Because there always comes a time when you need to literally clear your home in order to breathe better and regain precious square footage, follow our tips for getting rid of the superfluous and thus decluttering your interior.
Let's face it: your propensity to keep everything is starting to become problematic. Piles of unidentified clothes, papers and belongings are piling up in your home, and you don't know where to turn. You may even have difficulty finding certain things or cannot reach certain areas of your home. It's time to act ! Because if after a while you no longer even see the mess that is gathering, it is certainly causing you latent stress and draining your energy. So find an interior full of serenity where everything is organized and in its place, and in which life is good, thanks to 7 storage tips that are very easy to set up.
1. Don't do it all at once
First tip and not the least: don't try to put everything in your home all at once. It will surely be impossible anyway, unless you really don't have a lot of stuff to sort out, and that will only discourage you. You will give up in full storage and start again from zero, or almost.
Instead, aim for small sessions each day or weekend, of 15 or 20 minutes, which, because you will finish them, will motivate you and encourage you to keep going.
You can also start with the storage of a drawer, a shelf or a piece of furniture: realistic goals that you will be proud to achieve.
2. Don't wait for the perfect moment
As often in life, we would like there to be a moment that is perfectly suited to each of our actions. Since this is usually not the case, take the lead and create this moment: tidying up is now!
Finish reading this article and start then; after that, nothing can stop you.
3. Get organized
Help yourself in this task that you have postponed for so long by organizing yourself as much as possible. Easier to write than to do, that's true, especially when you have a basic organizational problem, but rest assured, it's just a matter of tidying up effectively your interior.
To do this, provide yourself with various bags or baskets to list what you will be able to give, sort, recycle, classify, repair, or even store in the cellar or attic. Also, provide a bag for items that do not belong to the room you are putting away, in order to put them back in the right place.
This sorting through your things will help you see more clearly and motivate you to take the next step, which is to take care of the contents of these different bags and baskets.
4. Proceed piece by piece
Once again, do not try to put everything away at the same time in your home: you might get scattered and waste a lot of time trying for example to put each element found in its original room, to end up feeling overwhelmed and overwhelmed. not being able to continue.
Start with one room and finish putting it away before tackling another.
Our advice? Start this storage session in your bedroom, a real alcove that should not cause any stress in you, to always offer you optimal rest. First, tidy up your bedside table, eliminating the superfluous, then your dresser and any shelves. Then tackle your wardrobe or your dressing room, where the greatest sorting will be done. Because, you know, we are all the same: our closet is packed, but we never have anything to put on!
Take plenty of time if necessary, but critically analyze your various clothes, underwear, accessories, shoes and bags to keep only the essentials. And for the favorite outfits you have left, the ones you absolutely cannot do without, you will have to pamper them to keep them as long as possible.
Proceed in the same way for each room, piece of furniture by piece of furniture, zone by zone; try toobserve each place with an outside eye to better see the bazaar that perhaps you no longer see exactly.
5. Ask yourself the right questions
And every time, for every pile of stuff, every object, we will have to ask the right questions, the questions that annoy a little perhaps. Yes, it will take time, but for a successful spring cleaning, to really clear your home, it will be absolutely necessary.
It's not about living in a completely minimalist environment if that's not your goal, but appreciating all the material things around you, choosing them and never putting up with them. Because it's one thing to want to keep something that reminds you of fond memories, but quite another to want to keep everything, "just in case."
We therefore take the example of the famous Marie Kondo, the storage specialist, and for each of our cases, we wonder if this object gives us pleasure or is useful to us.
Have you used it this year or do you plan to use it? If it is broken or damaged, is it worth fixing and will it be of use to you then?
Take a deep breath and part with all those things that burden you that you never took the time to throw away or give away. This questioning will certainly seem difficult to you at first, but over time you will be faster and faster and more confident in getting rid of anything you don’t really need.
6. Pamper what you keep
Emptying yourself, as we told you, does not necessarily consist in wiping out your business. It's all about keeping the furniture, things and clothes that matter most to us.
And by distinguishing these material goods from others, give yourself the means to make them last. Do they matter to you? So take care of them!
Thus, wax your wooden furniture, enhance the base (bed feet, casters, etc.) so that they are not damaged by knocks.
Otherwise, you could become a DIY pro (Do It Yourself) to revamp or upcycle your old furniture! So your vintage bookcase would become ultra trendy with a lick of paint, or your dying grandmother's table would turn into a cool coffee table by tinkering with her feet, for example.
If the very idea of getting rid of your used furniture is painful or impossible for you, consider giving it a second lease of life so that you want to use it again. How? 'Or' What ? Start by finding one of those DIY classes that are on the rise and are popping up near you in recycling shops, repair cafes and even by the brands themselves.
