If you have lived in your house for 5 or more years, chances are you are looking to expand your storage space to accommodate all your ‘stuff’. This is particularly true if you have added children to your family – everybody talks about lack of sleep, lack of money and lack of time for yourself, but very few baby books advise you to expand your storage capacity by about 200% to cope with all the extra stuff.
De-cluttering has become the detox of the 21st century. It is not to be confused with ‘organisation’ which essentially takes what you have and organise it in a way that allows you to see exactly how much stuff you own. De-cluttering is the act of significantly reducing the amount of stuff you have possession of to the point where you have actual space in your storage space.
When it comes to living in a small dwelling such as an apartment or flat, your ability to jettison all but the absolutely necessary items from your life is a practical necessity. When it comes to selling your home it is as vital as cleaning the windows and cleaning the gutters.
As Joshua Becker of http://www.becomingminimalist.com says, “more is not better. Better is better. By removing the low level unnecessary things from your house and living with a small selection of well chosen favourite items, your home immediately becomes a calmer, more peaceful sanctuary.
When applied to selling a house, a minimalist approach can give buyers a sense of how a space ‘feels’, less stuff equals less distraction, and therefore more peace and serenity. And while a house that is furnished to show off its best aspects can give your property an aspirational edge, if done with less, it also leave room for prospective buyers to imagine how their own stuff will fit into their new home.
Need help de-cluttering? These 5 sites will get you started on the path to less:
www.becomingminimalist.com – the holy grail of all de-cluttering, Joshua Becker and his team will have you minimalising your entire life. Take a look at his book section for a selection of books to ahem, clutter up your bookshelf with 😉
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com is a fantastic resource for anyone living in, selling or moving into a smaller apartment or flat. The site is geared to getting the most out of the limited space you have – de-cluttering, storage, organisation and clever ways to use nooks and corners are all covered on this site.
http://unclutterer.com/ has pages and pages of helpful instructions on how to simplify almost every aspect of your life. While not strictly to do with de-cluttering your house, this post on keeping things simple is worth a read (http://unclutterer.com/2014/10/16/keeping-things-simple/):
If you are looking to buy a smaller home, or if you can’t face the de-cluttering and need a bigger house, call Amanda on My Side for simple, uncluttered advice.
