There is nothing worse than sitting down after a busy day and finding your evening sanctuary is littered with abandoned toys, empty cups and random scraps of paper. And, by the time you’ve sat down, it is particularly painful to have to stand up and start tidying again. No, no, it is much wiser to simpler keep your living room free from clutter at all times so that you can enjoy luxuries like being able to find the remote control when you sit down to binge watch something on Netflix.
Here are five smart ways to keep your living room free from clutter:
1. Invest in some furniture storage
You probably have a lot of crap. That’s fine. What you need, is somewhere to store that crap to stop it becoming mess. We accumulate so much stuff, I always look for clever storage when I’m buying something new. When we bought our bed, we chose one with plenty of storage to avoid wasted space. Our television sits on an oak TV stand that features a cupboard and shelves for storage, this means all of our entertainment related items can be stored neatly away. And, even better, all our consoles and DVDs can be hidden away in the cupboard to stop the kids messing with them. We also have a bookcase in the living room to store books and other bits, though I know spend a lot of my time trying to stop Ember pulling things off it.
2. Find a way of storing toys
Toys, toys, everywhere. Everywhere. They are literally everywhere. I once found a rubber duck stuffed down the bra I was wearing (this is not what I mean by find a way of storing toys). You need some good quality, fit-for-purpose toy storage at your disposal. You need a way of quickly tidying away toys once they’ve been played with. Ideally, it should be something your children can reach so they can help you with the tidying up (but also something you can hide away so they don’t just make a mess again).
3. Have a place for your clutter
All families accumulate clutter. It’s inevitable. You get leaflets pushed through your letterbox, an endless supply of homemade arts and crafts from your kids, and more supermarket receipts than you know what to do with. All this stuff just builds up and clutters up your home. The way to avoid this is not to avoid clutter because clutter is unavoidable, but to find somewhere to keep your clutter. A kitchen drawer is a great place to hide your unseemly clutter, just make sure you sort through it every now and then so you don’t forget what’s in there.
4. Get into good habits
This is what life comes down to really, isn’t it? If you want to free your living room of clutter, you need to get rid of the clutter regularly. If you do it every day, it will take a couple of minutes at most. If you leave things to accumulate, you end up losing an hour of your life to the sorry looking pile of paper on the arm of the sofa. Get into the habit of sorting things out before you sit down for the night, just a final small job that will ensure you get to really enjoy your evening.
5. Buy less
Most of the clutter in our house is totally unnecessary. It’s receipts I didn’t need printed, mail I didn’t ask for or random bits I’ve picked up when out and about. Or, actually, sticks and stones Ebony has brought in. We just have so much stuff. I try to do a big sort out every couple of months and donate unwanted bits and bobs to the charity shop, but you know what would be easier? Just not buying it all in the first place. I need to get around to reading The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying.
Do you have any top tips for how to reduce clutter?
This is a collaborative post.