Moving from 5 bed house to 3 bed flat - Help, tips, advice desperately needed please!

[Littlesizeme]

Hi all,

We have just moved from our lovely big house into a smallish 3 bedroom flat. We are a family of 5 with 3 children. 2 of them are sharing and the eldest has own room.

My problem is the decluttering. No matter how much I take to the dump/charity shop we are still overflowing with stuff! Pre-moving I took at least 50 bags to the charity shops and had 4 runs to the local dump. So it's not as though we haven't already seriously decluttered.

Has anyone been through similar? If so how did you adjust? I'm used to keeping/storing unwanted things and have to completely change my way of thinking. If only 1-2 things are not put away in this flat it looks a mess!

Main issues are - kitchen surfaces always seem piled with post, and parts of toys, other bits and pieces.

Bedrooms - we have too many clothes!! I'm reluctant to throw too much away as they can be handed down to younger children.

Toys, paperwork - a similar story - there is just too much.

Any tips will be much appreciated .....

You need to use the height in your rooms for storage. So tall tall units and shelves.

Be ruthless in the clothes you keep to hand down, anything tatty get rid of. Are you making the most of your underbed storage space?

vacuum bags for clothes? esp those waiting to be handed down and out of season stuff- or do you have a parents loft you could bung stuff in? agree with vertical storage- look at ikea for units that make the most of ceiling height.and get ruthless- if i get fed up of picking up random tat i bin it- i really do!

I live a very near clutter free life. For instance I love reading but don't keep hold of lots of books. I won't reread them and I like using library.
Also do you really need so many clothes? Only keep what is worn regularly.
We live in small space but I'm into decluttering big style. Its surprising what one actually needs.
Also do car boot sale. Kids will enjoy selling and making money.

I put clothes ready for handing down in those plastic storage bins, organised by age group. Chuck in some moth deterrers and some of those silica packs you get with shoes etc... for dampness. Then store stacked in wardrobe. I also use them for toys that aren't being played with (rotation) and for school stuff/art I want to keep. I have art folios also for paintings and drawings the DC have done, one for each DC.
Bookshelves for tyos and books.

I keep a basket for toys that aren't put away and throw them all into it, then move it to where they're supposed to be (or get DC to).
I also have a stacked filing tray, I use one slot for bills that need filing, and one each for DC school work.
I have a pen caddy to round up pens and highlighters, then they'll always be in the same place when you're looking for one.
I have just started looking very hard and things I haven't used in a couple of years and have started selling them on FB local selling pages. I've made about $500 so far and will put it towards a new camera.

I struggle with surfaces too, hopefully you'll get loads of ideas I can use also!

Definitely vacuum bag as much as you can.

Thin out plates, tea towels, bath towels. One set of bedding plus one spare, rid the rest.

Paperwork - I use thin a4 pocket wallet things and store paperwork back to back so all my household stuff is in one folder. It really reduces paper. Also cut out important details on letters and stick into diary instead of keeping the whole letter.

Expedit (or new version) up as high as you can.

Put a sort of time limit on clothes/toys/books. If it hasn't been worn or used in three months, then bin it.

Be ruthless. You really won't miss that dog-eared copy of a book you never bothered to finish reading.

Bin as you go. You don't need to wait until you do a big de-clutter if you one or two things you don't want.

Have a one-in, one-out policy when buying new clothes for the kids.

re the DCs clothes, will they all be handed down? Will you still buy new for the younger DCs as well, so they end up with tonnes? If all DCs have too many clothes, then you don't need to store everything for hand-me-downs.

Get an 'in tray' for your kitchen, so you don't end up with post everywhere. Have a filing system and shreader, don't put stuff down, deal with it then shread. Try to make a point of dealing with post by the end of hte day, sort it, put it in the filing cabinet, or bin/shread. The only post should be stuff that still needs actioning.

For as much as possible (all your bills), go paper free.

oh and while I agree on the time limits on stuff, clothes I do 12 months, or else on the first cold day of winter, you'll have no jumpers, and when the sun comes out, you've got no shorts...

The kids always tend to wear the same few favourite outfits so I was ruthless that way - they need very little in terms of underwear, pjs too. Also means that it doesn't sit around waiting to get away as there is ample room for everything plus they start actually asking for clean clothes

Draw units are another thing - ours are all high/tall ones - same footprint, more storage space!

