For many, New Year is the perfect time for renovations, both for personal ones, and non-personal ones like—the inside of your home! After all, a tidy living space helps us have a tidy mind for another task, thrives when the spaces we inhabit are as tidy as our mind, so let’s get to work on the two areas that probably need it the most: Attics and basements.
Ride the wave, embrace change, and live organized with these clutter free home ideas, it’s much easier than you think.
1. Don’t carry that luggage
Over the years, you might have accumulated much more luggage than you now know what to do with, yet how could you throw them out if they might come in handy someday? Well, not only is baggage allowance too restrictive now for clunky, old suitcases to be of any use, but they’re not as ergonomic as newer models. You’ll only manage to look like a time traveler with them, so let them go!
2. Boxes of photographs
We’re not saying that you should throw away your treasured memories, but know that attics and basements are not the best environments for them. Humidity, dust and even plagues can rough them up, so consider digitizing them to really keep them safe in time, and hold the physical copies where you can see them easily. Photographs are for show, after all!
3. Piles upon piles of paperwork
As we stated above, not only is an attic or a basement the worst environment for the material, but the paper will attract all kinds of insects that feed and nest on it. If they are old tax documents, you’ll be right to keep them around for a couple of years. Old receipts and half-scribbled notes for something that was important ages ago, however, should be the first to go, leaving you with not only more room for important paperwork worth keeping, but the extra space will let you organize them better and not lose them in a panic.
4. Old electronics
It might seem pragmatic to store old electrical equipment after you get newer models. They’re still working like usual, except they’re not as new, right? Well, before you get around to actually using them again (if ever), they’ll not only be obsolete but non-functioning. Storing conditions and lack of use all add up to the decay of electronics, so dispose of them properly when you replace them and recycle if you can.
5. All your hand-me-downs
Hand me downs all have their individual history, so it might be hard to find a reason to get rid of each one. To get around this, just ask yourself the following questions. Have you used them? Will you use them in the foreseeable future? From furniture to old clothes, if they’re only in your basement or attic “just in case,” you’ll appreciate the space they free up even more.
5. Avoid the self-cleaning feature
You might think that self-cleaning ovens are an automatic win, but if you didn’t use it at least a month before cooking with it, beware. Turning it on means that your oven will reach temperatures of up to 1000° Fahrenheit, which is usually enough to turn most food bits inside your oven to dust (given it’s not too dirty), but it can also lead to oven failure, depending on your oven and how often it’s used, something you definitely don’t want that with the holidays so close at hand.
6. Let emotional baggage go
This is just a convenient catch-all term for every knick-knack that you keep around for what it means (or once meant), but that’s not important, useful or pretty enough to actually have a place around the house— old paintings, antique ornaments, grandma’s old summer hat (that she has since long forgotten), that kind of thing. If they take a bigger space in your garage than in your heart, it’s time to let them go.
As you can see, common sense is the name of the game when it comes to getting rid of old things, especially when you’re preparing the house for deep cleaning. Follow this home declutter checklist and you’ll soon have more space than you ever thought was just hidden in there.
