Taking Care of Clutter: Part 1

Clutter. You put it away, you throw stuff out, you’ve done everything you can think of to get it
off of your floors and tabletops. Yet, here it is, back once again. Making the room you just
cleaned, visually look messier than it really is. So, what can be done with an unruly item
that can’t be thrown away and refuses to stay out of site?

If you can’t beat the clutter one way you can manage it by putting it on display. You may
be thinking that your clutter being on display is the entirety of the problem. That’s why you
need to curate the way your clutter is displayed. Do you have a lot of one or similar items? I’d
call that a collection. Give that stuff a specific shelf or shelves, arrange them aesthetically,
and there it is your unmanageable clutter has become a display. I have a thing for tea and
buying teacups and pots, so much so that I literally have nowhere to put them. I use the cups
that I don’t regularly use as decoration or to store small things like coins and keys aesthetically.

Your “collection” doesn’t even have to make sense. Make a display of stuff, that kinda looks
good together. IDK, go on Pinterest, Pinterest will teach how to display stuff. When I display
things I look for shapes and colors that compliment each other and give them a similar purpose
or at least make them hold things that have a purpose and then it doesn’t look like you’re
wasting space but using it very prettily.   

The tea cups may have told you that I like collecting knick knacks. The majority of my property
may just be stuff I bought on impulse at vintage and antique shops. What I’m trying to say is
that I have swords, tea cups, plushies, a metal top hat, and ceramic moose a friend got me as a
joke displayed equally on my headboard. You can arrange anything and make it make sense.

Letting in More Light for the Winter

Winter is finally here! I don’t know about any of you but between the cold and the dark it’s a struggle for me everyday not to hibernate. One way to counteract this is to brighten up the interior. If you can utilize what little natural light there is it will go a long way to brightening up the interior. Letting in more light will also naturally warm up your space, saving you money on heating as well as helping you fight off winter drowsiness.

One thing you can do is get rid of your window screens. Removing the screens will allow around 30% more light through the windows. Keep them somewhere they won’t get damaged, so you can put them back in the spring.

Update your rooms with light colors. Objects, furniture, walls light colored things bounce light instead of absorbing it like darker colors. The more light you have bouncing around the room the brighter the room will be. For more temporary fixes you could pick up lighter rugs and chair covers.

Another way to bounce more light around the room is to have reflective surfaces. Consider getting things with mirrored or reflective surfaces. You could make a cool gallery wall with mirrors and frames with reflective surfaces.

Consider replacing heavy curtains with a lighter fabric for the winter. While you’ll lose a little insulation and warmth; however with lighter curtains you will gain a significant amount of light. Getting lighter curtains will also open up the room and make it feel larger.

If you have any overhanging tree limbs or shrubbery blocking your windows… well get rid of it. It’s winter, it’s time to cut back any overhanging foliage anyways. You can do as many light enhancing tricks as you like but if sunlight is being literally blocked there’s only so much you can do.

Last tip, clean your windows. Didn’t think about that did you? Dirty windows block out a lot more natural light then you would think. I suggest you do it now before it gets to cold.

Keeping Your Home Miraculously Clean Part:3

One of the main reasons we accumulate clutter is because all the stuff we have around the house that just naturally accumulates. Sometimes it’s because you need it for something and can’t throw it away yet. Maybe it’s just in that corner of the house you don’t really look at but has the effect of dragging the rest of the room’s cleanliness down with it.

There are a few weekly upkeep things you can do that will really help keep everything together and enhance the general cleanliness level overall. Let’s start with the fridge. Do a quick clean out of your fridge once a week. The day before trash week, get rid of any to old leftovers, expired food, and then quickly wipe off the shelves. This keeps the fridge from accumulating that gross build up that you get in fridges. Meaning when you finally get around to deep cleaning your fridge you don’t have to go through the process of being slowly grossed out by the condition that your food has been kept in. Don’t let moldy leftovers take over shelf space and your mind.

There’s also the thing where you have important papers and invitations and other such visual noise, cluttering up your end tables. Scan it. Put it through the scanner on your computer, there are apps that will turn pictures into PDF files. You have the technology to not have physical paper scattered around your house.

