With the New Year upon us, it’s the perfect time set those New Year’s Resolutions.  Most of us make New Year’s resolutions for ourselves; lose weight, go to the gym, eat healthier; but, what about your home?  Have you made New Year’s resolutions for your home?  Declutter and organize are a couple of items that come to mind.  Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Start with your junk drawer.  You know we all have at least one of these in our Shelburne homes.  You’re not sure where to put something, stick it in the junk drawer.  Well it’s time to take that drawer and dump it out on the table.  It’s amazing how much stuff we can accumulate in this never-ending drawer.  Take the time to sort through everything.  Get rid of the old rubber bands or paper clips that you never use.  For those items that you want to keep, give it a permanent home and no, not the junk drawer.

Next are those piles of papers.  We are all guilty of this.  You get the mail, pay the bill and then put it in a pile on the counter to be properly filed later.  Try implanting a filing system that is at your fingertips.  Make sure to have each folder labelled so you can easily find something if you need it later.  Have a few extra slots available so that you can expand your filing system if needed.

A pet peeve of mine is the cords on electronics.  They get all tangled with one another behind furniture and collect dust bunnies, it drives me crazy!  I like to have my cords neat and tidy so I know which cord goes with what.  Use zip ties or twist ties to bundle each cord.  This way they are kept neat and you don’t need to search through all the cords to find the one that you need to unplug.  A handy idea that was suggested was using an empty toilet paper roll to bundle unused cords.  It keeps the cord together and now you can label it for storage.  If you come across a cord that you don’t know what it belongs to, bundle it up and put it away.  If in 6 months you still haven’t figured out its use, get rid of it.

The New Year is also a good time to clean out the medicine cabinet.  Check each item for the expiry date or if it’s an item that is no longer needed, get rid of it.  Make sure to properly dispose of old and unused medicine, whether it’s prescription or over-the-counter, at a local drugstore.

Lastly, tackle your closet.  Go through your clothing for items that you no longer wear or anything that doesn’t fit, not because of weight gain, clearly because it must have shrunk in the wash.  There are many donation bins set up around the county to collect gently used clothing.  Return the remainder of the clothing to the closet with the neck of the hanger facing the back of the closet.  When you take something out of the closet, you naturally turn the hanger around to replace it.  So in six months’ time when you are sorting through your closet again, you will see all the hangers that remained facing the back of the closet are items that you no longer wear.

These are just a few ideas to help get you started on your home’s New Year’s resolutions.  Whether it’s decluttering or organizing, these little resolutions don’t only make your home look better but it also makes you feel better.