4 Steps to Getting Your Home Shiny and Happy!

Photo courtesy of BMB Photography

This year I’ve been on a mission to get our home decluttered and organized. I’ve read several books that recommend steps for getting and keeping your home organized and drop-by ready. I’ve had more than my share of situations where friends and neighbors stop-by and I have to apologize for the state of the house and I was tired of that. Don’t get me wrong, life happens, houses get messy (and dirty) but I wanted a home that would be 1) happy 2) organized and 3) peaceful. I find when I have less clutter I feel more at peace in my home. How about you? Are you affected emotionally when the house is disorganized and messy? Here are some steps I took this year to get my home drop-by ready!

Declutter, and then Declutter Some More:

Books that I found helpful while I tackled our home that probably could have been featured on A&E Hoarders include Marie Kondo’s books The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and her latest book Spark Joy. What I gained from reading her books and following (most) of her suggestions is to only have in my home things I actually use and love. This sounds easy enough but during the decluttering process I found that I have a hard time letting things go. Interesting how that can play into other aspects of one’s life. I kept singing the Disney soundtrack of Frozen’s “Let It Go” while I went from room to room, closet to closet and drawer to drawer.

Ms. Kondo’s advice for keeping items organized in categories made sense to me and I found that our things finally had a place to be stored in. This made it easy to get my daughter and husband participating in keeping the house picked-up and most importantly knowing where to place the items.

Do take your time with this step as it has taken me months and months to get our home decluttered. Just yesterday, we finally tackled our spare bedroom as it was a holding place for stuff. Lots of odds and ends – it was bad folks! But after 6 bags of trash, 4 bags of donated goods, and a couple boxes I’ll be sending out to friends, the room is finally starting to look like a spare room and not a dumping ground. Yikes! I’ll post a reveal once it is finished.

Get Your Family Involved:

I found the Peter Walsh book It’s All Too Much (great title!) very useful, especially the section about getting your family involved in helping create the home you deserve and desire. Once you’ve decluttered to your satisfaction, I would look at each room and see what function you and your family would like it to be used for. Maybe your living room is currently where the kids play and store their toys and you’d rather it be used as a gathering place for the entire family where you don’t have to push toys aside. Peter offers a Function Chart in his book and asks that you break down your rooms into charts.

For example: The Living Room. Ask and answer the questions: what is its current function and what is its ideal function. Who Uses It? Who Should Use It? What Should It Contain and What Has to Go? I found this chart helped organize the entire family and figure out where things should go and what we want the rooms to be used for. You might find that you currently need to store the children’s toys in the living room but once their rooms are decluttered you can organize their favorites in baskets that can be carried from room to room easily so they don’t live in the living room anymore.

Find Cleaning Products that Work:

Use cleaning products that actually work at keeping your home sparkly. I’ve tried about every cleaning product out there and I keep coming back to one of my favorites for getting my windows and mirrors clean – Windex®! It just does the best job and when you have a slobbering dog and active kid this comes in handy. Our sliding glass doors are constantly needing some attention since Max likes to press his face up against the door when we are having dinner or if he feels he has had enough time in the backyard (which usually coincides with our dinnertime). Windex® remains the best streak-free  cleaner that tackles mirrors, glass and electronics and is America’s #1 glass cleaner*.

I find my mirrors are streak-free and shiny after using Windex® but you can also use it on: sealed granite and marble, glass shower doors, chrome bathroom fixtures, lucite, tile, plastic, vinyl, aluminum and more. When I want to get my counters shiny and bright, I always use Windex®. My sister-in-law even asked me how I get them so sparkly! And when Max and my daughter do a number on our sliding windows, it is always Windex I turn to to get rid of the smudges (kid fingerprints and dog nose prints).   You can find Windex and other awesome cleaning products at your local Walmart in the Home Cleaning section.

Cleaning up doesn’t need to be something you dread.  I’ve found that if I keep it up daily it helps cut back on the amount of time I have to spend on the weekends.  At night, I’ll tidy things up for about 15 minutes and this really helps!  If you aren’t already doing this, start taking 15 minutes to put toys, etc. away and pick up.  Have the family pitch in and have everyone put their things away in their rooms before bedtime.  You’ll see that in no time at all your house will be back to drop-by ready!

Style to Your Hearts Content: 

One of my favorite stylists and interior designers is Emily Henderson. I love her use of color, patterns and textures in surprising ways. Her new book Styled is very useful when deciding how you want to get your home styled the way you like best. From tips on what to look for at flea markets to how to style your bookcases, this is a really awesome book. And if you aren’t sure what your style is exactly, she has you take a quiz to find out what “category” you fit under. And you could be like me and fit into several styles. I’m a mix of mid-century modern, Zen, Scandinavian with some hints of bohemian thrown in. She describes the difference between a stylists as someone who uses what you already have whereas an interior decorator is about finding new items to put in your house. For the sake of keeping costs down, I used what I already had to update our home.

There were a few additions like some pretty new pots and some fun vases. Once you’ve decluttered your home, you will find that you can use what you already have to update your home. And it will also allow you to see what you might be lacking that will bring it the home you desire. Here’s to living in the home that you’ve always wanted!

*Claim based on data reported by Nielsen Scantrack in Household Glass Cleaner category for 52 weeks ending 10.31.15. Total US XAOC. Copyright © 2015, The Nielsen Company.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Windex® and SC Johnson Company. All opinions and text are entirely my own. #SCJMessyMoments

 

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