Something you can also do is to keep clothes from building up until your designated laundry day. One of my biggest problems keeping my space clean is just avoiding the inevitable pile-up of clothes that spills onto the floor, making the room look like GARBAGE. So try tossing a load in mid-week or before you go off to work and when you get back toss it into the dryer. I don’t know how you are about folding and putting away clothes, so I can’t help you with that… but at least they’re not on the floor anymore.

Keeping Your Home Miraculously Clean Part:2

One of the main reasons we accumulate clutter is because all the stuff we have lying around is because honestly, ain’t nobody has time. There are dishes in the sink, stuff has slumped its way off of its chairs and tables onto the floor, things got dropped and you can’t always stop whatever you’re doing to pick it up immediately. It’s hard to keep up with the mountain of dishes, to beat back the disorder that came to your room literally overnight and in the process of getting ready in the morning, stuff just ends up on the ground. Mess just happens, but here’s a few ways keep everything to disintegrating.

I know the last thing you want to do in the morning is chores. I know I personally don’t get up until the last possible moment in the morning. Just try to fit in time to not specifically make your bed if you’re not the type who likes to make your bed every day, just straighten out the blankets and toss the pillows back to the head of the bed.

Another thing you can do at the beginning of the day is quickly unload the dishwasher on your way out of the house. If your dishwasher is empty before you leave then every time you create dirty dishes they can go straight into the dishwasher.

An easy thing you can do during the day to keep the house tidy is just pick things up as you go. When you’re walking through a room and you see something on the floor or that doesn’t belong there, pick it up. Put it where it goes. If you make this a habit it should cut down significantly on the clutter before it has a chance to accumulate.

The last thing is to find 20 minutes, it doesn’t have to be at the end of the day, just find some time too straighten up one room. Just give yourself a small task and accomplish it. Getting even one productive thing done in a day makes me feel like I’ve achieved something, and even if you haven’t gotten the entire house straightened, you’ll have done something and feel good about it.

Cleaning for Guests

THE INLAWS ARE COMING, THE INLAWS ARE COMING! It’s the holiday season, a time for joy and family. That’s right, I said family. The beginning of holiday season marks the beginning of family flocking from wherever they usually dwell to your house for whatever you celebrate. Which also means it’s time to get your house so clean that it looks like nobody else lives there the rest of the year. But how do you avoid the running yourself ragged trying to get the house ready and eventually giving up and resort to throwing the stuff you don’t know what to do with in some closet?

First, start early. Figure out whatever is going to take time or professional help and do it NOW! Do you need to exterminate? Deep clean the carpets and upholstery? Replace light bulbs that you can’t change without special tools? Replace appliances so your mom doesn’t think your poor when she sees that your toaster’s half broken and your microwave barely works?  Get on that stuff as ASAP. Your house could be spotless but if there are things that aren’t working properly in your house that’s the fastest way for you to receive familial side eye.

The next step is to start the next most difficult and time-consuming projects. Start decluttering, go room by room and give everything you need to keep a place to belong, so it’s not just scattered around trying to belong. Do the little detail things. Clean surfaces you don’t usually think about, the walls, baseboards, windows, shower curtain, ceiling fan blades, doors, etc. 

Then I would focus on the kitchen. This room of the house tends to take a good amount of work and take a good amount of time. Clean the oven and all other appliances, kitchen cabinets, the fridge (inside and out), and polish surfaces.

We’re getting down to the smaller things. Focus on all the floors, sweep, mop, vacuum. Clean and sanitize garbage cans. Clean bathrooms, wash all guest towels and linens.
Finally, do the finishing touches. Go over anything that has had a chance to undo itself during this process. Sweep the porch and walkway, do a last wipe down of surfaces, make sure guests’ rooms are put together and tidy.

Keeping Your Home Miraculously Clean Part:1

One of the main reasons we accumulate clutter is because all the stuff we have lying around doesn’t have anywhere better to be. Where do expect your stuff to go if you haven’t given it anywhere to belong! Of course, everything is piling up on your counters and conspicuous corners. You need to establish a place for everything to belong.  Shoes, jackets, mail, things that would come out of pockets, and miscellaneous things.

Have hooks and cubbies for Jackets, Coats, Shoes, and other things that live by the door and leave with you when you leave the house. The kind of storage you’ll need will depend on your daily activities. Then banish all other shoes and outerwear to rooms, closets, or whatever other designated organized space.