Or, have fun and follow the DIY tutorials that abound on the Net and which provide a thousand tips for resuscitate or divert your obsolete furniture from its original use. Taganail or MYRIÂME's YouTube channels offer their best tutorials for reIooking old furniture or transforming all everyday objects in a clever and creative way. So all you need is a little imagination, let your creativity run wild, and voila!
Do you care about your linens? You want to keep those clothes you adore, we agree with you! Besides, don't you take pleasure in bringing out vintage pieces, from a relative for example?
To fetish outfits and linen, special care must be taken , in order to keep them longer. Protect them from dust and moths, additionally be sure to clean your textiles, linens and shoes at low temperature and low frequency. Enough to limit the release of plastic microparticles at each wash, because they end up in wastewater and therefore the oceans, while adopting #LesBonnesHabitudes! Also remember to avoid strongly scented detergents and softeners, which are very polluting products. Opt for detergents bearing one of the environmental labels recommended by ADEME (European Ecolabel, Nature et progress, Ecocert ecodétergent and Sustainable cleaning)!
7. Do not throw away, but recycle
Instead of throwing away what you no longer use, why not make some people happy by giving them to others or by reselling them? If in your sorting process you feel the need to make a clean sweep, don't forget that that broken chair, that huge bookcase that you think is out of fashion, or that computer in your cellar can always benefit from a second life, giving them away or selling them instead of ending up in the trash. You will see, the donation is one of the most rewarding and easy thanks to the longvieauxobjets.gouv.fr site directory!
Your furniture and appliances will thus continue to serve, to be pampered and loved. And if you can't find a taker, sort so that your products are recycled , you will do a nice gesture for the Planet, because recycling makes it possible to manufacture new products, produce energy, preserve natural resources, and these are also pieces of furniture that will not end up in nature!
- Sort through your papers
A mountain of paperwork has piled up on your desk and you don't know what to do with it? In a binder or in a large cardboard sorter, slip your essential administrative papers. And for what you are not going to keep, consider putting them in the sorting bin, because all papers are recycledeven if they have staples or spirals. Thanks to this eco-citizen gesture, your waste paper will be recycled and will experience a new life.
Otherwise, to limit the papers, think about dematerialization. You can contact all your administrative services to request to receive your documents by email or in your online space. In the same vein, put a “Stop Pub” sticker on your mailbox! Thus, you will avoid unnecessary flyers.
A simple phone call to your cousin who has just moved to your area, and here is the furniture still in good condition that you no longer want, gone to another home. An ecological gesture for you and an economical gesture for her.
Likewise, a quick note in the lobby of your building, and maybe a neighbor will be interested in your item.
- See the distributor
Apart from furniture, do you want to get rid of your electrical or household appliances? It's very simple ! Every store that sells an electrical device has an obligation to take back the old one. And for stores with an area dedicated to the sale of electrical and electronic devices exceeding 400 m2, they have the obligation to take back your used devices , even if you don’t buy anything. Do you have a new dishwasher or refrigerator delivered? The delivery person has the obligation to leave with your old device at no additional cost! Think about it when buying your next washing machine!
- Donate to associations
Do you want to donate to an association, but you don't know where or how? Don't panic, the Eco-Furniture eco-organization offers an interactive map of furniture collection points to be sure to locate the association closest to you. Once entrusted to an association (such as Emmaüs), a Ressourcerie or a Recyclerie, your furniture can be renovated or customizedbefore being resold at a lower cost.
And if they cannot be resold, your furniture will be entrusted to Eco-Meubles, which will recycle or recover it. Who would have thought that emptying your home could make you so happy? The same goes for electrical appliances which are sometimes essential equipment: giving them away will be of use to many people who need them.
To find the associations to which you can entrust your devices, pin the site of the good habits among your favorites!
- Also think about the furniture in your workplace
Are you planning a change of scenery in your business? Are you moving, renewing or destocking your furniture? This is the perfect opportunity to give a second life to all those desks, armchairs and cupboards that are still in good condition. So opt for a quick and easy solution with Valdelia, which offers solutions adapted to the used furniture of all professionals in France. With a strong network of partners in the second life of products, the eco-organization is responsible for entrusting end-of-life furniture to associations. Valdelia allows companies to recycle used furniture on the second-hand market: the parts and materials are used to make innovative furniture, or the furniture is repaired so that it becomes like new again!
If your furniture or appliance cannot really be reused, you can also go to a recycling center. A recycling center has dedicated containers for electrical and electronic equipment, and specific skips for all used furniture. The electrical devices are then collected by an eco-organization, Ecologic or Ecosystem depending on the waste collection centers, which will be responsible for having them decontaminated and recovering their raw materials by a treatment center.
The furniture is collected by Eco-Meubles, which then sends the used furniture to processing centers so that it can be recycled into new recycled raw materials or recovered as energy.
Come on, it's your turn!
Need advice and tips to Reduce waste, Reuse objects and Recycle? Discover #LesBonnesHabitudes to adopt on the website lesbonneshabitudes.gouv.fr