I hope that you have not forgotten about decluttering your home. I pray you have stayed with me and kept moving along ridding your home of the excess to create a peaceful haven of a home. I am not doing this all in one day, I have broken it up into weeks as to not overwhelm you. If you want to purchase my book and move at your own pace, I recommend you doing so, if not, just keep following along with us.
For those that like a video here it is, if not scroll past and read along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SxHxQaM9qE
This week we are focusing on our living room. This should be a room of peace and relaxation. This is the room that most families come together and share games and fun times together. What does your room look like? Do you have to remove things off the couch before you sit down on it? Are their piles of paperwork cluttering up all of your tables? How about dishes and cups that have soon been forgotten to be picked up in this area? Do I dare ask you what the inside of your couch looks like?? or when the last time you vacuumed it out (gasp!)?
Let’s start with the biggest item in this room—-your couch. Let’s start by taking off all of the cushions. Get out your vacuum with the crevice tool, vacuum out all of the cracks and corners in your couch. Move the couch away from its area and vacuum underneath it. Have a container for you to put all the miscellaneous items that you found in there. Have a small trash can for larger pieces that won’t suck up. Get that whole thing vacuumed out. If you have larger recliner chairs do the same thing to those.
Now that you have a clean couch, start working on your television center.
Everyone’ collection will be different. Start by going through your videos and DVD’s. Put in a pile those that you haven’t watched in years. If you have little ones and have a surplus of preschool shows but choose to watch broadcast tv or netflix—get rid of those videos. No sense holding onto them if they watch whatever is on tv. You will be putting these into your “out of sight” box. It will sit in another area of your home and if you really think about that video again you can get it out. Otherwise donate it to someone who could use it.
Clean up game controller’s and put all those items into a smaller container that fits on a shelf. Be sure to wipe off your entire entertainment system with a good all natural cleaner.
What else is in your living room? Do you have coffee tables? End tables? Whatever you have, start by taking everything off and going through it.
Magazines!!!! You probably have a huge collection of magazines. I would suggest putting these into a pile and later on going through them. While you are watching tv or some other activity, make it a priority to go through these magazines and tear out what you want to keep. Recipe magazines???—-Do a quick skim of it and rip out the recipes you “think” you will try and put them in a folder. Keep this folder in your household binder or in a kitchen cupboard and designate one day each week to trying out new recipes. Homemaker ones? I have many of these and decided I really was not going to read them again, I tore out the information and placed it in a folder of things I wanted to keep. Honestly, I haven’t looked at that folder in years, for future reference I will probably bind up the magazines and pass them along to some other homemaker that could enjoy them.
Bookshelves—homeschoolers usually have acquired many books. Our family over the years went from having 3 full bookshelves down to about 1/2 of a bookshelf. Why did I get rid of so many books? Information changes, our teaching style changes, books are available at our local library, and we moved and got rid of many.
I have kept books that are hard to come by. Ones with good values and morals. Ones that my older children enjoyed reading. I weeded out those that were not as exciting or that had one part of questionable material in it. Our teaching consists of me writing their curriculum with information I find online so I don’t have need to hold onto many books. I know each family is different and some have textbooks and other workbooks that they must hold onto and I understand that—get rid of the ones you don’t need, the ones that are taking up space.
Have shelves of knickknacks?? Go through those as well. How many “pretty” things do you need to look at? Is it taking up space? Causing you to do more work by having to dust them each week? Get rid of things that cause you to do more than you have to. We are in the process of simplifying our homes, not creating more work.
If you store your family games in this room, go through them. I have decided to take most out of their boxes and store them in plastic bags. It works better for our household. We keep only games we enjoy, I don’t usually hold onto ones that “one day” we will play. I keep those that we will play now.
Extra throw blankets, go through and keep only the ones that aren’t ripped or stained. Put them in a basket or inside of a piece of furniture. Even though it is great to have Christmas throws, it is just one more thing that you use for about 2 weeks out of the year, keep them simple. Find your favorite and get rid of the rest.
Have multiple candles? Start by working to burn them down. Instead of lighting 5 different candles and having 5 different used candles, just burn one at a time until it is done. Move onto the next one.
Look at your wall hangings?? Are they something that needs to be thrown away? Do they collect way to much dust and hard to clean each month? Think about getting a “cleaner” sleeker item for your walls.
You should be having a feeling of freeness right about now. Your home is mostly decluttered. The major areas, that people see, you have gone through. Keep at it. Put items that you are going to get rid of into your “out of sight” box. Just go through your items quickly. Don’t think too much about things, look at it and your first thought should be ,”do I use this?” If you don’t, get rid of it.
The book has a few more steps but we will be skipping those and moving onwards to part 6
Work hard this weekend, by going through your room and decluttering it. Be blessed.
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