If you are very tidy to the point of being minimalist - how do you do it?

[drspouse]

We are probably getting our house ready to sell and it really, really needs a complete declutter (we do have too much stuff) and needs us to keep it tidy (many of our things do have a place to go but never get put back there!) but also I feel like there are a lot of things that I cannot actually think what we could do with them.

So for example:
Our bedroom is not too bad. I need to keep an eye on the top of our dresser (random stuff out of DH's pockets) and my own bedside table (discarding one book and starting another) but I've recently cleared ALL the junk off the window sill. Our wardrobe is very full (we share one) and it has irritating open shelves beside and on top (so you can always see badly folded clothes) but we could actually get doors installed, and I could slim down my wardrobe, and it would be a place of peace and harmony.

But our hallway for example - we have a hat rack, a standing coat rack, a wall coat rack, a DC/DH shoe rack, a DC standing coat rack, and some quite nice looking boxes on a high shelf and it is still rammed full to the point where we cannot hang up guests' coats and our coats fall off the racks.

And another difficult point is our big living room which is also a play room. We gave away about 75% of our books and 50% of our CDs a few years ago but they always seem to be overflowing the shelves. I usually give a book to the charity shop as soon as I've read it. There are also boxes of photos, maps etc. on the shelves and they just look a mess.

We have a consistent type of toy storage (stackable wooden boxes that we only stack 2 high) and the DCs are pretty good at putting back their Lego, but puzzles etc. don't fit in the boxes so stick out, the DCs have a bookshelf but everything is always falling off, and there are an awful lot of things that just don't seem to have an "away" to go to, e.g. we have some Fisher Price Little People houses/barns that won't fit in boxes, a couple of ride on toys etc.

And the kitchen - not only are there loads of jars etc. lining up on the worktops, food processor and biscuit barrel on top of the microwave, but the tops of all the cupboards always seem to be full of spare food, big bag of rice, boxes of cereal, picnic cooler etc. etc.

It's doing my head in! And of course it looks bad for potential viewers.

So for the meantime we could easily get a storage facility and put loads of the kids toys in there - but coats for example - I feel like we wear all of them! And they just look messy all hung up.

It does sound like you have more reasons why you don't want to do this than reasons to do it. I have a utility with coat hooks for coats, wellies and outdoor shoes also in there. Plus overalls etc for dh. I have a larder for food and equipment. I don't have much wardrobe space so store out of season clothes in the loft then swop them over. If I haven't worn something for two years it goes. Same with toys and kids clothes, I go through them several times a year. I have a cleaner on a Thursday so wed is tidy night. Everyone helps if they don't put their stuff away it goes in the bin. You either want to be tidy or you don't - simple as !

I think you have have to be really ready and ruthless.

Things like oil bottles don't need to be out on the counter or oats on top of cupboards. Just make a shopping list/meal plan and stick to it. So if you are afraid you will have no rice for a chilli meal- check before you head shopping

The coats- I totally agree- we use lots and they all have a purpose. We have a hemnes shoe holder and a rack for children's coats. Dh and I keep outs behind a door.

Also have two large frying pans and need them as I batch Cook at weekends. But other areas - you can really cut down. I had a huge cull of toys, books, cardigans, toiletries.

It is very easy to clean our house now (I think 16 black bags went)

See you just have more stuff that doesn't even exist in our kitchen.

Toaster - don't have. Just use grill in oven if wanted toast.

Microwave - don't have. Just use hob or oven to warm anything

Coffee machine - don't have

Slow cooker - dont have.

So none of those things are cluttering up kitchen to start with.

Our kitchen sides have nothing when not in use. Stuff like utensils or knifes live in drawers with cutlery.

By oats I mean we would buy a large bag and fill large jar. If the excess didn't fit would just stand in cupboard next to jar. But each jar fits a 1kg + so generally don't ever need more. Wouldn't buy more until almost gone

You should search Pinterest. Keyword - storage ideas. Or wardrobe storage.

Will the wardrobe shelves fit a basket of some sort to put your clothes in? That way you can't see they aren't folded and it'll look neat and tidy.
I'm currently very slowly decorating our new home and I'm just constantly thinking of ways to maximise storage and keep it neat.
It's a work in progress but Pinterest has given me a lot of inspiration.
Under bed drawers are my next buy for bed sheets etc then I'll have space in the cupboard for something else, and vacuum packed bags for summer/winter/blankets/baby cloths/coats for the loft. I really enjoy tidying.

