Day One :: Get Your Home Decluttered in 28 Days

The crew enjoying some down time in our “new” living room!

 

A few weeks back I had a friend come by who helped me rearrange my living area to be more open and inviting.  She brought along a good friend of hers, Paul, who was visiting with his family from Ireland.  She had told he had a knack for visualizing spaces and offered to help!  I was game as I had wanted to rearrange our living area but didn’t know where to start.  As they both set in to rearrange our living space, I started to look at our home with new eyes.  He moved the table that we had set up for my daughter to use and play her LEGO’s on (yes, the container remained in our living area for years) out of the living room and recommended we place the table outside and the LEGO’s in her room – just to free up more living space.  As he was moving the table out of the way, I saw some cobwebs behind the TV stand and I was a bit embarrassed.   As they were getting things cleared out of the living room, I kept thinking and asking myself  how did the house get this messy and unorganized?  Granted our family has had to deal with a lot of trials and tribulations these past few months but what slowly came to me as he organized our living area into a fresh and cleaner-looking living room – was this:   Organized Home = Organized Life = Organized Mind   I can’t tell you the difference just picking up, de-cluttering and yes, cleaning up has made on the entire family’s mental state – especially mine. I love coming home to our house now and don’t feel so overwhelmed with all that needs to get done.  We still have a ton to do but we are taking it day by day.  I thought it might be fun if you all joined in with our 28-Day Challenge if you think your house could use a little TLC!   I say 28 days but there might be a day or two where we take off – life does get in the way sometimes of our plans!  But we will take it step by step and you can pick up where you need to.  I figure if I can do it – you can do it.  You see, I am not the woman, friend, sister, mom who has the Pinterest-ready house and probably never will!  But what I do want to see happen with our home is less stuff, tidier and thus our entire family enjoy our space more because things aren’t sitting around calling my name and stressing me out.  They are already in their place!  Now that’s a thought!  Plus – let’s not break the bank on this friends!  We will make some suggestions on how to take it one step further if your budget allows – but most of the suggestions will cost you little or no money!  So from one mom to another let’s get started!

 

Day One:

Start with your front entrance.  Every day you come home and are greeted by your front doorstep.  Wouldn’t it be nice if what greeted you was fresh flowers, happy plants and a tidy front doorstep rather than leaves and pine needles (our door front before we cleaned it up) and plants that needed to be replanted into larger containers or too many little containers making it looking less like a pretty garden and more messy.   Step One: Clean up the area.  We have some really nice Pine Tree’s outside our front door but that means when the Santa Ana winds come we get a nice surprise of pine needles all over our doorstep and on top of our plants.  See below!

 

Rake up the leaves, pine needles, pine cones and anything else that looks messy.  We had some pool toys sitting on our doorstep which we put in the garage in a container that will be used just for pool toys.  I recommend to create an area in the garage or purchase an inexpensive basket to place near the front entrance so people can drop their things in a centralized area. See what the area looks like now!  We clumped together some of the succulents into one large pot and saved the other pots for future plantings.

 

Step Two: See what plants need to be replanted.  We had a ton of succulents that were in small containers that just looked messy.  I looked on Pinterest for some ideas (I would recommend doing this as well to get an idea of what style you like) and found that I preferred the porches that have only a few large containers.  Perfect!  I happened to have a few in our backyard hidden behind our AC, so voila, I sprayed these off and started placing the plants I wanted in the large containers together and went to work.  This simple act of grouping the flowers together really made a difference.  The area looks much tidier and the plants look great together!

 

 

Step Three: Take items from around the house that could be used outside.  I have this wonderful Japanese lantern that was not getting much attention as it was hidden.  I placed this on our Shabby-Chic bench (got this off eBay for next to nothing) so it can be seen upon walking up the steps.  

 

I also took some of our pebbles we collected on our nature and beach walks and clumped them together near our front doorstep.  Think about things you have that would put a smile on your face after coming home from a long day at work.  Maybe it is something your children made at school for you that would look great outside!  Or maybe something you purchased years ago but didn’t have the right spot for it.  Look through your things and see what you come up with!

 

Step Four: Once you have organized the plants in large containers or replanted ones that needed it and give your plants some fresh soil and then spray everything off.  Spray off the flowers, plants, and tree’s to give them a nice bath. Then spray off your front doorstep, front door.  We even sprayed off the wall to get rid of any little bugs or dirt.

 

Step Five:  Sit back and enjoy your new front doorstep.  You can take it a step further and purchase a new doormat – I have found the ones at IKEA to be inexpensive but tons of style or even your local hardware store might have some interesting ones.  This is the first thing that you see coming into your home so why not save up and get one that will put a smile on your face! Hope these tips helped!  Post pictures of your new front porch.

 

 

I had this wooden container for years and didn’t know what to do with it – just so happened I had a pot that fit in it perfectly so I planted some succulents in them – and it looks great – if I don’t say so myself!   That is part of decluttering and redoing your place on a dime – look for things you already have and use them in new places.

Ideas to Take It A Step Further:

Paint Your Door: If you live in an Association ask them to repaint your outside door.  If you have no regulations on what color you can paint your front door – why not go with a really great color?  Like a bright red or yellow?  I plan to paint the inside of our door a great chartreuse color – high gloss is recommended for easy clean-up! Restain or Add Stone: If you are able to – why not restain the front entryway if you have wood.  If you have concrete, you can get a special cleaner just for concrete to spray it off.  Or you can look into getting stone for the entryway. I am going to look into how hard this would be for my husband and I to tackle… I mean it is concrete and some cool stones?!  But depending on the job – you could probably find someone local to do it for a great price – ask around to friends if they have a good handyman.  Have a good time beautifying up your home!   Time Spent Decluttering and Cleaning Up Front Porch: 45 minutes Money Spent:  $0 (Minus the bags of soil we had leftover and two large pots going unused in backyard).

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