Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Declutter & Clean with a NEW Technique | Clutterbug Podcast # 177

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Are you looking for new inspiration and motivation to declutter and clean your home?! I got you! In today's podcast, I'll talk about a new method for looking at your home differently and decluttering and cleaning more than you ever have before!  I decluttered over 2000 things from my home this past weekend and you can too!      You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got rid of over 2,000 things, like well over 2,000 things this past weekend and found some really surprisingly dirty spaces in my home using a new technique. Hey, Clutterbugs and welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. As you guys know, if you listen to my last podcast, we bought a new house, which is super exciting, but it also means we bought it with cash. Well, not technically cash, but we bought it whether we sell this house or not. So I guess we own two houses now. Our house that we're currently living in is listed tomorrow morning.

So we had the realtor come today and take photos, which only gave us the weekend to get it ready to show. And there's this added pressure of if we don't sell it right away, we have to basically own two houses and come with all the costs that come with that. So it's really stressful. So obviously I'm feeling motivated. And I'm feeling that sort of panic of like, okay, it's go time. It's like we have to get this place ready for sale, which made me look at my house differently. And why I wanted to talk about this with you today, I'm hoping while you're listening to this podcast that you take a minute to look at your house differently too. And I'm going to specifically talk about a few spaces that I found very surprising.

Not only were they incredibly cluttered and I didn't know that, but also some surprise. dirty spaces that also I didn't see. And I think the reason that we all kind of neglect some areas of our home is because we become clutter blind. Most of us have lived in our house for a long time. We stop seeing it. Does this make sense? We see it, but we don't really see it. We don't look hard. We don't really critically look at our homes like we would if we were selling our house, like we would if we were envisioning looking at it from a buyer's perspective. And do we need to do this? No.

But I think this is a fun experiment that you can do even if you're not selling your house because I'm telling you, my house feels so much better in one weekend. It feels cleaner. It feels bigger. It feels fresh. And I'm like, why didn't I do this before? It wasn't even about, like, I didn't do the typical thing where you take down all your family photos.

and you get rid of anything personal. That's not what this was about. I didn't stage my home in the traditional way, this fake hotel kind of way. I just cleaned it and decluttered it a little bit more than I normally would have. And I was shocked. Not only how much stuff I found that I didn't realize that I didn't want, but also how much dirt I found.

Okay, so we're going to jump right in, and I hope while you're listening to this, you kind of play along. And you, like, clean yourself, like maybe you fill a box, with some soapy water right now or just grab a rag and your favorite cleaner and let's just walk around your house and I want you to play imagination station with me and think about if you were selling your house, would you want it to look differently than it does right now? And we're not talking about decorating. We're not talking about like moving furniture or hiring somebody to come in and paint. Like what can you do or what would you do that would make it look better with what you have

now in your hands, which is a cleaner or just using your hands by getting rid of things, by decluttering. So not costing you any money, just a little bit of elbow grease in your time. Okay, so the first thing I did is I really just looked around at surface clutter. And most of my surface clutter was decor items because I do keep a relatively tidy house. But I was really looking at it differently and I'm like, is this excess? Why do I have seven dollar store plants, fake plants on every surface? Everywhere I look, dollar store fake plants in windowsills and just everywhere, clumped together. A lot of just excess decor.

And I like home decor and I think it looks nice. But the stuff I had originally, like the things I put out, I kind of become blind to that. So when I get something new, I just add it. Oh, that looks so nice. But I don't really edit. very often. So take a look. Do you have a ton of family picture frames or a lot of knickknacks and other things? Are there a few that you can remove? Are there a few things that you can just take? You don't have to declutter it necessarily, but remove it from your eyesight. Are there things that you can just

take down? And so I remove these little plants off the top of my black armor. I remove some plants off my mantle. I took a couple little chotchky things down off the side tables. I took plumbes. I took plants down out of my office. Again, all cheap, fake dollar store plants, which I liked, but man, I liked it more when they were gone. It felt like a little bit bigger. I still have a lot of fake plants, but it felt a lot bigger. So yeah, take inventory right now, walk through your house, and maybe just grab some things and take them out. We can put them in storage or you can declutter them. It's totally up to you. How can you edit a little bit visually? I think that's the first thing that we can do. And I was very surprised in just a few minutes what a really, really big

difference this made. And I found some surprising things that were out that I didn't realize like my husband's running shoes and an extra fan and a space heater in the corner and a file box under the desk that I could completely forgotten was even there. All these little tiny things were adding up to clutter, hidden clutter, hidden in plain sight, clutter. So it was really nice to let that go. Okay, we're moving on. The next thing I did, of course, was declutter the closets because people are going to be opening these closets. So I did it with my kids and my husband and I just did a quick declutter. And I always declutter my clothes and my kids declutter their clothes all the time. But I don't think of it as, is this worth packing, moving, and unpacking again? It's a question I've never asked

