Declutter Your House

Establish Clutter Central

If you need to undertake a massive overhaul of each room in your home in order to declutter your house and create a clean slate, the first thing you need to do is choose a space in your home to designate as Clutter Central.

You should choose a room that you do not need to enter or walk through on a daily basis and that you can close off from view while you are working to declutter your house. A spare bedroom or basement would be perfect.

The idea is that as you tackle cleaning each room in your home you will remove the clutter from that room and bring it to Clutter Central for sorting. Once you have finished organizing all of your rooms you will then deal with the items you have gathered in Clutter Central and, before you know it, your entire home will be clean, organized and free from clutter.

Once you have designated Clutter Central, get three large boxes and label each one:

• Sell
• Donate
• Unsure

If you have a lot of clutter to clear, you may want to get several boxes for each category. Place the boxes in Clutter Central.

Once you have Clutter Central set up and ready to go, schedule a garage sale. By setting the date now, you are providing yourself a deadline which will motivate you to stick to a schedule and declutter your house.

Choose a day far enough away that you will have enough time to go through each room in your home, but not so far away that you will procrastinate. Allowing yourself approximately one month is ideal. This should give you plenty of time to declutter your house and sort through the items to be included in the sale.

Ask your neighbors if they would be interested in organizing a block sale which would generate more traffic. If you all share in the advertising expenses it would help keep the costs down for everyone.

Organizing Clutter Central

Step One

The first task will be to sort through the boxes labeled "unsure." Be very discriminating when making the final decision on these items. After you have worked so hard to successfully declutter your house, do you really want to put them back into the rooms they came out of? The fewer items from the "unsure" pile that you actually put back into your rooms, the better.

Step Two

Next make a list of all of the items in the "donate" boxes. You will need this list if you claim these items as charitable donations on your tax returns.

Once you have completed the list and returned the items to the boxes, immediately place them in your car and go deliver them to the charities you have chosen. Do not put this off. If you hesitate you are leaving yourself open to the possibility of changing your mind which will only result in more clutter.

Step Three

Finally, get yourself some price stickers and a marker and begin pricing the items in the "sell" box for your garage sale. Don't forget to make signs to be displayed on the days of the sale and to advertise in your local newspaper and by word of mouth.

At our last garage sale my husband decided that he did not want to bring any of the leftover items back into our house so in the last hour of the last day of the sale he placed all of the remaining items onto one table which he carried down to the sidewalk with a sign that said "Free." The results were amazing!

People practically slammed on their brakes as they drove past our house to stop and take a look. Some people did take some items without paying, but most people felt compelled to give us a small donation for the items they took. We ended up making an additional $40.00 and getting rid of all of the items on the table.

If you wind up with leftover items you could either pack them neatly into boxes clearly labeled "garage sale" and store them someplace out of the way until your next sale or simply donate the remaining items to charity.

Step Four

Follow the guidelines for a thorough cleaning of the room you have used as Clutter Central (for example, if you used your guestroom, go to the Organize Your Guestroom page).

Now make yourself a cup of coffee and curl up on the sofa with your favorite book or a good movie. You deserve it! Doesn't it feel good to have an organized home?

Be sure to follow the maintenance guidelines for each room and keep up the good work!

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