So, the festivities are well and truly over; the tree has gone; the decorations are down — but your home still looks a little rough around the edges. There is red wine on the carpet, pine needles on the floor and piles of presents, cards and clutter on every available surface. What can be done? It’s time to set those resolutions in motion — and not just for you: for your living space, too.
Although we are often full of commitment to sort out ourselves for the coming year, we rarely apply such resolve to our homes. But just as we all need a New Year detox, so they need to be spruced up for spring.
Start off with a clear-out — you know it will do you good. Take it room by room and be ruthless. Throw away or recycle anything that is broken (you will never get round to mending it) and weed out stuff you no longer like or need. Be realistic: those old clothes will never come back into fashion. Paring down your possessions to a core collection of must-haves is a salutary process and one that can transform your home. What’s more, if you take what you can to a charity shop, you will feel virtuous to boot. Electrical goods, of course, will have to be recycled or sold on eBay: charity shops can’t accept them.
It was Dawna Walter, home organiser extraordinaire, who opened our eyes to the benefits of decluttering. After setting up storage specialists the Holding Company in the mid-1990s, she made the transition to television with The Life Laundry, a programme that allowed her to revolutionise the lives of a handful of hoarders simply by getting them to reduce and rationalise their possessions.
“Organised living not only maximises the space you have to relax and enjoy your home, it can also rid you of mental and emotional clutter by allowing you to let go of things that keep you stuck in the past,” she says. “Most people could get rid of about 30% of their possessions without even missing them.”
If you can’t face the DIY declutter, there are, luckily, an increasing number of experts to help you out (spurred on, no doubt, by Walter’s example). Indeed, there is even an Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers that can help you locate a tip-top tidier in your area. This is a service industry that, as you might imagine, started in America, but it’s growing in momentum over here as we Brits become less self-conscious about hiring people to do jobs we feel we should be doing ourselves. And although it goes against the grain — surely nobody but me should sort through my sock drawer? — it can reap rewards.
“People stop seeing what their homes are really like,” explains Romaine Lowery, a former exhibition organiser who launched the Clutter Clinic in 2004. “They need someone from outside to come in and give guidance about what to do with all the stuff and where to find good storage.” Lowery applies that age-old adage “a place for everything and everything in its place” to any interior, whether it’s a one-bedroom flat or a four-storey townhouse, and advises on everything from furniture placement to wardrobe crises (how many black T-shirts do you need, and just how can you store 50 pairs of shoes?). A preliminary consultation costs £40 per hour, which will be followed up by a personalised decluttering session at £45 per hour or £250 for a six-hour stint, and a helpful list of good storage solutions — the key, of course, to a tidy house. Ron Arad’s wall-mounted Bookworm by Kartell, which comes in various colours and costs from £171, is one of her favourites and is available from Design Conscious.
Once your home is an uncluttered haven, it becomes far easier to sort out all those other little jobs you’ve been meaning to do: fixing the door knob; reupholstering the sofa; putting up those pictures that have been scattered about the place for weeks. Kirstie Allsopp’s new Moving Sense odd-job kits come in handy here. Available in three versions (picture hanging, sewing or tool kit), they are nattily packaged in 1950s-style boxes and cost £34.50 each.
If a job is too big to tackle yourself, call in an expert. The best recommendations come by word of mouth, but useful websites such as www.trustatrader.com, list reference-checked tradespeople and offer customer reviews.
Revamping your home costs little and can have an enormous impact: simply by sorting out and storing your possessions effectively, your living space can take on a new lease of life. Once it’s done, add the odd finishing touch to bring it bang up to date: re-cover your chair seats in the latest fabric; give the walls or the furniture a fresh coat of paint; or add a few fashionable accessories: cushions, throws or a different lampshade. To avoid slipping back into bad ways, however, keep Walter’s words in mind: “If you buy anything new, see if there is something you can get rid of at the same time.”
10 tips for a tidy home
- If you haven’t used or looked at anything for a year, get rid of it
- Chuck out or recycle anything that is broken
- Don’t hang on to unwanted gifts — give them away to friends or to a charity shop
- For easier recycling, buy bins that allow you to separate your rubbish
- Go through your wardrobe regularly and give your clothes a sell-by date. If you still don’t wear something, give it away
- Look after your possessions by keeping them dust-free, prominently displayed or stored properly
- Invest in smart-looking storage so you can leave it on show
- Store like with like so you can find things easily
- In a small home, buy furniture that doubles up as storage
- If you buy something new, get rid of something old
Clutter Clinic, 07834 338 568, www.clutterclinic.co.uk; Design Conscious, 01200 427 313, www.design-conscious.co.uk; Moving Sense, 020 7487 5555, www.movingsense.co.uk
Visit www.timesonline.co.uk/interiors for inspiring ideas from Sunday Times Style interiors guru Danielle Proud
