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5 home organising tips you need to heed

By Andrew Bell

Before you can access that inner river of peace, you're going to need to swim through the ocean of clutter preventing your home from being the calm oasis you need.

Don't panic. You're not alone in this mess. A total of 40 per cent of all Australians feel anxious, guilty or depressed about clutter in their home, the Australia Institute found.

There are many ways to tackle the challenge of decluttering your space. Take a deep breath and check out our organising tips to help you begin. Once you wade through some of the accumulated clutter, psychologists say you'll be out of the mental deep end and thinking clearer, according to Better Homes and Gardens.

Take stock of what you really need

Keen to make a start? Pop open your wardrobe and turn your hangers backward. That's right. Flip all the hangars in your closet to face the "wrong way." Do this all at one go, so each hanger faces the same backward direction. Now, whenever you remove an item to wear, flip the hangar around to face the "right way." After a few weeks, look at the items hanging from the "backward" hangars. These are items you may need to consider removing from your closet.

This strategy works well for the bookshelf, too.

Make a transitory outbox

Small steps will help you confront overwhelming tidy-up tasks. Consider retiring some clothes, books, kids toys or decorative items to cardboard boxes. Label them with the date you're setting them into this potential "out bin." This is a good way to test yourself. Do you especially miss or need the items? After a few weeks, consider donating or giving whichever items have stayed in the boxes.

Start with easy swaps

We understand wanting to clear some visual space right away. Look for little opportunities to do this. Here are a few small steps that'll bring some fresh white space into your world without a spendy investment:

  • Hide mundane items like paper towels or napkins in a drawer and instead dry things off on the spot with a festive hung-up dishcloth
  • Look for wasted wall space anywhere in your home, from the kitchen to the bedroom. Can you mount hooks and hang, say, hats? Pans? What about installing simple floating shelves to hold books or plants?
  • Can your cupboard spaces or shelves work harder? Have your eye out for tall spaces which would benefit from a riser. Risers are inexpensive solutions that will make various nooks and crannies work twice as hard for you; many are adjustable. Lazy susans are another solution to help oddly shaped cupboards work harder for you

Open up your space with white paint

Sure, color trends come and go every decade, as this Houzz article describes. But there's a reason the airy tones of Scandinavian style stick around decade after decade. White can make small spaces appear bigger; the color reflects light.

White walls and cupboards also allow pops of colour to more strongly stand out; ditto brightly colored furnishings.

Keep upkeep expectations realistic

If you're the person in your living space driving toward a more organised space, we have some tricky news: you can't do it alone. Sure, you can purchase or set up beautiful systems or roll all the towels into beautiful cylinders just like Marie Kondo suggested. But when it's your flatmate or partner's job to do the laundry, will they do the same? Will your kids honor the organizing system you created?

Enlist the assistance of the other people in your space with keeping the house tidy — so long as you can design systems they can use. This might mean keeping kids' toys in low bins or agreeing to a folding system with your partner.

When you want to sell a home, it's always a good idea to tidy up first. Then, enlist a highly experienced real estate professional. At Ray White Surfers Paradise, we can guide you through all the ins and outs of the sales process. Do contact us today to learn more about how we can help.

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