Tips For Decluttering The House To Make Room For Your New Covid Life
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, busy households are still adjusting to their new work-from-home and — in some cases — school-from-home circumstances. Average families are feeling cramped in their current living quarters. So-much-so that HomeLight’s Q2 2020 survey found that one of the top moving motivators post-pandemic is the need for more space.
Whether you’re dealing with an over-crowded household or your current living quarters just doesn’t have enough space to host your work-from-home lifestyle, decluttering could help you tremendously.
Paving way for a home office
Home renovations have been on the rise since the pandemic started. In fact, according to HomeLight’s Q3 survey, 76% of agents report that home renovation has been on the rise, while almost 70% expect renovation activity to continue at its current rate or gain momentum through the next few months.
One of the top projects homeowners are honing in on? Home offices. While a massive renovation project may be out of your budget this year, there’s still plenty you can do to free up some of the space you already have.
If you’ve owned your home for a long time, you might have an office space littered with old postcards, unnecessary financial documents, and miscellaneous memorabilia.
The best way to keep these stations uncluttered is to organize. Spread out all these papers, file away everything necessary, and toss anything unimportant.
The most important places to declutter
For most homeowners, their home is an investment. That means, eventually, they’re planning on selling. If you’re one of those people — as are many in this booming seller’s market — you’ll want to keep certain areas in mind as you declutter.
The living room, master bedroom, and kitchen are the most important rooms for a seller to stage. You’ll want these rooms to be neat, spacious and decluttered when it comes time to stage.
Tips to do it quickly and efficiently
There are many different ways to start decluttering. The most important tip to remember, however, is to stay organized. Label your boxes so you know what to keep, donate, and throw out.
Some people opt to set a timer and divy up their decluttering task over a few days. That’s perfectly fine, as you may be taking on a huge project. Set your timer for 15 minutes, and then see how much you can clear out of your storage spaces in that amount of time. You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish if you stay motivated for just 15 minutes.
Another good tip? The 12-12-12 method. This means each day you must collect 12 items to keep, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to throw away. By the end of a month, your home will be cleared of a plethora of old junk you didn’t need anyway.
As a rule of thumb, anything you haven’t used in a year — unless it has sentimental value — should go. Just remember to stay organized and motivated, and you should have no trouble clearing up some extra space in your home during this period of life when extra space is very, very necessary
