Decluttering your house is another one of the many tasks that few people want to do, but all of us love the feel and aesthetic of a clean and organized living space. There’s just something calming and elegant about a meticulous room where everything is in its place.
As an added benefit, it’s always much easier to find anything you’re searching for. If you’ve ever felt the need to simplify your life, few things are more freeing than casting off all of those items you’ve collected over the years that you really don’t need.
When selling your home, decluttering is one of the essential first steps, especially if you want to get outstanding results in a challenging market. However, whether you plan to move or stay for another ten years, getting your house clean and clutter-free is well worth the effort. The purpose of this guide is to make the process as simple, straightforward, and enjoyable as it can be.
The Fastest, Least Expensive Home Makeover Ever
Many of today’s most-watched television shows are all about the home makeover. The top-to-bottom transformations can be absolutely breathtaking. The house is often unrecognizable if you were to examine the before and after photos.
These projects usually involve a professional team of contractors and designers that the average homeowner doesn’t have access to. Needless to say, the breathtaking end result ends up costing a pretty penny in most cases.
However, don’t underestimate just how much of a difference a thorough cleaning and decluttering can make. When a client needs to sell their house in a hurry and on a budget, a good scrubbing will go a long way to capturing a potential buyer’s attention.
The advantage of decluttering when you’re in no hurry to sell is there’s no pressure. You can go as fast or as slow as you like, whatever suits your lifestyle and personality the best. When you’re finished, it can feel as though you’re living in a brand new home.
Is decluttering part of your overall strategy for selling your home? If so, here are some other resources to help maximize your results:
- What Is the Value of a Pre-Listing Inspection When Selling in Toronto?
- A Complete Guide to Home Renovations in Toronto
- Is Staging Your House to Sell Still a Good Idea?
A Fool-Proof Plan for Decluttering Success
Achieving your gorgeous and clutter-free living space happens in two parts.
- You have to get your house clean and organized.
- Then you need to keep it that way.
Start by taking your internal temperature to see how you feel about the task before you. Are you eager and excited and can’t wait to start tearing through your drawers and closets? Or are you feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole process?
Being honest about your motivation levels is essential to keep you on track. Otherwise, you may find yourself binge-watching those home improvement TV shows without making any actual progress.
If the task feels too monumental, try breaking it down into smaller steps. Even the tiniest action every day will pay off as long as you do it consistently. Today, pick up some boxes and write labels on them. Tomorrow, sort through one drawer or one shelf.
Often, the inertia is just in getting started. Once you get a rhythm going, you might find you’ve decluttered an entire room and still have the energy to keep going.
Another tip is to group your tasks by room or by category. For example, first, set aside everything you are sure you want to keep. The next day, fill one box with items you know you’re okay to discard, then put that box in the car. Once your trunk is full, it’s off to a charity drop-off centre. Day by day, you chip away at the job until you realize your house is meticulous.
Getting Organized
Once you’ve gotten rid of all unnecessary items, it’s time to decide what to do with the rest. Summer clothes can be packed away in suitcases during the winter and vice versa. This helps keep your drawers and closets easy to organize for the remainder of the season without parting with any of your most cherished outfits.
You can also head to your local thrift or hardware store to explore some creative storage ideas. Many of today’s bins and trunks can be decorative while allowing you to hide away belongings you aren’t using at the moment.
Rolling carts for the kitchen or bathroom can be as stylish as they are convenient. Even some furniture offers storage capacity, such as benches and platform beds with drawers. Just be careful that these pieces don’t just become an attractive place to store more clutter.
A clean, clutter-free home gives you a blank canvas for the rest of your decor. The posts below can provide some inspiration:
- Our Best Secrets to a Spa-Like Bathroom
- The Art of the Spring Home Makeover
- Fabulous Lighting – Illuminate Your Home on Any Budget
Tips to Maintain Your Sparkling Clean Home
Getting your house clean and clutter-free is a massive accomplishment, and you deserve to take a moment to celebrate. Now, the trick is to maintain the effect. Then, you will not only continue to fall in love with your space, but you also won’t have to go through such an extensive process again. The following tips will help you keep your house as neat and tidy a year from now as it is today:
Identify your clutter hotspots. Every house has certain areas that gather clutter more than others. It might be the closet by your front door or a particular drawer in the kitchen or bathroom. Spare bedroom closets and dressers are some of the main culprits! Once you know where you tend to drop stuff off, you can make a plan to avoid it.
Adopt a “something in, something out” policy. Achieving a clutter-free lifestyle doesn’t mean you can’t acquire something new. However, committing to getting rid of something else will make it easy to keep your home clean. This habit could also save you a lot of money over time as you will make your purchases more carefully.
Get into the habit of throwing stuff out. Instead of piling fliers onto the kitchen table to “deal with later,” why not just drop them straight into the recycling bin in the first place? You may have some that you read on a regular basis, but others are a temptation that you just don’t need – especially when you are trying to keep your house organized.
Perform daily clean sweeps. You might be surprised at how neat your house will stay if you commit to decluttering for just five to 15 minutes a day.
Once you get into a routine, keeping your house in pristine condition becomes easier than ever. From here, you’re in an excellent position to sell – or simply enjoy your space for many more years to come.
Is there a home sale or purchase in your near future? We’d love to help you experience a seamless and stress-free transition. Connect with us at erica@ericareddy.com or call 416.443.0300 to learn more about our services.
Meet The Erica Reddy Team
Find out how our specialized skill sets and extensive Toronto market expertise empower your real estate venture.
