by Martha Tobin, Owner Declutter4Good
Whether your children are young, in their teens or older, the colder weather means more indoor time. And for the sake of everyone’s sanity, having a designated space in your home where they can play or lounge is key.
If you want to create this space in your basement, a spare room or your family room, sometimes it requires decluttering and organizing to achieve that vision.
Here are a few tips & tricks to make that easier:
- Start with items on the floor first (and once this is done move to surfaces and then shelving)
- Clear out any obvious garbage, paper or items that can be recycled
- Sort the remaining items into broad categories (i.e. books, clothing, toys, etc)
- Review the items in these piles and determine if they are to be kept or purged (i.e. outgrown clothing, old toys, books already read, etc)
- Pack up items to be purged into a few labelled boxes (i.e. to donate, to sell, to give to family/friends, etc)
- What you are left with are your ‘keeps’. For any item you are keeping, determine where that item is going to ‘live’ in your home (ie books on a bookshelf, clothing back in dressers, toys into a toy box etc)
Items need to have a place to ‘live’ in your home so that everyone knows where to find them and to return them.
When items don’t have a place to live, they just end up moving around your home nomadically and ultimately become a pile somewhere.
Finding a home for your items makes organizing easy and more maintainable.
Decluttering a room reveals its essence and allows you to create a space your children will love.
