Maintaining an apartment is easier than a whole house due to smaller spaces and lack of outdoor responsibilities, but the clutter tends to pile up much faster in an apartment. Thankfully, decluttering your apartment can be simple with these twelve useful apartment tips.
Baby Steps
Breaking down a large task into multiple smaller tasks is always easier. You can break down the process however you like, but starting in one room and making your way around is a great way to declutter. Pick a system that works best for you and stick to it.
When in Doubt, Throw it Out
The best and most noticeable way to declutter is to purge. Does it bring you joy? Do you use it often? Do you need it? If the answer is no, then throw it out. Round up everything broken and things you don’t want and simply get rid of them. Donate all the clothes and shoes you no longer want. While you are doing this, grab any regular garbage from around your apartment and throw it out, too!
Physical to Electrical Saves Space
Use your technology to save space and declutter. A pile of bills and paperwork on your kitchen table can be scanned into your computer and organized. them there rather than having the clutter on your table. If you want to have more photos but have run out of wall space, find a digital photo frame that can play a slideshow of your favorite snapshots.
Products With Multiple Uses
“If you can find it, use it.” Same rules apply to cleaners and tools for your apartment, too. A ceiling-mounted projector is going to save more space than a wall-mounted TV. Skip cable and a DVD player with a Smart TV. Use technology like Amazon’s “Alexa” or “Google Home” to control your entertainment center and make losing remotes a thing of the past.
Furniture with Storage
You can normally find furniture with built-in storage to help you utilize the most of your apartment’s space. Even putting drawers in your coffee table will go a long way. Ottomans with storage inside are a common find as well. You can also use a see-through bookshelf for a room divider that doubles as storage space. Overcoming functional fixedness leads to innovative storage ideas. Use a shower-curtain bottle-caddy to hang your shoes over the back of a door.
Furniture Multiple Purposes
Buying furniture with more than one purpose saves space and money. Murphy beds are an excellent space-saving option allowing you to make your bedroom a multi-purpose room during the day. Sofas that pull-out into beds are a great for overnight guests. Barstools rather than chairs at your kitchen table take up less space and can easily be stacked and moved when not in use.
As Little Visual Clutter As Possible
Purging visual clutter is one way to make your apartment feel larger than it really is. Prevent your apartment from looking “busy” by keeping a color scheme and decorating theme. Too many patterns and textures and dark color hues make spaces appear smaller than they really are. Keep what you space you have and choose lighter colors to open things up. Less is more. A few-larger decorations will open up a space while many-small decorations will close up a space.
Tidy Up
Correct management of personal belongings is the best way to avoid clutter. If you always put it where it goes, it never gets out of place to begin with. Spend some time when you finish decluttering and make a system to keep your entire apartment in ship-shape. All you have to do is keep things where they belong, and you should not have to reorganize any time soon.
Utilize Floor to Ceiling Space
Don’t forget to organize up. Use tall shelving or bookcases to expand your storage to the ceiling. You can use a rack in the kitchen to hang your pots and pans from the ceiling keeping valuable cupboard space open. Hang photos damage-free on the walls instead of displaying them on shelves.
Routine Cleaning
Clean and declutter your apartment often to avoid your mess getting too big to fix. You can use applications on your phone to keep you on course for cleaning and organizing. Set reminders on your phone to do quick, simple tasks throughout the week. Sorting through your clothes twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall, will help you keep your closet clean and your style fresh!
If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Wear It, Donate It
Clothes are accumulations we don’t think about until our closet is overflowing. If you cannot decide which items to part with, flip all of your hangers around and see which ones have not been flipped at the end of the season; this is an easy way to know what clothes you wear and what you should donate.
See, Think, Deny or Buy
Living in a booming city with bountiful shopping is fun, but it also makes it easy to overspend and accumulate more clutter. When you go out shopping, ask yourself if you truly need the item and if you have space for it. If the answer to either of these is “no” then deny it! If the answer is “yes” then buy it. Make smarter consuming choices and the only clutter accumulating will be dollars in your wallet.