when decluttering before, I've always asked myself, do I like this? And would I buy it again? And does it fit me today? But this different question of, for everything that I looked at, is this worth moving with me if I move? And surprisingly, a lot of this was no. Like I wouldn't want to take it off the hanger or take it off a shelf, put it in a box, move it to a new house, unpack it, and put it away because the truth is I don't really like it and we don't really wear it. And again, that pressure, that external pressure, which I know you're not feeling because you're not selling your house, but looking at it differently like that and kind of feeling like, yeah, I got to make this the best that it can be for someone else really made me question,

why am I not making my spaces the best that they can be for me? why am I not making my house so I fall in love with it? We do this thing when other people, we're like, we're selling our house, we're going to have strangers coming in, we want them to fall in love with it, we want it to be the best that it can be, so that they feel like home, so that they want to live here. But we're not making it the best it can be for us on an everyday thing.

And again, it's not about fake staging. We live in our house. It's going to have stuff, but we have stuff we don't need. And we have stuff we don't even want. And I think that's more important. That's just there because it's there. It's there because it's always been there. And it's there because maybe we have the space and it's not that big of a deal.

But I'm telling you, wow, what a difference it makes when it goes. So we did all of our closets. I think we got rid of like 17 bags of clothes total. But that also included an entire trash bag filled with lost socks and underwear that no longer fit my children. Why have I not decluttered my kids underwear drawer? So underwear and bras, my girls had underwear from when they were like six years old that they obviously didn't wear and they knew didn't fit. I just, I guess I've never thought to declutter my kids' underdwear drawer with them before. Bizarre. But they grow so fast, right? Like my girls, my daughter's 16. And Isabel, I kid you not,

had like size little girl six underwear in her drawer, which she wore in like grade one. and now she's in grade 11 and she was still like yeah I just like scoge him to the side they're at the bottom bonkers we probably had an entire bag filled with like underwear and bras and bathing suits that my kids had outgrown forever ago so if you have kids seriously

even Milo he's 10 he's squeezing his butt sometimes into a little like underwear that are for five year olds because I haven't taken the time to go through and he has larger sizes, but I never actually decluttered the old ones. Why didn't I do that? Every day, they have to root through their underwear drawer and toss aside a bunch that don't fit them. Bancadank-dunk-d-d-d-c-docks. So that's all gone.

And their rooms just feel so much better, just making their closets and clothing drawer areas better. Better because we have less stuff. Crazy pants. Okay, that leads me to the next big spot, which I decluttered, which was the garage. I haven't even done the shed yet, but listen to me. In the garage, I found, I swear to you, like 17 garbage bags filled with trash. Absolute trash. There was scrapped wood.

There was just garbage. There was sporting equipment. This is not even part of the trash, but sporting equipment my kids had outgrown. I think there was over a dozen pairs of skates. Now, all my kids play hockey, Joe plays hockey, but they basically get new skates every year. And if you have three kids getting new skates every year or every other year and you're not decluttering the old skates, my husband's like, I'm going to sell them one day. I'm going to sell them one day.

I'm going to sell them one day. So we just kept shoving them here or there and everywhere. We had a cabinet. It was filled with not just skates, but old helmets and hockey pads and all these things that he had the best intention. of selling someday. And it was like enough as enough, everything's being donated. Old hockey sticks. We had roller blades that were 24 years old, both his and hers, mine and his.

Never ever worn. Like, it's ridiculous. All of this stuff going crazy old baseball gloves that don't fit anyone anymore. Soccer shoes, soccer cleats, soccer pads. soccer pads that don't fit anyone anymore. Jerseys, because every year they play hockey, they get more jerseys. For some reason, we were keeping like the jerseys and the socks for each year. Banana pants.

So much left. Not only did we have two truckloads full of donations. We had like 17 bags of trash as well from the garage. A ton of old cleaners, old oils and car cleaning stuff. and rags and bug sprays and just half-filled paint can't. Unfreaking, believable amounts of stuff in the garage. And here we are going into the garage on a daily basis and saying to ourselves, oh, we need a bigger garage.

This place is so stuffed, it's so full. We feel like we're bursting. But did we really look? And I think this is such an important exercise because decluttering we know is like peeling back layers of an hour. You declutter, you feel like you've done a great job, but then for some reason you can declutter again and find just as much or more than you did, even if it's the next day. And then you can declutter again and you can find even more. And it's like, is my house a clown car?

