Getting another perspective on the clutter in your home, can often be enough to motivate you to get started on sorting it out. I met up with House and Garden feature writer Elizabeth Metcalfe to suggest some easy wins and different ideas for sorting out her gorgeous cottage.
“I’ve never seen myself as the sort of person that might embark on a ‘decluttering’ mission. In fact, I’ve always taken comfort in clutter. Stacks of books on a coffee table, walls hung with art, and shelves of pottery and trinkets – for me these things are weighted with emotion, perhaps reminding me of a holiday or a rainy Saturday where I unexpectedly happened upon something beautiful. I’ve always gravitated to more than less and anytime my husband might gently question whether we “need” something, I would be a bit baffled. Of course, I didn’t need a ceramic platter but I took comfort in knowing we had it just in case we ended up with a house full of friends to feed. There was security in stuff.
Just over a year ago, however, I had a change of heart. We had a six week old baby, had just moved house and our clutter was becoming a source of stress. All around us were boxes – at least 30 of which contained books – and I felt weighed down by the fact I had to find a place for everything. Still, I had nine months of maternity leave stretching out ahead of me and thought that I might spend some of my time organising. That, of course, speaks volumes of my naivety as a first time mother and when I returned to work earlier this year I realised – even with the boxes long unpacked – that our lovely little cottage might always be in a state of chaos. Our cupboards are bulging, surfaces are piled high with everything from packets of vegetable seeds to a bike saddle (no I’m not really sure why it’s there either), and nothing seems to have a designated place.
And so I found myself on the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers (ADPO) website, seeking out someone who might be able to unravel the mess. ‘Looking for help or support? Whatever you are struggling with, there is someone who can help you,’ it says on the homepage. It sounded like it was offering some kind of counselling service, and it was then that I realised that while practical clutter was my issue, it had in fact become mental clutter. I was well and truly overwhelmed. I quickly found that less than five miles away from me in Sussex happened to be Mimi Bogelund, a professional declutterer and organiser who launched The Organised Life & Home in 2018 after honing her craft with a couple of months training in San Francisco with tidying queen Marie Kondo.”
Read the full article here:
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/organise-declutter-house-for-happiness