I think somebody asked you what you would take from a fire. I would take children.

How are you not doing that?

I think you are focusing too much on what you need and not enough on how wonderful it will be to have a tidy and uncluttered house.

Just start throwing/giving things away. As long as you keep getting rid of stuff your clutter will reduce. Try to do one black bin bag a day to start with (it's easier at the start) for as long as you can keep it up. Then once that seems to be too time consuming change to a smaller bag, and just keep getting rid of stuff.

Number one rule though, is don't buy more stuff to replace the old stuff! For every item into the house, 10x that amount must leave. Eventually you will be happy with the amount of stuff you have and it will be easier to maintain.

I'm sure it's been said, but start with the easy stuff, the low hanging fruit. Don't worry about the coats you do use, but start clearing out the clothes/shoes that you don't use. Same with kitchen stuff, books etc etc etc. Focus on that first and it will (a) make space for storing the stuff you like and (b) start to show you the benefits of decluttering, and then you will find yourself realising that actually you can lose maybe one more saucepan or one more shelf of books or whatever. It isn't an all or nothing process, and there's no requirement to start with the hardest stuff.

Ava have you replied to the wrong thread?

Art see, to me, not having a toaster is just weird. So inefficient and slow to use the grill.

If I looked round a house and there was no toaster I'd wonder why!

Not having a microwave is eccentric, life is also more efficient with one, but more of a preference. And we use the slow cooker loads, no it does not need to be out all the time and that's the kind of thing we need to think about. Not everyone likes them, but they are not really OTT I don't think.

Ponder no shelves in wardrobe - really we have 1 small wardrobe in our room, hanging rail for the kids, a big house but not very big rooms and almost zero storage!
So will be madly Pinteresting for the new place but currently stuff needs to go permanently or temporarily.

Hopefully Good plan and I now have 3 colours of bags: black for rubbish, green for recycling, white for charity.

Several classes of things have plans (store, get rid, donate) but I have 100s of photos... losing the will to live...

I love a declutter thread but I think you're doing this too soon OP!

We're half way through moving so I can't actually yet say that our approach is successful, but so far:

1. Pack everything that's not in cupboards into boxes and store out of sight (friends' garage, boot of the car, whatever). Throw out anything that you easily can but don't focus on it, the idea is just to sell the house.
2. Spend weekends househunting while people are viewing your house. Or else days out so that you don't mess up your pristine ready-for-viewers house.
3. Once you have your buying/selling chain established, recover anything essential you've stashed for a few months until you're packing to move (and keep throwing out anything easy).
4. Move house and have a BIG declutter as you unpack.
5. With your wonderful new house and only the things you need, then buy new storage and make sure everything has a home.
6. Rejoice

So far we've only done 1-3...
I am not really a Kondo fan but having read the book I did very much agree with her principle that there is no point buying storage when you haven't decluttered.

Eccentric not having a microwave? Why? It would be maybe used for soup warming or whatever but can be done on hob easily.

No toaster isn't eccentric either, you already have a grill to toast so seems pointless having multiple things that do the same job. We don't eat toast daily either. If toast is something you eat several times a day then I suppose it's worth having.

Most things though just keep in cupboard. If slow cooker really is used multiple times a week, keep. But put it away after use.

Stuff like oil and similar put away after use, they aren't being used all day.

OP, you seem to have a lot of stuff as you know. I think I would just go through gradually decreasing stuff you really don't use first. Then gradually go through reducing other items after once you have made first bit of space.

Thanks Giraffes, nice to hear from someone in the same boat.

We may actually be able to buy/decorate before moving in (complicated set of circumstances but one of the reasons we are moving is that despite having 4 beds, our house is really not huge or expensive and we've had it for ages so almost no mortgage).

I've already cleared out one storage footstool (not a big thing but a thing nonetheless) and as we move stuff to storage we will be decluttering.

But will bear in mind not to move everything and then buy storage - however I think from comments on here even from those who are quite tidy, we do have a ridiculously small amount of cupboard space in our current place, meaning everything is on view!

I can understand hanging on to the microwave and toaster. It takes 5 minutes for our grill to even approach hot enough for toasting, which is ridiculous if you just want a slice for one of the kids, after school. PLus DS1, who is a teen with SN, uses the toaster and microwave but is too scatty to use the grill or hob safely.

