Decluttering Home to Sell

Are you overwhelmed with clutter and need to begin Decluttering Home to Sell? If so, you are in the right place!

Welcome to the Year Long Thorough Declutter Series!  Each day is dedicated to spending only 30 minutes decluttering your specific daily task. We will be working 5 days a week, so you can take 2 days to enjoy time with your loved ones.

I will help you begin the process of Decluttering Home to Sell. Also, you can get the complete digital printable copy of the Year Long Thorough Declutter Series Calendar and Checklists here. The printable digital download is delivered to your email. It includes 25 pages of printable calendar pages and checklists to help you declutter every room in your home. You can find that here.

Struggling with the daily housekeeping chores? Check out my ebook on this topic, entitled Make Over Your Homemaking. Use this link to get it at a discounted price.

Decluttering your home before selling is crucial for making a good impression on potential buyers. Here are some tips to help you effectively declutter your home for sale:

1. Start with a Plan

• Room-by-Room Approach: Tackle one room at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
• Create a Timeline: Set specific deadlines for each room or area to keep you on track.
• Prioritize Key Areas: Focus first on areas like the kitchen, living room, and master bedroom, which have the most impact on buyers.

2. Depersonalize

• Remove Personal Items: Take down family photos, memorabilia, and personal collections. Buyers need to envision themselves in the space, and personal items can be distracting.
• Neutralize Decor: Opt for neutral colors and simple decor that appeals to a broad audience.

3. Declutter Surfaces

• Clear Countertops: In the kitchen and bathrooms, keep countertops free of clutter. Only essential items should remain, such as a stylish soap dispenser or a bowl of fresh fruit.
• Minimize Furniture: Remove any unnecessary or bulky furniture to make rooms feel more spacious.

4. Organize Closets and Storage Spaces

• Declutter Closets: Overstuffed closets give the impression of limited storage space. Pare down clothing and accessories to make closets look more spacious.
• Streamline Storage Areas: Tidy up garages, basements, and attics. Store away seasonal items and pack up anything you won’t need before moving.

5. Tidy Up the Exterior

• Curb Appeal: First impressions matter. Declutter the front yard, porch, and entryway. Trim bushes, remove lawn ornaments, and tidy up any outdoor furniture.
• Garage and Shed: Make sure the garage and any outdoor storage sheds are organized and free of clutter.

6. Pack Away Personal Collections

• Books, DVDs, and Magazines: Streamline bookshelves and media centers by packing away most items, leaving a few neatly arranged pieces for display.
• Knick-Knacks and Collectibles: Store away personal collections, such as figurines or trophies, to prevent distractions.

7. Rent a Storage Unit

• Temporary Storage: Consider renting a storage unit to store large items, excess furniture, or boxes you’ve already packed. This keeps your home feeling open and spacious.

8. Deep Clean After Decluttering

• Clean Everything: Once you’ve decluttered, give your home a thorough cleaning. Pay special attention to windows, floors, and bathrooms.
• Freshen Up: Consider repainting walls in neutral colors, steam-cleaning carpets, and airing out the home to eliminate odors.

9. Hire a Professional Organizer

• Get Expert Help: If decluttering feels overwhelming, consider hiring a professional organizer who can help you streamline the process and offer expert advice. Can’t afford a professional organizer? Just declutter it! Use my tips in this post.

10. Stage Your Home

• Set the Scene: After decluttering, stage your home to highlight its best features. Arrange furniture to maximize space, add fresh flowers, and ensure each room has a clear purpose.

11. Digital Declutter

• Showcase Potential: If you’re listing your home online, ensure that all photos and virtual tours showcase a clutter-free, inviting space. Remove personal items from view before taking photos.

12. Mind the Small Details

• Replace Worn Items: Swap out old or worn items like rugs, towels, and pillows with fresh ones to give your home a well-maintained appearance.
• Organize Kitchen and Bathroom Cabinets: Buyers often peek inside cabinets, so make sure they are neat and organized.

Decluttering is an essential step in preparing your home for sale. It allows potential buyers to see the full potential of the space and imagine themselves living there.

