If we are lucky, we like our homes. Admittedly, no place is perfect. We might love our living room but hate the small closets, or love the kitchen but dislike the pull-down attic. As a result, most people are often thinking about how to make their home better. The vast array of television shows, social media posts, and AI-generated images reflect this innate desire. As a professional organizer, I believe the path to a beautiful home begins with decluttering and establishing routines to maintain order and comfort. Here are a few ways to clear space for a beautiful place.
The good news about these ideas is that they are, for the most part, free. These are more about effort than expense.
#1 Make Your Bed
I know this is not a new idea, but not only does this habit give you a sense of accomplishment, it also immediately improves the look of your room. The bed is (or should be) the focal point of a bedroom. If the bed is tousled, no amount of décor can overcome the air of disarray.
A made bed welcomes you into the room and helps you sleep better when you climb in at night.
#2 Throw Away Trash
Again, this seems rather obvious, but a close look around your space might surprise you. Put trashcans in every room, and make it a family policy to use them. I regularly find trash cluttering people’s surfaces, including things like:
- Empty bottles
- Clothing tags
- Candy wrappers
- Used batteries
- Food packaging
- Plastic bottles
- Empty cans
- Junk mail and other unwanted paperwork
Trash, by nature, is not very pretty to look at. Unless you are Oscar the Grouch, you probably don’t want to be surrounded by it. Beautiful rooms never have trash strewn about. Disposing of and/or recycling trash is a cheap and quick way to instantly make your space look nicer. Additionally, getting trash into the proper receptacle minimizes the chance of bugs or critters gathering around to munch.
#3 Clear the Kitchen Sink and Counters
Kitchens are the heart of the home. If someone comes to visit, odds are high that they will end up in your kitchen. These are busy spaces, and I understand that they won’t be perpetually immaculate. In fact, when in use, kitchens may get pretty crazy!
Nevertheless, clearing the sink and counters once a day is one of the best ways to improve the look and feel of your home. Be firm about removing items that belong elsewhere in your home. Remember, the kitchen’s primary function is cooking, so protecting that space is key. Similarly, when you wash dishes, you free the sink for its intended purpose. On the flip side, a sink full of dishes instantly becomes a hurdle to resetting the room. Admittedly, you may choose to let a pot soak now and then but try to keep this to a minimum. Nothing is more welcoming (and more productive!) on a busy morning than a clear kitchen counter and an empty sink.
#4 Protect Access to Doors and Drawers
Frequently I work in homes where belongings have been piled in front of, leaned up against, or draped over doors and drawers. I can almost guarantee that if access to a storage location is blocked, you will resist putting items away. It’s just human nature. Most people don’t want to exert more than the minimum effort to put things away.
Hurdles keep us from using our storage space. Furthermore, having loose items leaning against furniture or hanging over in front of a drawer simply don’t look very nice. I’ve never seen a beautiful bedroom with clothes draped on a treadmill, or an attractive closet that has some clothes hanging sideways in front of other clothes. When a lot of items are loosely scattered through a room they exude a sense of chaos. Having items out isn’t a fatal flaw, but be sure they aren’t obstructing your ability to quickly and easily put things back where they belong.
#5 Clear the Floor
Floors are not shelves. Ideally, the only type of object that should touch the floor in a living space (as opposed to a storage space) is furniture. There are a few exceptions, such as shoes in a mudroom or out of season clothing in a bin under a bed, but generally speaking, floors should be clear for walking.
If your floors are covered with non-furniture possessions, take this opportunity to consider what might be able to be moved off of the floor and up into a more appropriate storage location. Most homes have storage spaces they aren’t using! Clear floors will give your home a feeling of spaciousness. They are also safe and easier to clean.
#6 Minimize the Knickknacks
Personal items are what makes the difference between a sterile space and a home we love. People differ on how much they like to keep out and about, and this can lead to a bit of friction. Common decorative items about which people frequently disagree include:
- Plants
- Collections
- Throw pillows
- Blankets
- Books
- Mementos and souvenirs
- Art
- Candles
Each family needs to negotiate how much is the “right” amount.
With that said, if you want to instantly make a space look more beautiful, reevaluate the decorative items that may have accumulated. Review shelves, bookcases, bulletin boards, work surfaces, and counters. In many cases, we’ve had items displayed so long that we barely notice them anymore. Most of us are better at adding than we are at subtracting, and even reducing a relatively small number of decorative pieces can have a big impact. For example, maybe the pottery your child made ten years ago can go. Or perhaps the trinkets you brought back from a long-past family vacation have served their purpose.
Again, there is no “right” answer, and we need to be sensitive to the desires of those who share our space. However, everyone benefits from a periodic “cleanse” of surfaces.
#7 Put things Away
Lastly, the thing that often most detracts from the beauty of our space is things we took out and never put away. Clutter distracts from our decorating efforts by drawing attention to itself. It throws off the lines, angles, and color schemes we may have invested a lot to create.
Imagine a bright green jacket slung on the back of a chair in a room that has been decorated in cool tones of gray and blue, or a beautiful table or desk covered with paper or toys. It’s a shame to work hard to create a beautiful room, and then to lose the benefit because we resist putting things away.
