Whether you are getting ready to sell your Stamford home, or just need a fresh start for the summer, decluttering is one of the first steps to take to give it a clean slate. If you think about everything in your home that you want to get rid of, it can be overwhelming. However, real estate professionals and home stagers talk about strategies that can help you get the job done quickly and with the lowest amount of stress possible. With this decluttering checklist, your Stamford home will be decluttered and look new in no time.
Get supplies ready
To declutter you need a place to put all that stuff. You can work with heavy-duty trash bags, boxes, or a mixture of the two. If you have a lot of clothes to give away, trash bags are ideal. Boxes can also be used to create designated piles for keep, donate, later, and toss (more on that below). A marker and tape to label the boxes and bags, and maybe your favorite motivational music can be all you need to start moving through all that stuff.
Make a list
If you have a larger home or a particularly overwhelming mess to deal with in any size home, then making a list can help you get a handle on the situation. You will want to make a list of the different areas of your home that need to be cleared out. For example: hallway closet, main bathroom under the sink, and kids’ closet. Once you have a list of the areas that need to get done, you can then rank them in order of easiest to most difficult, based on how much time you think it will take.
Start with the easiest room first
You might be hung up on decluttering because you are thinking about the overwhelming job of going through your garage or extra bedroom. Selling a home is a great motivator to declutter your home. Instead of getting overwhelmed, you can focus first on the easy areas to tackle to start feeling like you have momentum with your decluttering job. Under the sink or a drawer in the kitchen can be easy places to start.
Embrace the KonMari method
Marie Kondo made a name for herself by encouraging people to keep only those items that “spark joy.” A sentimental item might stay, but a sweater that no longer fits you might not. For this method, it can be helpful to assess items by categories like coffee mugs, shoes, and handbags. The boxes for keep, donate, toss, and later, can be helpful here as you can put items you are stuck on in the later box and go through everything in there at the end of your decluttering journey.
Take it outside
One mistake that every declutter is in danger of is keeping those boxes of sorted stuff in your house for too long — and then inevitably going through the boxes and taking items out to put back in your house. To avoid this situation, you want to remove stuff from your house as soon as possible, ideally at the end of a day or a weekend decluttering session. Once the stuff is gone you can feel the relief of having more space in your home.
Decluttering your Stamford home is easier than you think — the most difficult step is to get started.
