Donate Your Old Clothes
September 4th, 2008
One of the big things that clutter up a house is clothing. Even if you keep your clothes organized and neat in your closets there is a good chance that you’ve got a bunch of clothes that you no longer use or no longer fit. A great way to declutter your house is to go through all those old clothes and get rid of the ones that you don’t use or don’t fit.
Be ruthless
I know I’ve made impulse purchases in the past where I bought clothes and never wore them. It was a good idea at the time but I ended up wasting money on something that now takes up space in my closet and my dressers. Get rid of this stuff, even if there’s a tag still attached to the item. If you’re particularly attached to your old clothes have a friend help you sort through the clothing. Reducing clutter can really simplify your house.
Donate
Rather than simply throwing out the clothing donate it, most cities have charities that accept clothing as donations. If the clothing you’re getting rid of is in pretty good shape give it to one of these charities. By doing this you can help while clearing out clutter.
Technorati Tags: decluttering, closet organization, clothes donation
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6 Steps to Painting a Room
August 21st, 2008
When it comes down to it most people don’t like to paint it can be hard work when you make a mistake its there until you repaint. I’ve done a whole bunch of painting lately and I’ve gotten a system in place that makes it as painless as possible
- Plan out your project – Start off by figuring out everything that you need to do. This holds true with every project and its no less true here. When you plan out a painting job you’ll know everything you need and the steps you need to take.
- Prep the room – First off you need to make sure you can get at the walls easily and that they’re clean. If you’ve got any holes to patch do that first.
- Tape what needs to be taped – Use painters tape (it comes off easier). Tape the ceilings, baseboards, around windows and outlets and anything that needs to be taped.
- Paint the first coat – Start with the edging then paint with the roller
- Check to see if additional coats are needed – after the first coat you’ll know if you need to paint a second or third coat (repeat the painting as necessary)
- Remove the tape and put the room back in order
Overall painting a room shouldn’t be a big ordeal though many people make out to be one. If you plan ahead and prepare painting a room with 2 coats should take no more than a few hours including the wait time between coats. Wait a couple hours to remove the tape and guess what, you’re done. A simple way to improve your house!
A couple things to keep in mind – if you’re not sure about primers or what type of paint to use talk to your paint specialist. These people are around paint all the time and they know what you could expect. Their recommendations can save you lots of time (and energy).
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Painting – A Simple Way to Improve Your House
August 19th, 2008
A simple coat of paint is probably the easiest way to change a room up without spending a fortune and at the same time adding value to your house. A coat of paint can make a small room look bigger and an over sized room look cozier. I’ve been painting our new house over the past few weeks and I am now starting to realize how powerful a coat of paint can be. Our new house was all painted with one colour and it was this ugly yellowish brown colour that wasn’t flattering to anything else in the house. Now with some different paint choices (and a lot of whites) the house looks a lot better.
We chose a lot of whites because of our furniature and the colour of the carpets but we accented this with curtain colours and an accent wall. The house now has a very bright feel to it that wasn’t present before. These bright walls really make the rooms seem larger where before the coolish darker colours really made is seem old.
Now we started the painting process from day one of moving in so the rooms were empty when the painting started thus we missed out on a great way to improve our house. When you take on a painting project you have the great opportunity to declutter the room and throw things out. It forces a detailed cleaning of the room which can really help as much as the paint.
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A clean slate
July 3rd, 2008
The main reason that I wanted to start this blog was to write about my experiences in simplifying our new house. I started this site before we got into our new house in hopes that I would be able to get a jump start on the process. Unfortunately life doesn’t always give us the time to do what we would like. We’re in our new house now and we’re starting to get things organized.
We, my wife and I, have a clean slate for the simplified house and a great deal of stuff that we need to do. There are more things to do than I would like but the most important part is that we’ve got a fresh start and some extra space to get ourselves organized. The first project that we’ll be undertaking before we unpack everything is painting the walls – though this will have to be done around working schedules. A significant chunk of this will happen over the weekend and I’ll post about our experiences early next week.
Keeping a house simple shouldn’t be hard but I find that our lives are inundated with stuff and clutter that are totally unnecessary. We buy all sorts of new things and when it comes down to it there’s no reason to spend all that extra money or keep all that stuff. I tried to declutter as I packed but inevitably a lot of stuff came along for the move. After the paining it will be time for another round of decluttering.
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Need to Clean? Invite Guests
June 3rd, 2008
One of the things I remember most about Rita Emmett’s book The Procrastinator’s Handbook
The benefit here is that we don’t have to clean the place from top to bottom when we invite our friends over; we just have to make it neat and tidy. This is a great way to get yourself into gear and it works quite well, at least for me because by inviting someone over we set a deadline for ourselves and we don’t have the luxury to be half done when they arrive. It also prevents us from making more of the job than a quick tidying up is.
Another thing to remember is this quick clean is a great starting point for keeping your place neat and organized all the time. Maintaining a clean house or a clean kitchen is less effort than doing a mass cleaning once in a while (and mentally less draining). If you need more ideas on motivating yourself especially if you’re a procrastinator check our Rita Emmett’s book: The Procrastinator’s Handbook
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Start Small
April 30th, 2008
Getting organized and simplifying your house can be a daunting task especially if your place is a small disaster area. Don’t get overwhelmed and quit before you begin. Start small – even 5 minutes a day can make a huge impact. That 5 minutes a day ads up to 1825 minutes a year or 30 hours and 25 minutes. If I haven’t gotten your attention yet this is almost a full work week (actually almost 4 work days). Imagine what you could do in that 30 hours of time.
By starting small you can start making a dent right away in organizing your house. Understandably 5 minutes doesn’t allow you to repaint the walls or refinish the floors but it’s enough time to pick the dirty laundry off the floor and put it in the hamper or washing machine. Just to get you stared here’s a list of 5 minute ideas that you can start with:
- get a load of laundry going
- pick up dirty laundry and put it in the hamper
- take out the trash
- start a folder for your mail
- pay your bills and file the receipts away
- load your dishwasher
Remember start small, each and every 5 minutes makes a difference however small. This is what I’ve done to get the decluttering and organizing process started.
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Welcome to My Simple House
April 27th, 2008
Welcome to My Simple House, a blog about simplifying your home and keeping it that way. We all live in a world of more more more and we’re inundated with information and a glut of stuff. This blog will show you hints for decluttering and keeping things simple. From simple cleaning techniques to ways of getting rid of all of our junk this sites focus is simplicity.
Don’t let the name of this site fool you its not just for house owners but for anyone who has a place to live and wants to keep it simple, neat and organized. By keeping our living spaces organized we have one less thing to worry about as we go about our days.
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