Let me be clear in saying that I know we are “living in” our homes. I don’t expect any home to look pristine 100% of the time. Stuff comes out, and that is completely appropriate.
The key is not to obsess about every little belonging we take out, nor is it to avoid using and enjoying our spaces. Rather, the goal is to create the discipline of regularly walking around and putting things away. Some items can be put away immediately after use, while others may sit out for a day or a week.
Ultimately, a space will never reach its full visual potential if it is suffering under the weight of items that belong elsewhere.
* * *
Life can be complex, messy, and disorganized. Our homes are part of our lives and reflect this reality. Still, we have the power to reduce the chaos and maximize the beauty of our homes through a few easy and free activities.
What do you do to maintain a beautiful place?
I love all these easy ways that are super affordable to make your house an amazing space!
Especially in these days when so many things are expensive, its nice to know you can make an improvement for almost zero dollars!
All of your ideas resonate with me. Maybe it’s no surprise, but I regularly engage in the activities you described. I think of it as “getting things back to square one.” That ‘square one’ is the reset. I am all about the reset and enjoy the satisfaction that comes with it. Unless it’s not a typical day, I usually do the reset as I move throughout the day. For many, however, that can be challenging to do if things don’t have a home in the first place.
Part of what you described is removing those things that don’t belong in a space, such as trash or dirty laundry. Then there are the tasks related to deciding what’s enough, like books or throw pillows. I relate to both of those. We love our books and have a lot of them. Lately, I’ve wanted to pare them down even further. The throw pillows were recently edited, which makes bed-making easier.
I love how you identify a couple of categories for our things: items to move, items to shed, items to pare down. That could be a blog in itself!
I have continued to pare books, but my husband holds on for dear life LOL. 🙂
I love all of these simple, but impactful ways to help keep a home tidy. I agree that since we live in our homes nothing is always exactly the way you want it to be. I like the idea of a daily reset to common areas. Plus having a few tasks to do routinely – make the bed, put laundry in the hamper, put things away after using them etc. All these routine tasks are simple, take little time to do, and are a huge contributor to an orderly home.
And they are free! Daily routines are critical for an ordered space.
What a great list! I am always telling my clients that the floor is not a shelf. And when working with items stacked or leaned against cabinets or drawers, when I ask what is in those blocked spaces they often don’t know.
Going through each room each day and putting away any item that has been left out makes it easy to keep your rooms looking the way you want them. If, for some reason, you don’t do this for a period of time, it becomes overwhelming.
I’ve gotten the same answer about storage spaces whose access is blocked. So of course, I remove the obstruction and dig in!
Great advice, Seana. I resonate with #7: Put things away.
Putting things away and having a designated space for everything is essential for maintaining a well-organized home. I have found that when I repaint a room, spring clean, and declutter, I like to revisit the things I am putting back in place. Not everything goes back to the same spot after I complete these tasks. It’s crucial to be conscious of what is going back. Asking “Do I still want this?” helps with being in the moment.
Those times of deep cleaning are perfect for a review. Sometimes emptying a space is enough to stir us to reimagine how we want to use the space. It can be really fun – and all for zero dollars!
The suggestions you make are easy to implement and have a big impact on your space, how it looks and how effectively you can use it. With some of my clients, I’ll call this tidying up as a first step before decluttering and organizing. After doing the process you listed the space looks so much better it can be a motivation to move forward and start letting go of some things, making even more space.
It’s such a shame to invest time and money in decorating a space, only to have it look lousy because of clutter, right?
I obviously watched too much Sesame Street as a child; the minute you mentioned Oscar, I started singing, “Oh I love trash! Anything dirty or dingy or dusty, anything ragged or rotten or rusty. Yes, I love trash! I have here a sneaker that’s tattered and worn. It’s all full of holes and the laces are torn. A gift from my mother the day I was born. I love it because it’s trash. Oh, I love trash!”
Yes, this is a post on how to clear spaces, but it’s also a primer for the first steps toward (what used to be called) “gracious living.” Every twelve-year-old (and college-bound kid, and new graduate, and recently-divorced man) should read this to have a clear understanding of the absolute basics of keeping a home space from spiraling out of control.
These are all really low-effort “walking around” tasks that can be completed while talking on the phone or listening to a few moments of a podcast. They’re not onerous, and the more you do them, the easier they are to get used to doing. If people only did the bare minimum you describe, their spaces would be calmer and they’d feel like they have more control. And yes, everything would be a step closer to beautiful.
Wow, great trip down memory lane with Oscar’s song! Watched it a million times.
I agree that many people aren’t reared with the basics of “gracious living,” and hey, it can be helpful to have someone finally tell you what to do each day. We don’t know what we don’t know, right? When you don’t know what to do, it feels hard. As you point out, once you perform a routine a couple of tasks, especially tasks that aren’t hard once you get started, they do become easier and even potentially mindless!
Such a shame to spend time and money decorating a space, only to have it lost under mounds of clutter!