Saving Space: 3 Effective Storage Techniques for a Nursery

Building your baby’s nursery is one of the most exciting milestones you’ll experience on your way to becoming a new parent. But as eager as you are to get the room painted and decorated, it’s important that you don’t forget about an essential aspect—storage. Nurseries tend to be very small, and newborns require a lot of supplies to be comfortable in this room. It’s up to you to find ways to incorporate more storage into this area and keep everything your child needs within reach. Learn these effective storage techniques for a nursery to start off on the right track.

Utilize the Space Under the Crib

The crib may feature up to a foot of space between the frame and the floor, depending on the model. This is the perfect place to store any items you won’t use frequently—like extra clothing or blankets. If you don’t want this area to look unsightly, you can even hide the things underneath with the addition of a cute crib skirt.

Buy a Spacious Dresser

You can also incorporate more storage by choosing the right dresser. While it might seem like these items take up precious floor space, you can do a lot with them. The drawers can be deeper than they appear. This allows you to hide any items you don’t need and protect them from damage. Their compact design also makes it possible to fit more objects without taking up more floor space.

Install Plenty of Shelves

Another effective storage technique for a nursery is to utilize the space along the walls as much as possible. It’s common for new parents to get so caught up in arranging the furniture pieces on the ground that they forget the walls. With the installation of a few shelves, you can store everything from toys and games to books and beloved stuffed animals. This will get these items out of the way while keeping them nice and organized.

How to Declutter your Entire Home in a Day

Organizing a home can feel daunting without guidance. After living in the same space over a period of time, clutter can seem invisible. Understanding how to effectively declutter a room or an entire house can save time and ultimately prevent anxiety.

Where to Start When Organizing Your Home?

If you want to properly organize your home, there are various approaches you can take. While it may be tempting to get rid of everything in your home that you don't use frequently or don't absolutely love, it's important to be selective about what you keep. This will ensure that your home doesn't feel too empty or uninviting. For example, you may want to keep cozy armchairs for relaxation, even if you don't use them on a daily basis.

Organizing a house can take time and effort. Before deciding on what to organize or which items go where, first you must declutter.

When first decluttering a home, start by tackling one room at a time. If there is a lot of clutter, set a time limit so this task does not become overwhelming. Set a goal time for when each room should be completed and stick to the schedule. Since decluttering ultimately revolves around tossing or saving, it’s handy to have a large trash receptacle or plastic bag.

Common areas to clear off include:
-desks
-drawers
-surfaces
-closets
Depending on the state of the room, this process can become lengthy. The key to decluttering in a short amount of time is courage. Don’t be afraid to toss out items that haven’t been recently used. Clothing that hasn’t been worn in a year or tools that are unnecessary do not need to remain in the home. While sentimental items may be worth saving, not every item that was given as a gift may be worth keeping.

Decluttering is essential to the organizing process. By clearing off enough space, working from home and even sleeping, can become considerably easier.

What Should You Get Rid of When Decluttering? 

Decluttering is the process of throwing unnecessary items away while saving what is important. Items that are frequently thrown away during the decluttering stage include:
-unnecessary papers
-trash
-unwanted books
-clothing that has not recently been worn
-knick knacks
-DVDs
-magazines
-manuals that are out of date
-old or broken toys
-broken electronics
-expired cosmetics
-old prescriptions

Clutter can take many forms. Many people collect clutter because they think they might need it in the future or because it’s “wrong” to throw it away. Guilt can prevent many people from throwing away unwanted items. If an item is truly sentimental, it should be stored in a safe place. Old birthday cards or gifts that are not used, but kept “just for the sake of it” may not be necessary.

Since every home is different, the belongings that are worth saving and tossing may vary. For items that are considered important, but also take up space, storage is crucial. Containers with label holders can help sort belongings into categories. Hanging storage or shelving that can be added to the walls can also save space.

How Long Does It Take To Declutter A Home?

It depends on the home. Since each room is different and contains different types of clutter, the time may vary. Many items can be a surprise when decluttering. Wires and cables, for instance, may need to be untangled or managed. Unused cookware can also take an unexpected amount of time to sort through.

Many individuals choose to declutter smaller rooms first. This can be an efficient way to ease into larger rooms with more items. Decluttering a bathroom may only take a half hour once the cabinets are sorted through.

To cut down on the time it takes to declutter, there are some helpful tips.
1.) Set reasonable deadlines. Decluttering a 3-story house in half a day may not be practical. Instead of setting a deadline that includes the entire house, breaking time tables up by the room is often helpful. By keeping track of time, unwanted items can be sorted faster.

2.) Use storage containers. Storage containers can’t keep everything, but they can save important items that take up too much space. Photographs, out-of-season clothes, and pet toys can all benefit from additional storage.

3.) Remove non-cook related items out of the kitchen. Once everything besides the essentials are relocated, you can then sort through what is important and what can be tossed.

What Is The Best Way to Organize?

A methodical plan can help the organizational process move faster. Once clutter has been either thrown away or saved, storage is the next step. Organizing is simply choosing which items to put where at this point.

Space is an essential part of organizing. By maximizing the amount of space each room has, a home can look cleaner and more accessible. Organizing can take many forms. Additional shelving units, colorful storage containers and dressers are just a few ways to manage the necessary items in a home. When entering a room for the first time, less clutter can mean less anxiety.

Organizing a house does not have to be a chore. By taking this process one step at a time, decluttering and reorganizing can remind you of what’s important. Finding sentimental valuables and tossing expired items often cultivates a sense of purpose and well-being.