Like, where is this all coming from? And how could I possibly have this much crap? But it's just the, it's true. It's part of decluttering. There are things hidden within things. And every time you do clutter, you get a little bit more comfortable. Get it, get it, girl. Start looking at your house differently.

I was looking at my sheets and towels and just asking myself this technique, do I want this to move this to my new house? Is this worth packing? And there was so much that wasn't. I didn't even tackle the shed yet. I'm going to do that this week. And I'm going to do the Harry Potter closet. Lord help me.

I guarantee I find at least. 5,000 things total. I'm at more than 2,000 items right now that can go. We actually had a four-wheeler in our garage for years, like four or five years. It didn't run. We kept saying we were going to sell it. We never did. We finally got rid of it this weekend. I could park a car in our garage now. Like all this time, we haven't been able to park in our garage. And I've been dreaming about a garage that I could park in. because my car is freezing and covered in ice and I had it this whole time. I could have been parking the whole time. We tackled the garage in under seven hours and it's huge and it's empty and it's not like

we packed things up and put it in a storage locker because we're selling. We just decided we didn't want to bring this to the new house because we didn't even want it, all these little things added up to an almost like completely empty garage. It's not empty, but it feels empty because there's so much more space. But you can do this too. You can do this right now. Well, maybe not in this short podcast, but right this minute, you can look around your health and look at it differently.

And imagine that you're selling it. What would you do right now? What would you let go of? What would you edit from your home if you were selling right now? And why not do that for yourself? Before I talk about the surprising dirty spaces that I found that you might have in your house too, I have to thank today's podcast sponsor, Hello Fresh. Every week we get three meals from Hello Fresh delivered.

So three out of seven, it just takes some of the work out of eating healthy. and it stops me from getting takeout. So especially on those really busy nights, I love having HelloFresh to just whip together. They have over 40 recipes to choose from, but a lot of them are like 15 minutes or less. So quick, easy, healthy, gourmet meals. And the instructions are super easy to follow so my kids can do them. Like I can teach them how to cook through HelloFresh. And now I've learned things like how to caramelize onions. I'm learning skills in the kitchen that I wouldn't have. have without HelloFresh. I recommend this hands down to give it a try just for you guys listening. Can go to Hellofresh.com slash clutterpod 16 and use the code Clutterpod 16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping. Again, that's hellofresh.com clutterpod 16 and use the code Clutterpod 16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping. So now let's talk about the surprisingly dirty spaces that I found when I was going through my house and just looking at it with a more critical eye.

I read this article, How to Stage Your House to Sell Fast, because again, I want to sell my house fast because I don't want to be stuck with two houses. And one of the things it really said was clean is the most important thing, which I know, everybody knows this, but clean like everything's brand new. And it recommended cleaning places like behind the toilet and your taps, like really look to make your house look like all of your appliances, all of your furniture, everything. Everything's just brand new. And that was, I know this sounds like pretty obvious. Like, thanks, Captain obvious. But for some reason, I wasn't, I don't look at my house like that. Is this weird? Look at your toilet right now. Does that look like a brand new toilet? I mean, my toilet's pretty clean. But when you look at the the pipe that connects from the wall to the toilet, like the water thing, it is so fuzzy. It's like fuzzy with dust. I don't even.

Is it dog hair? What is on that? What kind of, and it's not even, it is definitely corroded. But it's also literally furry with so much dust because I just never clean it. And behind the toilet and around the bolts, it was just gross. It was gross. And I don't, I clean the bathroom, but I didn't. didn't really look at it that way, which made me also look behind the bathroom taps.

Super gross. I got down low and looked up under the tap, you know, where the spout is. It was covered in toothpaste. So anytime somebody, I guess, is like, rinsing their toothbrush with the toothpaste, they're like getting it on the tap. So many gross stuff. And I also went in and just took all the extra shampoos in the shower and body washes out and gave that a good wipe. surprising how dirty my clean bathroom was. Does this make sense? But the most surprising thing that I found was the light fixtures in the bathroom, covered in dust.

