Spring Cleaning 101: Kiss Clutter Goodbye
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 10:47AM 
If you’re planning to do some serious spring-cleaning, the first step is clearing out everything that’s been piling up around the house all winter. For those of us with a tendency to horde, de-cluttering can be daunting, but the real hurdle is just figuring out where to start. We compiled this expert advice to kick-start your journey to a clutter-free home:
Take it one room at a time. Unless you’re a housekeeping dynamo (in which case you probably wouldn’t be reading this), you’ll find tackling household clutter far more manageable if you don’t think of it as a mammoth basement-to-attic chore. Tackle one of the lesser problem areas first, then ease your way in to the more challenging rooms once you’ve gotten into the de-cluttering groove.
Reclaim your storage spaces. If closets, basements, and utility rooms are crammed with stuff you barely recognize, let alone use, clear those out first. Recycle or throw away anything you don’t truly need, and find a home for the items that you decide are really keepers. Once you’ve freed up space in your storage areas, you’ll be amazed at how much you can actually store in them.
Don’t neglect the small places. Your desk drawers, the medicine cabinet, even the “junk drawer” are all places we tend to stash stuff and forget about it. Do you really need that dried up inkpad or that rusty protractor? You definitely won’t be taking that expired ibuprofen or the prescription allergy pills from 2007. Purging the junk from your small storage spaces will create room to stow away items you use but don’t necessarily want on display.
Sources: Parentables.com, unclutterer.com
Lisa Moore - Job Coordinator