Conclusion
Since not all items are compact, organizing can also mean getting creative. Storing cords, finding space for books and using vertical shelving rather than horizontal cases can all help maximize space. Once you have space, your space is your own.

Decluttering – The Ultimate Tips and Tricks

As we enter 2021, we all want to shake off the previous year and see some changes for the better! Now we’re back at home again in a 3rd national lockdown, more and more of us are starting our spring cleaning early. It can be easier said than done though, especially after the festive season, so we’ve put together some helpful tips and tricks for you!

1. Accept it isn’t a 5-minute job

Decluttering is often a long process which is what puts people off doing it, but once you can accept that it can take a while and it’s absolutely fine to break it down into little chunks, it can really help to make the whole thing easier. Depending on how much stuff you’ve got to sort through, decluttering could take you months – but that’s okay. Take it a step at a time and don’t let yourself get overwhelmed, as this often means that people give up on their mission. 

A helpful way to declutter is to start small and work up from there. Set yourself 10 minutes a day in a room, and sort through a drawer or a pile of paperwork. After doing this for a few days, you’ll already start to see a difference and it often encourages you to increase those 10 minutes. In no time at all, you might be doing half an hour a day – but if you don’t, that’s okay! Move at a speed you feel comfortable with.

2. Know what to keep and what not to

Before you start your decluttering, spend some time thinking about what you want to keep and what you will be getting rid of. Having an idea of this will help you when you’re clearing out and save you time and stress. Try and be firm with yourself once you’ve set these outlines – otherwise, you may end up keeping everything and having to do exactly the same next year. 

We know that it isn’t always as easy as being able to simply throw something away, especially if you’ve had your items for some time and they have sentimental value. If this is the case, what can be helpful is to rehome those items rather than throw them away. This often brings some peace to those decluttering, as you can know that the item is going to serve a purpose somewhere else rather than being binned. Whether you choose to donate to charity, sell online, or give to friends and family, this can be a great way to make it easier.

4. Go paperless!

We’ve probably all got it – a draw of unorganized paperwork that we don’t really need in day-to-day life but we don’t want to let go of. Any important documents you can file and put away, but you’ll probably find that you don’t need most of it anymore. You can scan these papers and have them on your computer to make it more organized, and easier to sort out too. When doing this, it’s worth putting a date range in place to ensure you only keep work that you need – anything much older than a year is probably no longer needed. 

Make sure when you clear out paperwork that you dispose of it properly. Shredding is a good option to ensure any sensitive information is destroyed for safety purposes. 

5. Tackle the wardrobe

Sorting through clothing is a task a lot of people don’t like, especially if you think that you wear most of your clothes regularly. However, especially with so many of us having stayed at home for the last year, the chances are we’ve all got bits and pieces we could get rid of. A great way to see what you wear regularly and what you don’t touch is to arrange all of your hangers one way in the wardrobe. When you take something out to wear, you can turn that hanger around. After three months, or a timeframe that you can set, you can look at which hangers haven’t been moved and see which items you haven’t worn. This then means that you can sort through those items and decide which ones you want to get rid of.

There are plenty of ways to aid your decluttering, and we’ve listed just a few to get you started. The most important thing is to find what works for you, so whether you’re decluttering to sell your house or you simply want to enter 2021 with a more minimalist approach, take it one step at a time and you’ll have a lot to be proud of in no time at all!

3 Things To Try When Decluttering A Space In Your Home

If you’re like most people, you likely have at least one area of your home that has more clutter than it should. Whether you like the feeling of your space being filled with things you love or you simply don’t know how to maintain your home any other way, there can be major benefits to decluttering your space every once in a while. However, actually doing the decluttering can be challenging.

To help you meet this task, here are three things to try when decluttering a space in your home. 

Don’t Keep Expired Items

One of the best places to start when you’re attempting to declutter in your house is to get rid of items that are expired. 

According to Amanda Garrity, a contributor to Good Housekeeping, this can easily be done in the bathroom or the kitchen where you can see the date stamped on the item and then know if you’ve had it for too long. If this is the case, simply toss that item and get a new one if you need it. Otherwise, enjoy the extra space you now have without that thing taking up unnecessary space. 

For items that don’t have a set expiration date, like clothes or other belongings, you may want to think about when the last time you used that item was and if you plan on using it in the next three months or so. If you can’t remember when you last used or even moved that item, it’s safe to say that it’s expired from your life and can be donated or trashed. 

Get In A Moving Mindest

In some instances, people need a little more motivation to really declutter their lives effectively. If you’re going to be packing up and moving soon, whether that’s to a new home or into an assisted living facility, you’ll likely want to get rid of as many things as possible so that your move is lighter.

Even if you’re not planning to move soon, Shifrah Combiths, a contributor to Apartment Therapy, suggests that you pretend that you’re moving so that you can really streamline the items in your home. Try to imagine that you’re having to pack up and move or store these items before you decide to keep them. And if you can’t imagine that they’re worth the effort, get rid of them. 

Create Systems You Can Maintain

When people declutter and reorganize their space, they often set themselves up for failure by making their systems too rigid for them to maintain after the excitement of decluttering has worn off.

To combat this, Toria Sheffield, a contributor to Bustle.com, recommends that you aim for decluttering and creating organizational systems that will work for you in your everyday life. If it’s good enough for you to live with consistently, then you’ll have a much better chance of sticking with it. 

If you’re needing to declutter space in your home, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you effectively do this.