Thursday, June 24, 2021

Home Style || Decluttering All Over Again & Why Things Unravel


In the first lock down I got stuck right into decluttering, it kept me busy and as we were all home, all the time, every extra inch of space that we could free up was highly valuable! I gradually worked my way around the house, with mountains of rubbish and charity bags forming, we soon had a very organised home, with areas like our pantry all neatly in baskets of cleaning products, garden tools and pet accessories. Everything had a place and we knew where to find things, no drawers struggled to open and inside there would only be things we need and no piles of paper, old bills or collections of 'sentimental items' that we could have just kept one of, not a thousand!

Fast forward to now and although it's not quite as bad as it was before that first proper full house declutter, it is pretty bad! The baskets are piled with different items, our wardrobes are bulging again and the drawers are full of god knows what. Paperwork sits on every surface downstairs in one place or another and the coat racks are over flowing. 


Absolutely not my home!

Once again, the mental strain of living in mild chaos is pretty overwhelming and although I don't now have six weeks locked in to sort the house, I do need to get stuck in, tackling one small thing at a time. It's crazy that in just a year, this much 'stuff' has returned to our home and I honestly don't know how it all gets here. I've been thinking about how things have unravelled quite so much and I think it's mainly down to these:

Paperwork - I don't deal with letters and things when we get them, instead I neatly stack them one by one until they are just everywhere! We don;t get so many school letters now, but we get a lot of junk mail that hangs around and pointless bank letters. We also get the kids bringing home lots of things like colouring sheets they did at lunchtime that are half done and never get finished. This will be first on my list to tackle!

Clothes - I have curbed my charity shop addiction a little, but I do still dabble and having had a little sort out of my clothes last week, I can see that most of it is second hand bits that I got that never fit. These just need to be bagged up and sent to another charity shop, some still with tags! Of course, I'll be carrying on trying to buy less and be more choosy too. The kids have also grown soooo much over the past year that I'd say a good half of their wardrobe doesn't fit. Things that we kept last year are grown out of now, so a big de-stash of non fitting clothes all round is much needed.

Random kid buys - You know when you go to the shops and the kids want a magazine with crappy free gifts, you grab them a happy meal with a toy or just buy little £1 things here and there to keep them happy? Well those things all add up massively too, so I'm going to try and buy less of these and donate the things we have that were a one minute wonder.

Gifts - Since that mass declutter, we've had birthdays and Christmas, so needless to say the kids do pretty well and still have so much sat there like craft kits to make and games to play. Gifts are great, but we really need to try and have a clear out before big events with present giving, so that there is space for new shiny things! With their birthdays and Christmas quickly approaching once again, we really have to get stuck in.

These are the main reasons things got bad again and I think as things start to build up, it's harder to keep things organised or be motivated to put things back where they should be. Also, I found when in a hurry we'd just chuck things anywhere, and so with all this we find ourselves back in a cluttered home. I'm gradually getting started by removing things in one room at a time. I'll be starting with the paperwork downstairs, but then I find room by room far easier to work through.


Have you decluttered your home? How did you find it after?