5 Things Minimalists Never Keep in Their Homes Longer Than a Year
We all love the idea of a relaxed, relaxed lifestyle. However, transforming your living space into a minimalist dream space will require a lot of effort.
Before you start updating your decor or rearranging your rooms, you’ll want to create a neat foundation, but knowing where to start can be tricky. That’s why our expert organizers recommend starting with one question: have you used this product in the past year?
From closets to closets, experts have come up with a clear guide to the first five things you should do when you start cleaning your entire home.
Clothes
The closet is often the first place we think of when we start thinking about decluttering our space, and clothing is one of the best categories to start with when striving for a minimalist home and lifestyle.
“Start by getting rid of seasonal clothes and shoes you haven’t used in the past year, except for special-occasion clothes like cocktail dresses,” suggests Amelie Saint-Jacques of Amelie Organs.
Reba Bassett of the Revelation Organization recommends taking it one step at a time, and she has a closet decluttering technique that she likes to share with her clients.
“At the beginning of the year, turn all the hangers upside down,” says Bassett. “After you put the item on and hang it up again, turn it over. At the end of the year, take out all the rear-facing hangers and evaluate whether you really need those items.”
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Makeup & Skincare
Once your closet is a little tidier, you can move on to makeup and toiletries stored on your vanity, closet, or bathroom.
Start by putting aside all your essentials and instead tackle old palettes, expired bottles, unopened gifts and perfume samples.
Once the easy options are eliminated or set aside for distribution, you can start making more complex choices and streamlining your process or choosing your favorite products between copies of the same product.
Electronics & Appliances
The next areas on your decluttering list should be kitchen cabinets and office drawers, areas where unused or outdated electronics tend to accumulate, and loose plugs. The glass or wire is worn out and cannot be used.
“I always recommend getting rid of small appliances, especially things like juicers or bread makers, as well as any old electronics and stray wires,” says Saint-Jacques.
Sure, it’s nice to have a waffle iron, panini press, or cotton candy maker on hand, but if you haven’t used them in over a year, they’ll probably be better off in their new home.
Holiday Decor
Setting up the Christmas tree or setting the Thanksgiving table will be a lot easier if you don’t have to rummage through boxes of decorations or untangle the wires of a broken light bulb. As you plan for the holidays this year, spend extra time cleaning (and rearranging your holiday decorations because the boxes are empty).
“Each season as you decorate, evaluate whether you like the decorations and want them in your home,” recommends Bassett. “Decorating is something you love, and every piece you own is something you love.”
You may have a hard time parting with gifted or inherited items like jewelry, special occasion dishes, or tablecloths, but chances are, if you hadn’t used them a day or two ago, you probably wouldn’t have used them. .
Consider storing some particularly sentimental items that you don’t get to often in a keepsake box in a safe place.
Extra Storage Items
The last thing to get rid of is the clutter that usually goes unnoticed: boxes for extra items, clothes and dust bags for evening wear, shoes and bags, and extra grocery bags.
The goal of this decluttering journey is to have a minimalist home, and as a result, you’ll end up with fewer items, not more, so you probably won’t need more containers, baskets, or boxes than the ones you use and most luxury items that you are using. need. Keep them in the protective bag that came with them when you purchased them so that your spare parts are unlikely to be used.
The same goes for large bags and grocery bags: they tend to overfill and look dirty. Ideally, you should save some for reuse, but be clear about what can fit in a tote bag or basket.
How to Decide What to Keep and What to Get Rid Of
Creating (and maintaining) a beautiful, minimalist space and life isn’t always as easy as scrolling through our social media feeds, and Ben Soref of the H2H Organization has some tips.
“The last thing we want after a cleanse is to worry or have regrets,” he said. “So it’s important to ask, why haven’t we used this feature for a year?”
When you rediscover something you haven’t used in a year, you may be asking questions like: Is it sentimental or a keepsake? How expensive is it? How difficult will it be to get it again? By asking these questions, we can actually decide whether we keep it or not.