Devine Decorating Results for Your Interior

Inspiration for De-cluttering and Building your Decorating Budget

Posted by Ragan Corliss on March 22, 2012 · 2 Comments 

As we discussed this morning on the Pete and Brenda radio show…  Spring is an excellent time to de-clutter  and hold garage sales.  Early spring is also a great time to start the process, before the weather tempts you to get outside in the garden.  (Especially if you live in Portland, OR, where we’re off to a cold, damp start to spring.)  Then once you clear out your excess clutter, your home is ready for spring cleaning and redecorating!

I’ve been in process of redecorating and reorganizing a small office room in my home.   Fortunately it’s not the only office space in the home, because it is an extremely small space!  In fact it’s such a small room, that it’s been necessary to reorganize it at least every two years, and to step back and look at the processes for how paperwork and office functions are dealt with in that room.

Source: http://www.EcoManor.com

This room above is one of my inspirations.  It’s from EcoManor, the home of Laura and Rutherford Seydel.  (It is the first ever LEED-certified manor home and the first LEED residence in the South, specifically Atlanta Georgia.)

I love the warm colors and how un-cluttered the room is.  If only it was possible for my tiny home office space to look this simplified, but unfortunately it’s not possible, and you’ll see why once I post the before and after photos.  In the meantime, it never hurts to have inspiration to clear out as much clutter as possible…

Source: www.Ecomanor.com

This time around I’m adding in some custom designed built-ins including adding a small closet, a custom-made day bed that holds a single mattress, and repainting some of the office furniture.  All of this work has forced me to move all  the paperwork, work piles, filing systems, and office supplies out of the room as the areas are being worked on.  Stay tuned and subscribe to this blog, as I’ll be posting before and after photos soon.  In the meantime, I can offer some helpful tips as I’m going through this process…

1. Clearing out the space that needs to be re-organized really does work!  You may have seen it recommended before on HGTV or by professional organizers, and it can appear so overwhelming.  But guess what?  It doesn’t have to be, and that leads me to tip #2…
2. You don’t have to clear out the entire room at once as you transform the space.  That takes up a very big chunk of time, as in several days, something most people don’t have the time or motivation for.  Plus it’s really not convenient to live with your office stuff scattered about or stuffed in storage.

Selling excess and unwanted “stuff” can help you raise money for what you do want…

1. Hold a garage sale to help clear out unwanted items, while raising some funds at the same time.  Garage sales are especially great for getting rid of small items that accumulate, pile up and clutter up a room.
2. It definitely helps to advertise your garage sale on www.Craigslist.com and/or in the classified ads of a major newspaper in your area, even on their online classifieds.  Or better yet, organize a neighborhood-wide garage sale, advertise it well, and split the ad costs with your neighbors.   Here in Portland, OR, I would advertise in the Oregonian classifieds, and post the sale on www.OregonLive.com .  It is worth it to advertise, since garage sales are a lot of work, and you want a good amount of traffic to make it pay off.
3. Craig’s List, www.Craisglist.com, can work well for selling larger items.  It’s a little more work, since you need to post photos of the sale items for the listings to be effective, and you need to repost them every week.  I’ve used both of the above routes, and they vary in effectiveness according to the time of year.  For example, spring is an excellent times to hold garage sales.  (There may be ordinances in your neighborhood that limit the quantity you can hold over a period of time.)
4. Tax deductions for donations tend to net less proceeds, however you will save a bit of time.
5. Taking your designer clothes and accessories to a consignment store is another option.  There are also consignment store options for home furnishings, such as www.upscaleconsignment.com here in the Portland, OR area.

Here’s a link to an inspirational video for de-cluttering I ran across on www.MSN.com:

Click on image to view video on http://www.MSN.com

I recommend watching part 2 of the video as well, but here are the tips summarized…

Click on image to view video on http://www.MSN.com

I hope I have helped to inspire you to get going on de-cluttering your home.  We all have at least one area that needs it…  What’s yours?  I’d love to hear about it, and it helps other people to hear they’re not alone!