Whether you are Decluttering as per usual or Decluttering Home to Sell, you can benefit from less clutter. Maybe your house is clean but cluttered. If so, you need to know a few Declutter Tips and Ideas before you start using the Step By Step Decluttering plan I use. Does a Cluttered House Cause Stress? Let’s look at a reputable, mental health site to answer that question. They have given us 8 ways mess leads to stress. According to Psychology Today:

Clutter can play a significant role in how we feel about our homes, our workplaces, and ourselves. Can a Messy House Affect Your Mood? You bet! How Does Clutter Affect Your Life? Messy homes and work spaces leave us feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed. Yet, rarely is clutter recognized as a significant source of stress in our lives. (source)

Why does mess lead to so much stress? (source)Getting rid of all of that stress can be one of the best declutter motivation tips as you begin Decluttering Home to Sell.

1. Clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile), causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren’t necessary or important. (source)
2. Clutter distracts us by drawing our attention away from what our focus should be on. (source)
3. Clutter makes it more difficult to relax, both physically and mentally.(source)
4. Clutter constantly signals to our brains that our work is never done.(source)
5. Clutter makes us anxious because we’re never sure what it’s going to take to get through to the bottom of the pile. (source)
6. Clutter creates feelings of guilt (“I should be more organized”) and embarrassment, especially when others unexpectedly drop by our homes or work spaces. (source)
7. Clutter inhibits creativity and productivity by invading the open spaces that allow most people to think, brainstorm, and problem solve.(source)
8. Clutter frustrates us by preventing us from locating what we need quickly (e.g. files and paperwork lost in the “pile” or keys swallowed up by the clutter). (source)

Overwhelmed by a Messy House? It can really affect you negatively. How Do You Deal With a Cluttered Mess? One way is to have a plan, set aside a specific time, and learn the Step By Step Decluttering plan I use for Clearing Out Clutter using my Declutter Tips and Ideas. What Cleaning Should Be Done Daily? I have a room by room specific Printable House Cleaning Checklist linked above.

How I Get Help With Decluttering My House: For a clean, simplistic look, one of the best Deep Cleaning Home Tips is to declutter a room before cleaning and then use an Easy House Cleaning Schedule to maintain it. Declutter Checklists can help.

How Does Clutter Affect Your Life? As you can already see, there are at least 8 ways we become negatively affected by clutter. Also, I though it might be thought provoking to look at some statistics on clutter.

1. US consumers buy 40% of the world’s toys, but bear only 3% of the world’s children.
2. Most people wear 20% of their clothing 80% of the time. (source )
3. 9.4% of U.S. households rent a storage unit. (source)
4. People do not look at 80% of the papers and information they keep.(source)
5. The average American house is double the size it was in the 1950s–and getting bigger. (source.)

• The U.S. Department of Energy reports that one-quarter of people with two-car garages have so much stuff in there that they can’t park a car. (https://www.becomingminimalist.com/the-statistics-of-clutter/)
• According to the National Soap and Detergent Association, getting rid of clutter would eliminate 40 percent of housework in the average home.(https://www.becomingminimalist.com/the-statistics-of-clutter/) Wouldn’t eliminating a lot of housework provide some declutter motivation?

Today, we’ll lay out the solutions to get you some Help for Decluttering Home to Sell using my tips on How To Tackle Clutter. Plus, we’ll look at a few ways to answer the question:What Cleaning Should Be Done Daily? A Printable House Cleaning Checklist will help you keep your home clean and maintained. I’ll even give you my Deep Clean Checklist and Declutter Tips and Ideas to help you get started.

Maybe you are thinking: My House Is So Cluttered, I Don’t Know Where to Start. How can I recognize clutter? Let’s address those questions. I have a visual below using some questions to help. Also, check out these 5 Important Guidelines I use to to keep me focused and motivated as I begin the process of getting my home decluttered.

A few guidelines to keep you on task: 

1.Only spend time on your specific daily task. 

2.Do not get side-tracked or distracted. 

3.Work within a time of day that you have the most energy and stamina. 

4.Avoid thinking too long about whether to keep or discard an item. Recruit help if you are stuck in the decision process. 

5.Avoid cleaning during your declutter. Getting rid of the clutter is your priority. Cleaning can be accomplished later.