Your bathroom gets extra dusty because toilet paper is fluffy. It has like a pulpiness to it. So as you're using the toilet paper, it's actually releasing like little fluffy cotton fluffs into the air, which settles on everything. So if you have any picture frames or art in your bathroom, the top of those, probably are really dusty and definitely your light fixtures. And if you have a vent in your bathroom that vents out the moisture, look up right now. My vent was covered with fuzzy brown dust. Like it looked like it ate some sort of wildebeest and the remains of its fur were left

in the in the in this like venty part. It was crazy. I had to take the whole thing. I had to take the whole thing down and get it. It was so gross. I had to use a cube tip in between to get all the fuzzy brown gross dusty stuff out. Now, you're probably thinking, wow, your house is disgusting, Cass. Fine. I guess it is. I don't dust very often. But I bet yours is gross too. Unless you're cleaning all the time, a total clean freak. These are those surprisingly dirty spaces. Okay, other spaces that I was surprised? Right now, I want you to look in

window led, your window ledges, your windowsills, mine were very dusty, super dusty. And some of the ones in the basement actually had a bazillion dead bugs in them, like just on the window cell. Like I'm collecting dead flies for some reason, for some sort of science experiment. Like what is wrong with me? But I didn't even realize it because we have a raised ranch. So the window sill is a little bit higher. And I don't ever look at it. Plus, I have blinds that I never move out of the way or curtains. Seriously, there was dozens of dead bugs on my window cells. Not to mention all the bugs stuck in between the window and the screen.

So obviously I had the windows open and then like a bunch of bugs were stuck on the, and I just shut the window and left those carcasses there for a long freaking time. Pop those screens out, friends, wipe down those window ledges, get rid of the dead bugs. I hope I'm not alone here as you're listening to this, but I had no idea. Mortifying, but also I feel like my house is so much cleaner now that I got rid of all the dead carcasses. Pretty freaking amazing, which leads me to the other, like go high, right? Look high. Also look low. We talk about cleaning your baseboards all the time and I'm always like,

eh, baseboards, blah, why, it doesn't really matter. But then when I got down on my hands and knees, especially on my white baseboards, boards in the basement, there's like a little gap in between the wall and the baseboard, like a lip on the top of the baseboard that was full of dust, like caked in to the point where I didn't even realize that's what it was. So I took a toothbrush, a clean toothbrush, and I just dragged it along and wads of dust were coming out of my baseboard. And I cleaned all the just all the walls down there too and I always say that don't wash your walls but they were down low I just like I looked at scuffs a little bit differently that I didn't realize we're there before

and I had some touch up paint for any like really deep scut scuff I grabbed the can of paint that we originally used to paint the wall and I touched everything up it didn't even take me an hour to clean the baseboards and to touch up the paint and to wash the scuffs that I didn't need to touch up and it felt so much cleaner. The entire hallway, every room, I did the office that all has white on the bottom and white baseboards. I walked in and it felt noticeably cleaner because all these little grimy bits that were invisible to me because it wasn't super obvious were adding up to a space that just felt dingy.

Okay, so let's talk about the last two spaces. that really make your house feel dingy that I didn't even realize were that dirty. And then when I clean them, my entire space felt so much cleaner. And that is light switches and all around the door handles. So there was just a ton of fingerprints, a ton of just grime, like a hazy grime around my light switches and around the door handles. And around the tops of the doors where people were obviously closed. closing it and opening it with the door and not using the handle. Fingerprints, oils and residue.

It wasn't super obvious, but it was when you looked really closely. It was also something that I just scrubbed with dish soap and water and a rag. And it came off. And it just felt like I can't even tell you, every space feels so much cleaner. So I really focused on those areas. Like baseboards, light fixtures, so all the dust on the light fixtures. and doing the light switches and the door handles and any just like obvious wall scuffs. I just tackled those.

My kids came home from school today. Every single one of them, all three of them, they were like, Mom, the house feels so bright and clean. And that's all I did. I did a little decluttering, but not really that much. I edited a few things. And then I focused on really cleaning those spots that I normally neglect because it isn't obviously dirty and yet it added up to a really big difference.

Like my house feels noticeably cleaner. And I didn't mop and I didn't vacuum and I didn't go crazy cleaning stuff that I normally clean. I focused on all those areas that I don't normally clean. And my house, it made a difference. It made it better. So if you're listening to this as you walk around and clean, we deserve this. Okay, yes, I'm moving and I want to sell my house, but I wish I had done this months ago, years ago, because my house feels incredible.

And I'm going to keep decluttering. I'm going to tackle the shed, which is a mess so bad. I think like 90% of it's just going to go. I think I'm going to rent a dumpster. I'm going to tackle the shed, but I'm also going to tackle the Harry Potter closet. but I want you to think about doing this for yourself, pretending that you're moving and look at your house with a more critical eye, look past the invisible clutter and the invisible dirt that we don't see anymore because we're just used to living in this space.

Really find it and eliminate that stuff because you deserve it because it will make a difference in your home and you have the ability to fall in love with your home all over again. Thank you guys so much for listening. I love spending time with you, and I'll see you guys next time.