We did similar - (though have a loft and mahoosive garage both hugely cluttered) but things as above:

Store up to the ceiling - however you manage it - boxes on cupboards etc
Think about high up shelving - a foot/10 inches down from the ceiling in places you cannot have other storage - our passage to the garage is narrow - you cannot really store stuff there - but look up and there is a shelf all the way along. I use it for rarely used stuff/excess (BOGOFF toiletries, the drill, the food processer I never use) and have a little step ladder so I can get them if I need them.
Use the top shelves/some of DCs wardrobes for bedlinen storage. Everyone's bedlinen in their own room frees up airing cupboard storage.
Back of door pockets - for itty bits - plastic hanging things from amazon

And really be tough on the declutter front. If you find it tough get a friend over to do the "touching". Apparently if you touch something you re-connect with it and find it more difficult emotionally to bin it.

Paperwork wise I love my 42 folders. Not cheap but amazingly useful - every day of the month has a folder - you just pop anything in for the month (invitations, school trip info, giving blood paperwork) into the correct date and easily find-able. And neat. If it is for next month it just goes into the next month's slot and then your deal them in to the days on the 1st iyswim [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000J6FG2C/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1]]

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000J6FG2C/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Only touch paper once. i.e. When you open a letter deal with it then and there, pay it/reply to it/add to calendar, then either file, shred or bin. Same with bits that come home in book bags.

vacuum pack clothes. sort first and label.

I brought 4 of these and stacked the kitchen. They are not pretty put brilliant for throwing clutter that accumulates in the kitchen. Mi go through them once a month and out the stuff away

www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10255897/

If your not feeling ruthless. Hire a storage unit put all clutter in it. If you don't use any of the stuff in say 6 months then bin the lot.

Thank you everyone, these are excellent. Completely agree about vertical storage. Also being ruthless! I have to be in the right frame of mind to sort through ruthlessly, especially clothes. Usually I can't help thinking about how much 'money spent' I am throwing away. But have to say I haven't missed a single item that has gone so far.

Also have trouble throwing away paperwork. Ore day I hope to have everything electronically filed on PC - will find the time for that in another lifetime perhaps!

Oh and an attractive wicker/wooden box or basket for the Small Toy Clutter is great. If DC leave stuff around I just gather it up and dump it in the basket in the corner of the sitting room. If it gets too full they have to rationalise it - ie put it away properly. Just means if I want to tidy a bit to clear my mind I can just whip their stuff away quickly. If they ask where it is, I know.

Also designate one area of the kitchen work surfaces to focus on for being clear/tidy. Train DCs/DP that if they want to put stuff down not to be there. I had to do this as everywhere got cluttered. Now the island is mine, all mine ...brahhhah haah ahhhaaa..

If you are worried about the 'money spent' aspect then get on ebay/fb selling pages / car boots and get some of it back - perhaps start saving towards a big day out for the family so everyone feels involved with it and has a reason to work towards it

I had to downsize and it's hard - but I actually now love being free of so much clutter and 'stuff'. I've still got plenty left, but it's the important bits I love/use. Keep chipping away at it and you'll learn to love the space. All this stuff weighs you down.

Storage height is very helpful. Go up rather than along a wall if possible to keep the loss of floor space to a minimum. I've got 3 short bookcases now stacked on top of each other that used to be all separate, for example. And I culled all my books till they fit in those bookcases. If I get new books, some of the other have to go. I've ended up with a nice collection of my favourite authors and the Wow! books I know I'll read again, instead of 100s of books kept because I used to love them many years ago, or they 'looked good' on the bookshelf, or I quite liked but would not read again.

Clothes - if they don't get worn regularly, cull. Apart from one or two special occasion outfits you wouldn't expect to wear a lot. But you don't need 10 Tshirts or 5 pairs of jeans or 20 pairs of shoes. I bet you only wear 3 of those T shirts, 2 of those jeans, and 3 of those pairs of shoes. I also store the out of season stuff (jumpers in summer, summer jackets in winter etc) inside my suitcase. Two lots of storage in one space that way, suitcase plus clothes.

The money you spent buying them is just as wasted sitting in a drawer unused as thrown out. And throwing out to charity shop makes it useful again. And the space you gain improves your quality of life.