de-clutter. You don’t want to take all the unwanted stuff to your new house too, do you? Many people hold on to things that they have a sentimental or emotional value to but you have to learn to prioritize and keep only those items that are truly important and of use to you.

Also, an average four person house requires at least a seven tonne van to move, whereas a house that doesn’t de-clutter might need twice of that! Imagine all the money you will save up by de-cluttering. Some ideas to help you de-clutter before packing:

• Get rid of any papers that you don’t need, barring all of your important documents.
• You can donate your magazines, books, old toys or clothes that are in good condition to a local charity.
• You could sell items on Ebay or similar websites and earn some money.

Life Is A Stage So Is Your Home

Here we discuss how to keep your home spic-and-span for potential buyers, so that you’re able to get a good price for your house, or are at-least able to make that sale.

What is a home staging?
Home staging is dressing up your home for sale, and preparing it for prospective buyers who come by to have a look at it. Home staging requires you to create an image of a perfectly decorated home, in move-in condition. Ideally, this should be your next step after decluttering, cleaning and repairing. You can make small changes such as rearranging furniture to give the illusion of more space, or repainting with more neutral and soothing colors etc or alternatively you could also hire home stagers who perk up your home to make it look stylish and beautiful for home staging.

Why stage your home?
First impressions are extremely important when it comes to selling a house. In a time when the market is so unpredictable, home staging works well to provide that extra push to sell your house. If staged well, it may even give you a higher price. Besides, a home that is staged has an advantage over those that are unstaged. It also looks good and pretty when put up on web sites for marketing and video tours etc.

Tips for staging your home
Here are some tips for you that might be helpful for you to stage your house:

• If you are repainting, avoid overly bright or bold colored walls. Opt for calming, neutral tones.
• Clean the carpets
• You could rearrange furniture to create a more stylish or roomy look. If possible, consider renting some stylish furniture or pieces of art.
• Don’t forget to tidy up your bookcases. You could remove the excess books and keep some for display.
• Cleaning the windows , brighten up the room with higher wattage light bulbs till the time of sale. Turn on the lights before an open house, so the prospective buyers are walk into well-lit rooms and hallways.
• Creative use of fabrics as accent pieces for additional texture and colour.
• Remove family pictures, hockey trophies, any traces of your family life. You don’t want the buyer feeling that they are in someone else’s space.
• Use room fresheners. You could also try baking chocolate chip cookies and leaving the tray in the oven to give a good smell in the house.
• Clean the furnace room and the cobwebs. A clean furnace makes it look new.
• Take care of the general repairs in the house.
• Fresh flowers always brighten up a room.

Tips to spruce up the Kitchen

• Use display bowls of colorful fruit.
• Oil the cabinets to revive their finish.
• Use modern cabinet handles.
• Clear the kitchen counters
• Remove fridge magnets and small area rugs.
• Set up the table with place mats, place settings and napkins.

Tips to spruce up the Bathroom

• Always keep a set of thick and luxurious towels reserved only for open houses.
• Keep a basket of scented soaps and lotions.
• Use a scented plug in air freshener.
• Clear your counter and cabinets and remove any spare shampoo bottles or toothbrushes that maybe lying around.

Tips to spruce up the Bedroom

• Clear off your night tables
• You can keep an interesting book on the table to add to the ambiance

Tips to spruce up the Outdoors

• Use the patio, deck and entrance-ways to place beautiful flowers.
• Set the table with colorful picnic plates.
• Power wash the outside of the house, patios and walkways.
• Apply a fresh coat of paint on all porches and doors.
• Weed the gardens and apply mulch for a fresh and new look.

Finally, take help of expert realtors who are well trained in the business of selling homes and sprucing it up to suit the moods of the buyer.

How To Really Declutter Your Home For Buyers?

Before you get your real estate agent to come and analyse your house, you can do a bit of decluttering yourself because that is the first thing most agents would suggest. And by decluttering, they don’t mean just keeping your baseboards and counter tops clean. So, here is a list of things you could try before your real estate agent visits:

• Think from your agents point of view and look at places where you need to declutter. Make a list.
• Write down anything which is the least bit offensive to the eye, including unruly hoses, toys in the front yard, a busy mantle above the fireplace and newspapers stacked up in the laundry room.
  
• Taking down your personal items such as family photos, mementos, changing the colour of the walls to a neutral one etc. will all be pretty emotional. Try taking out the most personal items out of rooms first.

• Keep plenty of empty boxes on standby to store your items.
• Try to personalize the room for the buyers. This maybe difficult to do considering you see it as your house but that will help sell the house.
• Don’t stack the closet with your extra pile of boxes because buyers always tend to look at those. Keep it as clear and impeccable as possible. This will make it look spacious.
• If you have your belongings in the house, you can try asking your neighbor or friend to stack them for a while or you could also use your garage or some place that is least conspicuous in the house. You could also alternatively rent a storage facility to store your things.
• Be prepared to hear your agent say that the house needs still more de cluttering. In which case, keep an open mind and rely on the expert and follow instructions.

Declutter Your Life for Healthy Mind & Body

Besides making way for more space in your house, cleaning & organizing on a regular basis offers other benefits as well.

De-cluttering is not only good in the physical sense but it also helps emotionally. It uplifts your mood and gives a positive feel. Emotionally, it clears the flow of energy. So, de-clutter for a healthy mind and body.

It also provides a good example for your children, on how to stay organized, which is indeed a useful lesson to have.

Final Thoughts