Don't you think it's time to revamp your current lifestyle? Do you perhaps feel too caught up with so many stuff in your home? Then minimalist is what you are looking for. By doing this way, you can start getting rid of things that you don't really need, and sometimes you don't even need to worry about getting something new. Thanks to this, you can put more focus on others that bring you happiness and your precious relationship.
If you're still stuck at home due to the ongoing crisis, you can take some extra time to do a well clean-up project. So when the situation becomes better, you can go back to daily life again with a new outlook on life. Moreover, you can take this chance to renew your appreciation on the things in life that you could have taken for granted, as well as people. Now, let's find out how you can start to establish your minimalist home today!
1. Get Rid Of What You Don't Need
If you want to have a minimalist home, the first thing you need to do is eliminate all the excess stuff in your home. Besides, make sure to go through each room and take away things you've never used in the past year.
Many of us have convinced ourselves that we will reuse those miscellaneous items. However, the fact is, we are not going to do that. Put the things in a garbage bag and take them to a donation center for a local thrift store or charity.
2. Get Rid Of Multiples Copies Of The Same Thing
Now, you could have bought two things for the same purpose. On the other hand, you might just want to buy more, or you forget you already have it at home.
In both cases, remove one. You don't need two of the same books, shirts or two pairs of shoes in different colors. Removing everything can be painful, but you will feel relieved because your house is much cleaner and simpler.
3. Say Goodbye To Books You Don't Read
Does one of your bookshelves contain books that have never been read and never intended to read? If you read the book and hate it, pass it on to a friend who might like it.
Or you don't care what the book says. You can put it on the shelves of the local library. You can put them in a box and donate them to any closed location near you.
4. Pare Down Your DVD And CD Collections
You have a massive library of DVDs and CDs, but don't use it because you now use digital to watch movies and listen to music? If so, you need to reduce the number of this collection. Start by removing the CDs and DVDs that you already have digital copies.
Next, you should get rid of all the movies or CDs that you have not seen, have not heard, and do not intend to do. Don't hesitate, start making the list now and being to put them in the box. You could always sell or donate them to anyone that needs it.
5. Next, Get Rid Of Everything You Don't Love
You should remove things that are in cabinets you don't use. Do not regret what you will never touch again.
In particular, you need to get rid of things you don't love. Do not keep the things that you do not like for any reason. Let it be fun for others.
6. Recycle The Old Magazines
Do you have journals that you had read from a few months even a few years ago? There is no benefit to holding on to them after such a long time. Maybe they need to be taken to a recycling workshop, or an art teacher will need it more.
Or you can throw them away. Old magazines lying around the house serve absolutely no purpose. If you think they might be worth someday, check online and see if they are worth anything now. If they didn't, they probably wouldn't have any value for ten years from now.
To make matters simpler, just get online magazines. You can read on your tablet or ebook reader and not have to deal with the excess clutter burdening you.
7. Go Through The Coffee Mugs
If you've collected coffee mugs from every roadside pub you've ever visited on any road trip, you need to start eliminating them.
You only need one cup of coffee for each person in your home, that's enough. If you do a lot of entertainment, keep just enough to meet your average needs.
8. Eliminate Everything That You Don't Use
Take an inventory of your kitchen appliances. List the reasons why they deserve to occupy the space in your home. If convinced, keep them. Throw out the rest if they don't convince you.
Does your child have toys they beg but never play for more than five minutes? They need to be donated so other children can play with them. Also, focus on quality, not quantity.
9. Donate Knick-Knacks
We all have sentimental knick-knacks lying around our homes, and we don't even like to consider removing them. They are burdening you and making your home feel congested.
If you're having trouble getting rid of useless hobbies, aim to eliminate half of them. Keep the ones that have real value, but let all of the other else go.
10. Only Buy What You Need
Many of us go to the store just because we're bored and end up buying a lot of things that look good, but we don't need it and will never use it? Or even worse, raise your hand if you take the free time to fill your shopping cart on Amazon and click the Buy now button, while you don't even have room for it?
Commit to only buying what you need. Start by freezing your spending for 30 days in which you don't buy anything except groceries. You will have a better idea of what you need in your daily life to avoid risky purchases that add to the clutter of your home.
11. Purchase Items That Are Of High Quality
Instead of staying on the track of buying low-quality products that will wear out quickly, start investing in items that will last for a long time.
You should buy good quality things, such as a pair of tennis shoes that you can wear for a casual Friday at the office, and that will also wear a cute, entertaining outfit. The same goes for jeans, shirts, kitchen utensils, pretty much everything. Investing in high-quality items will exist, so you don't have to replace them with cheaper junk.
