Most of us have that room, or space in our house that is a dumping ground. A place where we put all the things we own that we are not sure what to do with, the holiday decorations, the old clothes, and everything else.

Well in my house that place became the garage after a 1,000 square foot home addition. Besides all of the extra wood, siding, screws, tools and flooring, we began putting our donations in the garage, furniture we wanted to sell, and lots of old toys that needed to be thrown away or donated.

Instead of going through the toys or donation items, they landed in the garage and just added to a growing disaster.

We kept putting off cleaning the garage because we figured it would take us the entire weekend to clean it out and put down rubber flooring. With 3 young kids, and our usual busy schedule, we could not find the time.
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Finally, I had an epiphany- we could clean out the garage and in just a few hours!!!!

Guess what, we did it. We only had 4-5 hours and we were about to clean it out and make it a organized space.

How did we do it? We followed some very simple steps that you can follow and get your cluttered space clean. I promise, with a little work, and preplanning, you can clean up any space in your place.

Plan Ahead

1. Decide Which Room or Area You are Going to Clean Up
Decide on the Room You Are Going to Clean.

2. Decide When You Can Clean Up the Room
Decide on a Day you can clean the room, or a week you will commit to cleaning up an hour a day.

3. Survey the Space To See What Types of Items You Will Need to Go Through
What is in the room? Papers, Magazines, Clothing or what? You need to decide what the item could fit into for storage, disposal or donations. Will you need to buy any clear plastic bins, or other storage items?

4. Gather Together or Purchase Storage Bins, Plastic Bags, and Boxes and Put them in the Room
Make sure you have enough storage bins and boxes to store your items. It is best to pick up varying sizes for the types of items you have in the room and where you will store the boxes.

5. Set a Timeframe or the Number of Hours You will Tackle the Project.
It is important to set a timeframe because it will push you to work quickly and make not linger on one task or decision. Remember, the objective to to take back your space and make it clutter-free and functional. Keep that in mind when sorting items.

Getting Started-Clear Out the Clutter Day

1. Enlist a Helper
If you can get a spouse, friend or even a older child to help you, things will go faster. Decide what each of you will do.

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2.Set Up 3 Stations- A Keep Area, a Trash Area and a Donate Area
Begin putting each item in one of the 3 piles. If there are items you are not sure about you can set it aside in a 4th Pile, but use this sparingly. An example of how you might use this pile, is for items you may donate but you need to make sure the item works. We had 2 old vacuums but we needed to check them to see if they were in working order before donating. As you are placing items in the Keep Area Put Like Items Together, ex. shoes together, clothing for you or kids together.

3. Remove the Trash Pile from the Area
Throw away the Trash Pile. The space will already begin to look better with that pile gone.

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4. Box or Bag the Donation Pile and Put it In Your Car to Take to the Donation Center
By removing the donations from your house and putting them in your car, you are not only removing them from the room, you are making sure you will take action and not put them in another room to sit around and add clutter to your space.

5. Go Through the Keep Items and Decide What You Will Do with the Items.
If it is kids' clothing but for a different season, store them and label the bin. Make sure what you are keeping has a place or purpose.. If you are going through items you do not even use or need, or your kids have outgrown the clothes and you do not have younger siblings, it is time to donate or sell the items. You may have a few favorites you want to keep, to make a quilt, or put in a memory frame or box, but the rest should go.Remember, the more you keep, the more things you will have to clean out again at another time. A clutter-free house is easy to find what you need and enjoy. It is also easier to keep it clean and tidy.

6. Finish Up- If there are Keep Items You are not Able to Get to by the time you have to stop cleaning, put the items in Labeled Bins
by the type of thing it is. And put the bins aside so that you can come back and go through 1 clear bin at a time to go through them when you have 15-20 minutes here or there. This will help you get the room cleaned out, and allow you to finish the last items at another time.

My husband and I cleaned out our very messy garage from 10:30 to 3:30 one weekend afternoon. We still have a few clean bins on the workbench to go through that have tons of different size screws, nails, and other building items, but the bins are labeled and have like items in them. When we have time, we will grab a bin and clean it out. But now we have a function, clean and useful garage again and it only took us a few hours once we finally made the decision to clean it out, and planned ahead (buying clear bins, and getting to work).

I know you can tackle your space and clean it out in no time. Just get focused, remember real people can tackle a dumping ground and it is as simple as the steps above.

Good Luck and Happy Cleaning!

We would love to see your pictures from a space you clean out-email us and maybe we will post them for our viewers!

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