I started my de-cluttering process a few months ago, so far it’s going well =)

I am a messy person at heart, no matter how much my mum or grandma nagged me when I was growing up, I would always leave my clothes on the floor, all my junk on the table, and never put stuff away after using it.

It never bothered me, until we bought our own house.

Our two dogs like to rip things to pieces (eg pizza boxes from the recycling, into tiny little pieces_). In our old rental (while I was also studying) we would let it slide, until one day you’d wake up and realise the house is an absolute effing pigsty, with dog and cat toys everywhere, bits of cardboard and paper strewn all about the place, paper work, old christmas decorations not put away…. ARGH.

What made me turn the corner was visiting a few of our good friends in their apartments in Sydney. Talk about magazine homes, their places are beautiful. No clutter, nice furniture, clean and tidy.

Another thing was reading this fabulous book called [B]Sorted![/B] by Lissane Oliver (“The ultimate guide to organising your life – once and for all”). Definitely inspirational.

I worked out my main problem was lack of storage (or lack of utilising storage), too many knick-knacks (and mis-matched furniture), and lack of a proper house cleaning routine.

So the first thing I’ve done is to throw away or store most knick-knacks (keeping the ones I love, but storing them means I can rotate them occasionally and have less surface clutter). I think a good guide for having “stuff” on top of bookshelves or surfaces is to have only one thing per area. This keeps things looking much neater. And writing this “rule” down has made me realise I need to go store a few things off the top of my bookshelf, it’s getting a bit crowded. Along similar lines, having too much mis-matched furniture can make a room look really cluttered. Having your furniture all in a similar colour or style will help streamline your home, and don’t have too much!

The second thing I did was to put everything I possibly could into the many cupboards I have. For example, by the front door I used to have a small plastic box which holds the dogs leashes and a couple of toys. I simply moved it to inside the coat cupboard (1m away) and it instantly cleared up the floor space.

Another very important thing is having a home for everything, and making this a hidden home. My grandma always used to say to me “A place for everything and everything in it’s place”, and she was so right. As an example, I purchased a leather box to put magazines in, as I get them before I read them or while I’m reading them, so they don’t pile up on the dining table, or other places. Because I know they have a place to be, it’s so easy to put them in the box (no lid, it sits in a bookshelf so still looks tidy) instead of leaving them lying around, and then I know where they are when I want to read one!

And finally, I’ve gotten into a house cleaning routine. Well, I’ve just recently fallen out of it, as this is the trickiest part to keep up I think, but the ideal situation is this: Once a week I tidy up (pick up and put away anything that wasn’t picked up along the way), vacuum, do washing. Because I work part time an start at 11am on Mondays, I’ve made Monday morning my cleaning morning. 2 loads of washing, a quick tidy up and a vacuum does wonders for the rest of the week. Once those main things are done, it’s much easier to cope with the little things like stacking the dishwasher everyday, wiping down cupboards etc.

There are of course always areas I need to tackle. The pantry is my next mission, it’s not too bad but could be a lot better organised with some half shelves (and a coat of paint!). The bathroom cupboards need a clean out, but I’m waiting to do that because we’re going to renovate it soon with new cupboards. My work area in the study is in a semi-permanent state of dis-array. Need to work on that.

I figure by the time I have a baby, I’ll have the housework down pat and a clean and tidy home. Then the kid will throw me out of my routine and we’ll be back at square one =P

I ♥ comments! =)