12. Look At Your Home's Potential
Which room has a lot of light? How can you use that light to serve best your needs and others' needs in your family? Looking beyond the clutter may be filling some rooms.
If you want to minimize your life, think about the outcome. Imagine what your house would look like when all the clutter and trash were gone? What would you do in a house like that?
13. Use Window Seats, Stairways, And Other Hidden Spaces For Storage
Running out of closet space and finding that you need more storage space? The first thing you should do is clean up what you need and separate it from what you don't need. What you don't need should be given or thrown away.
Once you've reduced the number of things you need to store in the first place, look around your home to find places that can become storage places. Do you have a window seat? Turn it into a chest containing blankets and pillows. Do you have open space under the stairs? Turn it into a bookshelf.
14. Make Your Furniture Work Overtime
When you are about to buy furniture, look for things that can serve 2 or 3 functions. Search for ottoman with hoarding and wardrobe that can double as a desk.
There are countless options available for furniture pieces that can serve many functions. You can buy it at local stores, thrift stores, flea markets,... You may even find some parts that you can modify yourself to make them serve double duty.
15. Find New Uses For Multifunctional Pieces
You may already own some functionality that can serve many purposes. Why not take a moment to find new ways you can use them so they can do more? Use the coat hanger to hang an umbrella too.
And while you're at it, make sure those multi-functional pieces also serve aesthetic purposes. Paint them to look elegant or have a luxurious appeal, whatever you are using as décor. A minimalist house is not necessarily ugly!
16. Discover A Creative Way To Organize Your Shoes
If you are trying to minimize your home, one of the first things you should probably look into is how many pairs of shoes you have. You can still be very comfortable with only half of the current shoes. After removing your shoes, you may need to consider an innovative storage way.
One idea is to use the shoe racks that you hang on the doors, so they don't take up any floor space. Another idea is that if you have a wheeled bed, remove the mattress from it, and put the shoes in the bed. Just pull the stroller out in the morning, take off your shoes, and be ready to go.
18. Turn your bedroom wall into a clothes rack
Does your home lack storage cabinets? Many apartments in big cities are so small that wardrobes are in short supply. You can make up for this shortage in closet space by turning your clothes into decorations!
Get some wall hangers that you can use to hang your clothes and arrange them neatly and display. You don't have to worry about one of those unattractive clothes racks hidden in the back of the room. Hanging your clothes on the wall will save floor space while at the same time turning them into decorations.
19. Discard unsuitable clothing
If your clothes don't fit because you've recently tried to lose weight, congratulate you on your journey towards a healthier life! Remove clothes that are no longer suitable. The same thing happens if you are trying to lose some weight and the clothes you already own no longer fit. Get rid of anything that doesn't fit.
Why? Because you only have so much storage space in your home and don't need to weigh things that won't help you in your daily life. When you lose weight, reward yourself by buying new clothes that accentuate your new look.
20. Ditto for clothes that you don't wear longer
Many people have been wearing neon umbrellas and windbreakers since the 1980s, and sure they will return to style. And guess? They are back in fashion. The result is brutal. Never repeat. Never, ever again.
To avoid becoming part of the next fashion disaster, remove clothes that you no longer wear. You may think that no one will want to wear them, but you will be surprised at what high school students with delicate eyes can take off with your discarded pleated pants.
21. Put the hook up wherever you can
Do you have a long, standing mirror? Place the latch on the top or along the sides so you can hang the chain from it. Do you like hats or scarves? Instead of trying to throw them in the closet, put hooks on the wall and hang them up.
Do you have pots and pans that don't fit in the cupboard? Place the hook on the kitchen wall. Hang some utensils, such as a soup pot and spoon, next to the pots and pans. Not only hanging items from wall hangers help you save space; Doing so will bring some integrated minimalist decor!
22. The selection does not match the set
Remember that everything needs to be beautiful in a minimalist home because the essential goods you use every day are double as decoration. So, instead of having a bag of flour and a bag of sugar in your pantry behind cereal boxes, why not put them in separate but appropriate containers?
Do you like things that do not fit and a little trouble? Get additional matching sets, as they won't be too different from each other but will add a popup. Make sure you keep everything as clean and simple as possible, so you don't overwhelm the aesthetics with busy patterns.
23. Love simple, clean colors
A minimalist home should have a minimalist feel, and nothing says minimalism, much like a simple color palette. Aim for a base color and an accent color, and try to take as many of your furniture and walls to match that single palette. A more complex color palette will look busy and distracting.