We did downsize our microwave when we replaced it with a much, less ancient one, recently. They seem to have got bigger, lately, so our choice was small.

OTOH, I love my kitchenaid mixer, magimix food processor and particularly my actifry, but can manage without them for a few months (I have a hand blender with mini chopper than I use more than my processor, anyhow, simply because it's easier to clean!). Even though I'm using my breadmaker daily, at the moment, I avoid using it in summer, as it makes the kitchen hot, so will probably put that in storage, too.

Dr - I can almost guarantee your kitchen in your 4bed house is bigger than ours in our 1bed flat.

I've tried Kondo-ing, and while it IS helpful, it hasn't been 'the answer' for me.

What helped?

• her idea of doing 'categories' rather than rooms is genius. I'm like you, I have coats for different occasions, and I would have said before I looked at what we had that everything was essential. But actually it turned out that we had waterproof trousers AND, hidden away on a bag on a peg in the bike shed, the 'backup' ones (old ones, basically not waterproof at all any more). DCs had at least 2 coats each, even though they only wear one (the other couldn't be given away, but could be put away more thoroughly). I found it very helpful to do things in a lump.
• Food/pan storage. We cook pretty much everything from scratch, and all our food is in 1 60cm under-cabinet unit, one set of shelves (about 1m by 1m x 10cm, glass jars) plus a corner under-cabinet unit. On pans, if you heat milk etc. in a frying pan, could you get rid of a little saucepan? How many cake tins do you need?
• Kondoing clothes (folding them up properly) frees up almost scary amounts of space - watch out that you don't fill it again!

"Art see, to me, not having a toaster is just weird. So inefficient and slow to use the grill."

I agree that not having a toaster is inefficient. Ours gets used every morning. I have burned far too many slices of bread under the grill to do without a toaster.

We use our microwave a lot. I wouldn't be without one.

I use my microwave and toaster and coffee maker every day.

But when I move I'm getting rid of my kettle and getting a hot water tap.

Haven't read the whole thread yet but just wanted to add that the kallax storage from IKEA is fab - especially for children's bits, we have a few of them around our home (one in a store cupboard for all our shoes and hats etc, one in each child's room and one in living room for dvds etc)

We live in an apartment and struggle a bit with space - I find unless I am almost constantly tidying then it does start to look messy/cluttered, but I make a big effort to completely clean at least one room a day and tidy as much surface mess from other rooms as I have time for daily

Sorry just re read that you are moving so probably not looking to buy storage, ignore me

When we sold our house we shoved stuff in the loft, at the neighbours. In the car! Just do that.
I also need a zillion coats, which is why I'm looking forward to a bigger house

In my experience people with very tidy, minimalist houses work quite hard at it! My MIL has quite a minimalist home- no toaster, microwave or dryer, very few books etc and it's just more effort and organisation than having stuff. If you like having lots of stuff you need a big house with good storage or accept that it will always be a bit messy- but you don't have to take food out of the freezer the night before or wait 2 hours for a jacket spud!

Oops! Maybe I read it wrong, I was referring to the baskets for when you said this 'Our wardrobe is very full (we share one) and it has irritating open shelves beside and on top (so you can always see badly folded clothes) but we could actually get doors installed'

Nicky that's really interesting - I think I don't know people like that, or else they don't want to be my friend!

Re wardrobe/baskets the shelves beside it are a bit teeny (think 2-3 pairs of pyjamas) but as we need to use the space above while we're selling, I'm getting some under bed boxes to put there to look at least a bit tidy.

OK so you can now see all the kitchen cupboard tops. 5 bags for the charity shop and I've located one you can drive to, and as a bonus I found a box of lebkuchen. Yum.

Need to store one cupboard of stuff so a few more things can go out of sight, and eat one jar of muesli.

Picking up boxes tomorrow when I only have DD and babysitter, van and storage unit booked for Sat!

Do you really need a smart coat for work? I just wear my normal 'all purpose' coat ( like this one - www.millets.co.uk/womens/207293-peter-storm-womens-phillipa-down-parka.html/480515/?istCompanyId=b238823a-59fd-4816-9c36-7dd47877f2a8&istItemId=xxmrqqrmqp&istBid=tztx&gclid=CN3pjK3r4NECFRXjGwodN5AAMg ) over my smart clothes and then take it off when I get there. Different if you travel around/meet people out and about I suppose but if you're just office based then it's unnecessary. It's also the coat I use for school run, walks etc.