If your living room feels messy and disorganized, read this article! We have 5 designer tricks to help you eliminate living room clutter in less than an hour!
Wishing your living room could be as organized as the designer rooms you see in magazines and on Instagram?
Good news — it can be!
But …
The bad news is that you’ll need to declutter first.
There’s no such thing as organized clutter, so if you want to get organized, you should start by decluttering.
Not sure how to tackle your mess? Don’t want to spend an entire day doing so?
Well here’s some more good news:
You don’t have to.
Here are five tricks to eliminating living room clutter in less than an hour.
1. Gather the Essential Supplies
Think it’s impossible to declutter your entire living room in 60 minutes?
It’s not. But you’ll need to spend a few minutes prepping and gathering supplies beforehand.
Start by getting one garbage bag and two boxes or bins.
The trash bag is for anything that’s obviously garbage. The bins or boxes, on the other hand, are for items that you plan to keep or donate.
Use one of those boxes to hold items that you don’t want but that are still in good condition. Recycle these things or bring them to a donation center at the end of the day.
Use the other box to gather items that don’t belong in another room. When you’re done decluttering the living room, bring everything to the room where it belongs.
2. Start With Tables, Bookcases, and Shelves
Now that you’ve got your supplies, it’s time to get down to business.
Start by decluttering flat surfaces. Weed through your collection of books, DVDs, or whatever else you have on your shelves. Get rid of anything you don’t want or that you can move to a different room.
Sort the items as best as you can, but don’t get hung up one on category for 20 minutes. You’ll never get the job done in under an hour if you read every book jacket and ponder over every DVD!
Be swift in your decisions, but try to be as thorough as possible. If it’s something you really love, keep it. If it’s something you can do without, put it in your donation box.
Keep in mind:
While shelves are designed for storage, the tops of your coffee table and end tables are not. The trick is to keep your coffee and end tables as empty as possible, except for key items like a lamp or remote control.
Last but not least, sort through all of your papers and mail. Recycle old magazines, bills, and junk mail. Only keep what’s essential.
3. Declutter Your Media Stand or Entertainment Center
With your tables and shelves clutter-free, it’s time to move onto your entertainment center or media stand.
If you’re like most people, you probably have a mess of tangled wires and cords behind your television. Wrap them neatly and secure them with a plastic twist tie. This is an easy way to organize your cords and prevent them from coiling back into a jumbled heap.
Next, move onto your audio/visual components and gaming systems. Put video game discs back in their designated cases. Wrap cords and chargers around game controllers so you don’t have wires dangling everywhere.
If you have old systems or old games that you no longer play, put them aside. When you’re done decluttering, head to your local game store and trade them in for store credit to use on new systems or new games.
4. Designate a Home for Everything
The best way to prevent your living room from getting cluttered again is to assign a spot to every item you own.
You need to know your limits and be realistic about how much space you have to work with. If you want to live clutter-free, you can only own as many things as you have logistical space for.
Limited to one small bookshelf? Then only allow yourself to keep as many books as it can fit. Keep the ones that have meaning to you and donate the rest.
The smaller your living space is, the more you’ll need to declutter.
And here’s a good rule to live by:
You can only keep what you have space for.
Sticking to this rule can prevent you from buying things that will eventually become clutter
5. Add Some Storage Bins
Decluttering doesn’t mean you have to get rid of everything you own. But it does mean that you need a place to store everything.
If you have small children or pets, there’s a good chance your living area is littered with toys. Don’t throw them all away in a mass frenzy. Instead, invest in a storage box or bin to conceal them.
Love to curl up on the couch and watch a movie under a blanket? Instead of tossing those blankets on the back of the sofa, consider buying a storage ottoman to hide things inside.
The more concealed storage spaces you have, the easier it will be to keep your living room looking tidy and organized.
Ready to take on the challenge and declutter your entire living room in one hour?
Here’s how to do it:
- Gather your supplies: a trash bag for garbage, a box for donations, and a box for things that belong in other rooms
- Weed through the items on your shelves, end tables, and coffee tables
- Declutter your media stand or entertainment center
- Assign every item a designated space and put everything in its place
- Add some storage bins to conceal any overflow that you can’t get rid of
With these tips and tricks in mind, your living room can be clutter-free in less than 60 minutes. Keep up with it on a regular basis. Then the next time you need to declutter, you might be able to do so in 20 minutes or less!
Author bio:
Dominique Daniels is the Business Manager at The Morton. With over five years of property management experience, she begins and ends each day loving what she does. She finds joy in helping current and future residents and makes The Morton a place everyone loves to call home.