Build a system to deal with mail as it comes into the house. Mail has the ability to get super unmanageable, super quickly. The best way to do this is to sort the junk, fliers, packages, bills, and other mail worth looking through as soon as you bring it into the house. Recycle whatever you need to get rid of, get a small bin for whatever mail needs to be shredded (shred as soon as it gets full for cleanliness sake), and get a mail organizer and sort whatever’s left, tossing the nonsense and putting the keepers in an assigned spot.

For all the stuff you just don’t know what to do with, if you can’t figure out a category to put it into it might mean that you don’t need it, and it should go into the trash. If you’re sure you can’t throw it away or repurpose it than I suggest getting some sort of drawer organizer and making yourself a good old-fashioned junk drawer.  

To keep this system functioning I suggest you clear out your storage spaces once a month. I’m not saying to toss out everything or completely reorganize every month, that would be ridiculous and annoying. Just move anything that doesn’t particularly belong and put them where they actually belong, instead of letting it clutter up the wrong space.

Closet organization: Creative storage

There are quite a few ways to customize and build out your closet. There are so many
things you can buy to DIY your closet storage, and several different systems you can
use. However, the best way to fully customize your closet is to use creative solutions
to solve your specific closet needs.

Specialized hangars

Consider using specialized hangers. Like pants hangers. You’ll be able to fit more
items on the rod because they’ll hang properly, causing them to take up less room.
They’ll also be less likely to slip of the hanger.

You could also install rods on the inside of your door in coordination with S-hooks.
This allows you to utilize the empty door space you don’t usually use. You can use
these for things like shoes, scarves, and ties.

Out of closet solutions

If you still can’t fit everything into your closet you  might consider out of closet
storage. This can go beyond having an armoire or dresser.

            Repurposed organizers

            You could consider repurposing office organizers for clothes. Old file
cabinets can be painted to look more fun and you can individually fold shirts
over files so they’re all presented and easily locatable when you open the drawer.

            Desk organizers

            Old CD holders and mail or file holders can be used to organize things
like clutches or makeup pallets.

        
    Tea cups

            Tea cups can be used to organize jewelry or other small items.
Earrings with hook backs hung in the sides, they can hold necklaces and
brooches, and other sundry items can be organized around the saucers.

           
Decorative rod

            If you need more hanging space you could get decorative rods,
something to go with the general aesthetic of the room ang make room
for more hanging space outside of the closet.

Closet organization: Shelves and drawers

Closet organization doesn’t have to begin and end at how and where you hang your clothes. For some people having space for folded clothes is more is more usable, a.k.a more useful. However, not everyone has the to shove a dresser into their closet, a dresser definitely isn’t the best solution for what some people are looking for. So, for all the people who can’t and probably wouldn’t want to anyways, let me suggest a shelf and draw system.

A shelf and draw system is exactly what it sounds like, a series of shelves and drawers that would
give your closet all the pros of having a dresser without the cons all the cons of stuffing a big piece
of furniture into your closet. There are tons of options for closet customization available to buy and
DIY yourself. That’s before you consider having shelves custom built for you.

There are several ways you can go about setting up a shelf and drawer system in your closet. You
could use a basket system which would use layers of shelves using baskets as an alternative for
drawers. This approach has the possibility of being exponentially more decorative as well as being
able to pick and choose the size and relative shape of said baskets. Baskets can be used to sort
any number of things clothes, shoes, accessories, etc.

A cubby system would be a sort of hybrid between shelves and cubbies. Depending on the size
cubbies would be more useful for organizing shoes and one-off items, such as a sweater or other
clothing item to delicate to hang. Larger cubbies can either be arranged decoratively to stare
jewelry or store a pile of folded or rolled clothes. Just about anything stored in a cubby would be
on display, which is great when you’re deciding what to wear.

Adding a dresser or custom drawer system would not be out of the question for an addition to a
closet. The top of a dresser can be used as a table or surface space where jewelry or accessories
such as hats could be stored. The space below hanging clothes or shelves could also be used for
shoe storage by adding a simple shoe rack. However, these kinds of additions would have to be
chosen carefully with regards to the aesthetic of the rest of the closet.