Clutter Question

"When you are able, I would love some great advice on fitting a familyinto small spaces. The clutter is sometimes a little too much around here."


Let's see, my best advice is to get rid of everything you can, then keep everything in the garage that you are not using in the next three months. I put kids toys, clothes (including mine), school supplies, books-everything out there, so that I am not constantly running over a bunch of stuff that I am not using. Every three months go through your house and put the things you are done with or bored of in the garage and take out the things you need, this way toys/school supplies/clothes/even dishes feel like new. We only use half of the garage for storage and then we use the other half as living space, which we heat and cool. This gives us a little more room. My parents sealed our garage door when I was a kid and my three sisters and I shared the whole garage for about eight years-it adds a lot of space. Another idea is to use your back yard as much as possible. A shed could be used for storage, or a quiet space for play or study. Some times I am better at keeping on top of it than other times. I have three little boys in one room-the amount of stuff was getting out of hand, driving all of us crazy. So over the last two weeks I got rid of four garbage bags full of toys, clothes and garbage and then I put everything else in the garage except three winter outfits, five summer outfits, two church outfits, pajamas, each boys" small box of favorite toys, one small three drawer chest of toys, and one box under the bed of toys. They were thrilled! They can now get to their stuff that they want easily and their room appears so much bigger. Also if I have lots of things, like books or kids toys that I can see, they tend to drive me nuts. So I try to hide them as much as possible. Many of bookcases have doors, all my videos are behind doors etc. I hope that helps somewhat.