if it ain't Beautiful or Useful

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris.

This will be our mantra as we sort through the clutter. Our first beautiful and useful task is just that, start in one room and go through each item. Now we have a pile of stuff we want to keep but we need to place it somewhere out of sight.

Putting something in a box and hiding it away, if you use it everyday is probably not the best solution. But an alternative to this would be a cute sideboard with shelves and doors, or entry table with drawers. Too many boxes and furniture pieces can also add clutter so keep this in mind when you start to organize. For instance, in my previous post I had told you about my husband wanting to have a rule in our home "no kids toys on our main floor" which is not a reasonable rule for our family or a rule that even I could enforce. So instead I got one...read this again ONE toy bin that our 2 younger ankle bitters could use (my daughter is almost 9 and thinks she is 22 and is above "toys"- she doesn't need a toy bin). So the rule is that if you play with a toy it goes back in the bin- obviously...yet not so obvious to our boys; if they decide they want to bring toys down from their rooms then they need to swap it out for another toy in the bin.

This actually works- yay me!

Here's the thing, as adults we should be following the same rule. If we bring something new into the home, we need to chuck, sell or donate another item.

Except for shoes.... ALL the shoes can stay :)

photo credit: //willowandtheowl.com.au//whowhatwhere.com.au//

#declutter #clutterfree #beautifulanduseful #williammorris #northandnashdesign #alltheshoes