Also, instead of large models, attach simple geometric shapes or even lines. There is so much to distract from the minimalist aesthetic appeal of multifunctional furniture and your accessories (such as hats and scarves) as wall decorations.
24. Eliminates the clutter of desktop
If you have a desk, you may have a mess on top of desks or in drawers. As a result, when you need to sit down and get work done, you may have to sift through the trash to find what you need!
With a grid clipboard, you can turn your desktop clutter into a wall decoration. Use as many clips as you need to hang scissors, pens, paper clips, and anything else you may need. Your office supplies will always be within reach, and the luxurious appearance will make the entire desk area feel cleaner and more accessible.
25. Control panel settings
A dashboard is the quintessential feature of minimalist storage. They can easily adapt to changing storage needs, as you can easily add or remove prices, add or remove pins and move them to any room in the house! They are strong enough to store heavy coats but still accessible enough to hold your keys.
You can easily buy an already made control panel, or you can make one that better fits your own storage needs. All you need is a peg, pin, and shelf to walk on it. And, of course, a vision of how you want to use yours!
26. Add some greenery
Bringing it outdoors will help make your minimalist home feel clean, while also making it look cozy and appealing. Look for corners, window sills, and unused spaces where you can put in a small factory. Consider herbs that you can use in the kitchen or aloe vera that you can use as part of your beauty routine.
If you have no experience keeping plants indoors, start with something simple that requires very little care. Stores like Target often sell factories that require very little attention. Once you get used to taking care of your house plants, you can look for plants that need more TLC.
27. Make use of floor space
But there is only as much floor space as you can spare. Many people trying to create a minimum aesthetic for their homes have a very practical reason: they don't have much space! But you can still use floor space wisely to make sure you have enough storage space for everything.
Consider furniture pieces that store things on the ground below them, such as the end table. Containers, such as storage blocks, can be used to place items before storing them under furniture. Magazines can be moved from the coffee table to the floor below the last table, where they are still accessible but off the road.
28. Try Splitter in a drawer
First of all, you can have too many things in your drawer. If you take the time to wonder where is after knowing that you've put something up, but find an expired battery and unused mouse traps in your drawer, then you need to clean them up to remove half of the things in your drawer.
Once you've sorted your drawers down, use some drawers to keep the content organized. The compartments can be as simple as the box on which jewelry comes in, or you can buy some; If you want something more original than what the store chain has to offer, go to the thrift store and let your imagination determine what you can use as a drawer.
29. Supply for your furniture
A significant part of minimalist ethics is repurposing or fixing things instead of buying new items. If your furniture is tired or doesn't fit your minimalist palette, you don't need to remove it. A simple paint job or remodeling effort can enliven it and make it the perfect piece for your minimalist home.
Take that simple closet and add some fun buttons to the drawer for a charming touch. Give the old wooden desk a paint job so that it fits all your other minimalist furniture. And while you use it, look for ways to add new features to old furniture to serve various purposes.
30. Practice gratitude
Another important aspect of minimalist ethics is being grateful for what you have instead of being jealous of others. Practicing daily gratitude to curb jealousy and other unpleasant emotions will increase your joy and satisfaction, not only in what you have but in your whole life.
Create a practice in which you take a few minutes every day to be grateful for what you have. But more than material possessions, thank the people in your life for who they are and how much they poured into your life.
31. Clean your home regularly
Whether we intend to or not, we all end up accumulating more assets, and often more than we need. These assets can come in the form of birthday and Christmas gifts from good-meaning friends or from changing tastes no longer find attractive polka dots like triangles.
At least twice a year - with the changing seasons - purify your home to get rid of things you don't need. Pay special attention to the clothing that has just worn off-season; If you didn't wear it in all previous seasons, please remove it. Do not wait to see if you will wear it next year. You will not.
32. Change your focus
The first time you purify your home will be a complex process, as you begin the process of letting go of material things that you may have built around. As you go through the two-year purge of your home, your perspective will change. Instead of focusing on what you need or don't need, think about what you can't live without, and it can help you get rid of things more easily.
Yes, you may need a nice shirt to wear to work. But do you need 20? Is not. What shirts do you need to maintain a professional appearance at work? Those are the ones you keep. All others need to go.
33. Remember that you are not what you own
As you follow the minimalist lifestyle, you probably won those random browsing through Amazon, and all the time you carelessly filled your shopping cart, on an online store. Why? Because you realize that you no longer receive your value from material possessions.
When you no longer try to impress others with what you have and no longer try to have the latest shiny object, you will find that you are much happier. The nature of life is in your relationships, both with others and with yourself. Life is not what you own. It has never been.
