How to declutter your home

Tamar's home tips on how to declutter your home

The packaging of a product often looks visually appealing to the eye, but when it's left to be on display in our homes, it causes visual clutter that can make an area look messy and less designed or thought out; it detracts from the beautiful items we may want to display and draws our attention away - becoming distracting (even if it's subliminal)

So, what areas of our homes usually "house" lots of products that cause visual clutter?

Bathrooms - particularly in the shower and on vanities 
kitchen counters, cupboards and shelves 

Where do we start and what can we do?

1. Remove labels 

This is probably the simplest, easiest and least expensive thing to do, but, not all labels are removed easily and cleanly. If they leave a residue, try these tips:

• Pull off the label and then remove residue by using alcohol
• Spray furniture polish on and let it sit for a while, then remove
• Put brass polish on the residue, let sit and then wipe off.
• Before removing the label, heat gently with a hairdryer to release glue and make it easier to remove
• Some labels on glass jars can be removed by soaking the jar in hot water

2. Alternate containers 

Collect glass jars or bottles from products you use and recycle these for products in unappealing containers, remove the labels and decant products into matching containers. Make sure to stick to a few colours or one theme throughout.

• Collect glass jars and spray lids all the same colour so they match
   
• Purchase matching containers from stores to decant products. Here are some great stores to look at: Monstera goods, Mambos Plastics, Mr Price Home and Consol
   
• Items that can't be decanted (like shaving foam) - try covering the bottle with contact paper that matches the rest of your items / theme or place them into a larger container so you can't see them 

3. Larger containers

Buy large bins, drawers or baskets to store smaller items and group like items together. Use clear bins if you want to see what's inside or solid baskets to hide what's inside and clearly label the contents.

4, Labels

There are different ways to do this depending on the aesthetic you are wanting to create. If containers are uniformed, then you will need to demarcate the items. Here are a few options!

• Dymo label maker

You can get different colour base tapes to give labels a retro feel. The only pain point? You have to manually punch one letter at a time.

• Brother label printer

There are different cartridges available for background colours, you can also type the label out, choose as well as choose fonts and sizes.

• Glass pens

These can be used to write directly on glass containers or jars!

• Stickers / labels or chalkboard stickers

These can be used to attach to containers and then be written on or you can print onto labels and then apply to containers