We are working in the Entryway, Mudroom, and Foyer this week. Your task today for today, October 31st is to: Declutter any items that need to be returned to the store or shipped back.

Need to deep clean? I have lists for you to guide you along.

My How to Deep Clean Your Kitchen list can be found here.

My How to Deep Clean Your Bathroom list can be found here.

My How to Deep Clean Your Kids’ Rooms list can be found here.

My How to Deep Clean Your Living Room list can be found here.

My How to Deep Clean Your Bedroom list can be found here.

You can get your printable Daily Housekeeping Routine and Deep Cleaning Your House Schedule here. This 15 page printable kit is delivered digitally to your email for you to print and personalize. What Does a Deep Clean Include? It includes a daily schedule, calendar pages, and deep cleaning checklists for every room and area of your home. Below is a sample page of what you’ll get in my printable set designed to help you create your personal Homemaking Checklist.

Also, to keep up the general housework, you may need to create a daily housekeeping schedule that suits your specific needs. To do so, I have created a helpful series you can read here.

Need to Declutter Every room? I have declutter checklists for every room and every space in your home to guide you along below.

Decluttering Home to Sell? If so, you need to define ‘clutter.’ Struggling to decide if an item is clutter? Use these questions below to help you determine whether to keep or toss any item.

Also, you can get the complete digital printable copy of the Year Long Thorough Declutter Series Calendar and Checklists here. The printable digital download is delivered to your email. It includes 25 pages of printable calendar pages and checklists to help you declutter every room in your home. You can sign up here.

How to Declutter the Guest Room or Your Kid’s Room checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Laundry Room and Patio checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Coat Closet/Hall Closet/Linen Closet checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Home Office checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Attic checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Garage checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Living Room checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Kitchen Checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Entry/Foyer/Mudroom checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Clothing checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Bedroom checklist can be found here.

How to Declutter Your Bathroom checklist can be found here.

Happy Decluttering!

To Subscribe to this Declutter Series, drop me a comment below. Your email will be sent to me but will not be posted publicly. You’ll receive a daily declutter task via email for the daily task we are working on. You can unsubscribe at any time.

The Year Long Thorough Declutter Series is designed to help you declutter every room and every space in your home. It includes daily tasks, so you can track your progress. It also includes detailed lists to declutter each room and each space within your home. You can sign up here.

New to deemiddleton.com and don’t know where to start? I recommend going in this order:

Step 1: Check out this post on the 1st step you should take to get organized. Also, you can get the complete digital printable copy of the Year Long Thorough Declutter Series Calendar and Checklists here. The printable digital download is delivered to your email. It includes 25 pages of printable calendar pages and checklists to help you declutter every room in your home. You can sign up here.

Step 2: Create a daily Housekeeping Schedule. You can use this series to start to set up your own schedule. You can also use this simplified weekly schedule.If you often ask: What is the fastest way to clean a dirty house? Or, if you struggle to get organized and have tried and failed time and again, you can likely find out which of these 11 reasons cause you to fail to get organized.

Step 3:   How do you remove clutter?.…Sign up for the Declutter Series and get your entire home decluttered in just 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.”Declutter Your Home” checklists are provided in each email.

Step 4: What is the fastest way to clean a dirty house? Use a timer and use the Deep Cleaning Checklists above. They will help you get your home sparkling after you’ve decluttered. 

Interested in becoming a full-time blogger like me? Check out my blogging series. At the top of every page on my blog, you’ll find a drop down menu. Just select the BLOGGING category.

Check out the most popular posts on deemiddleton.com: 

14 Things That Make Your Home Look Cluttered

How to Do A 1 Day Declutter

How to Create a Daily Housekeeping Schedule

How to Clean House When You Are Completely Overwhelmed By Clutter

What is Preventing You From Getting Organized?

Also, check out a great post on decluttering over here from becomingminimalist.com. Joshua Becker has some great tips on decluttering and minimalism.

For further reading, check out the fly lady here. She has some great cleaning and decluttering ideas plus excellent organization tips to get you started.

I hope I have provided you some useful solutions as you begin Decluttering Home to Sell. Leave a comment below to receive your free ebook and to subscribe to the declutter series.