Decluttering your house.

Are you a packrat or a neat freak?  I’d like to think of myself as an organizer but I hate to clean…is that an oxymoron?? 

I have been meaning to help my sister to declutter her closets and since yesterday was still school vacation…I decided to make a trip to her house with Tyler and Sophia (our five and 11 months old pride and joy, respectively). 

The kids can play with their cousins while I help my sister, they are great babysitters and I don’t have to pay them either. ;-)  Cheapo auntie you say??!!  Hey, I’m not charging her for my “expertise” *wink*!

We got to her house at 10:30, had some brunch (she’s a great cook and this is her way of payment…which is fine with me) and off to work we went…decluttering her and her girls’ closets.

I brought a bunch of clear plastic Sterylite containers, I got them at Walmart for around $5 for the 52 QT.  They have all sizes and you don’t need to get the expensive brand like Rubbermaid (waste of money, I think). 

I am THE number one fan of these containers (a.k.a tubs), they are great for everything, i.e. extra and out of season clothes, blankets, shoes, toys, books and anything that needs to be out of sight and out of mind. 

There is a method to my madness and I like to share them with you.  If you have your own method of decluttering…we would love to hear from you.

• Attack the clutter little by little…We would remove the clothes from one side of the closet, decide what to do with it, i.e. donate, trash or keep and then go on to the next side.  It took a long time for us because we had such a laugh at some of the old stuff that my sister had in her possession.  I’m still laughing right now thinking of how our fashion tastes have changed throughout the years.  And she’s one of those packrats, if I wasn’t there…she would have folded everything neatly and put them back in the closet…hence, defeating the whole purpose of decluttering!!  And I ended up taking home 2 bags full of clothes for my girl and for me (she went from a size o to a 4 and now to a 2…gee, what a problem to have).
• Use the space wisely…If you have a small closet, as my sister does, you’d think that there is no room for anything.  After three bagfuls of trash (we’re talking about clothes with holes and worn out clothes), and three bagfuls of donated clothes (make sure they are clean and wearable)…we had plenty of room to play with.  Her comment was “I didn’t realize how big my closet was, and now I need new winter clothes to put it in”.  Use the tubs to put away out-of-season clothes, fancy purses, gifts that you’ve bought for the upcoming nieces’ or nephews’ birthdays, and shoes that you only wear occasionally.  Make sure you label the tubs!  Stack the tubs on out of range shelf with the labels facing you (for easy access). 
• More creative solutions… If you still have room on the bottom of the closet, buy one of those stackable plastic drawers, this is good for those summer shirts or anything that can be folded…so it won’t collect dust on the top shelf.  Next, for those belts and ties…buy one of those tie racks or just put a nail in the wall and use a hanger to hold the ties and belt.  If you have wasted space in the closet wall, you can actually put a little bookshelf in there for those extra perfume bottles, lotions or make up that you don’t want to display in the bathroom or the top of your make up table.
• Uniformity is good…use the same type of hangers for consistency and aesthetic.  Hang the skirts and pants together, and shirts and suit jackets together.  My sister had the big plastic and wire hangers together and it was a mess, that took up more space and not at all eye pleasing.
• A good reminder…taking “before” and “after” pictures would be good too (in haste, we forgot to do that!), I would paste those pictures on the inside of the closet door as a reminder of how messy the closet was at one point and what it has become.  My sister can actually stand in the closet now…something that was impossible to do before.
• Replenishing and removing…If you can’t resist the urge to shop for more clothes, make sure you take off the tag (believe me…we found some clothes with tags on still), wash and put them away in the right place immediately.  I’ve read somewhere that a good rule of thumb to do is when you buy a new item, remove an old item (still wearable and clean) from your drawer and donate it.  This way, your closet won’t return to its old clutter and overstuffed state.
• Trash or treasure…While rummaging through the mess, you found that one pair of shoes that you haven’t worn in years.  Donate it or trash it!!  If you haven’t missed it in all those years…chances are, you don’t really need it and do not attempt to put it back in your closet again.
• Having a “declutter buddy” really helps…If you’re as lucky as my sister *grin* in having someone to help with decluttering…it takes the boredom and the laziness out of the whole process.  So enlist your friend or family member and make it a fun time out of it.  We finished two full, messy and overstuffed closets in no time.  And she was on a roll, I had to leave and she continued to declutter the coat closet downstairs.  What a productive day that was!!

Now it’s time to clean my house *ugh ugh*!!  Maybe I’ll enlist my other sister, who’s a neat freak, to help me out *devilish grin*!!

Happy decluttering your house, car or anywhere else that’s overstuffed and overflowed but don’t be overwhelmed!! ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 2:38 pm and is filed under GENERAL, SHOPPING. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.