We have been moving right along in our decluttering series. I pray that this is the year that you will FINALLY conquer clutter in your home.
If you bought the book, you are probably moving at your own pace and that is awesome, you can use these posts as extra motivation or for more ideas.
This week will probably be a little more easier. We are going to focus on your hallways and closets. Don’t include bathroom closets or bedroom closets we will do those at a later time. Work on your entryways or coat closets, that sort of thing.
Take a look at your hallway….what sort of things do you have in it? Maybe you have a table that you drop your keys on when you arrive home and that is good. As long as it is the designated place that you drop your keys every time. If it is a place that you put them on but then later find out that someone has moved them, you need to find a new place. Designate an area that you ALWAYS put your keys and purse on. If you do it each and every time you will form a habit and it will stick. This prevents much needed searching for keys when you need to head out the door.
If you have any type of coat closets, you will be weeding those out today. Take everything out of the closet and set it on the floor. Wipe the interior of your closet and sweep the floors. Now you are going to take an inventory of what needs to go back in this closet. Will this be the central location for everyone’s coats? Then keep one coat per person. If it is a dress coat, or one that is worn occasionally…hang it in the bedroom. If you have too many, get rid of some. For children I recommend keeping one coat for each child. When we had cold winters, we kept 2 coats per child. One was for play, one was for going out in. We keep one light jacket for children as well. If your closet is stuffed full, than that means you have TOO MANY THINGS in it. You need to weed it out some more. Unless you have an extra large family then a closet SHOULD fit everyone’s coats comfortably. If you have a large family, you might consider having a coat bar rack made.
For the floor, it will probably hold shoes. I would recommend buying a shoe rack to hold multiple pairs of shoes. You can get various holders that are inexpensive and they hold many pairs of shoes. Look into that. Don’t be a hoarder of shoes. Keep only a few pairs per person. We keep a pair of everyday shoes, pair of hiking shoes, a pair of church shoes, and flip flops/sandals for each child. As they get older they like to have multiple pairs, but those are their responsibility to keep cleaned up. As a mom that is in charge, I keep it simple for the ones I am responsible for. For myself, I keep 2 pairs of boots. A nicer pair and an everyday pair to wear. I have a few pairs of sandals for warmer weather and a pair of hiking shoes. I keep them my wardrobe color of brown and then they go with everything.
What else is in your closet? Are there things that do not belong in here? Put them where they go. Old decorations or miscellaneous items? Consider putting them in your donation box. Keep only what you need, get rid of the rest. You should have some room in your closet, it should not be stuffed full. If it is, go back through your items and weed out again.
For those that enjoy a video, here is one on closets.
