Quickly Declutter and Downsize Your Home

Need to quickly declutter and downsize your home? These tips will help you be ruthless while still keeping what you need and love.

I’ve recently written how I’m going back to my blogging roots. This basically means I’m here to encourage you in your home while inspiring you with courage in your life.

Sounds like a tall order but I’ve missed sharing my heart along with tutorials. I believe anyone can give you step by step instructions for a project but God has clearly given me this life purpose: encourage women in hard places with hope.

When you experience trauma as so many of us have, our home usually takes a backseat. Because seriously? Who has the energy to create a beautiful home when life is falling apart and it’s all you can do to get out of bed in the morning?

I get it. Oh, how I get it. In June of 2021 I found out the reason I had been sick for so many years was because I had HIV/AIDS. I believe now I was undiagnosed for several years due to the unfaithfulness of my husband of 35 years.

You can hear more of the story and how my life has been going with my Youtube channel as I live with this horrifying diagnosis and betrayal.

The only way for me to get healthy emotionally, mentally and physically was divorce. In the seven weeks after diagnosis I obtained a separation agreement, downsized from 2000 to 1000 ft and bought and moved to a home in the same neighborhood. We had lived 30 years and raised our family in the home we sold which created extra grief and brokenness.

(My cottage home in summer of 2023)

IT WAS A LOT. But I was like a dog with a bone and realized the “stuff” I owned wasn’t needed and only created a burden my new space couldn’t bear.

Today I want to share how I was able to quickly declutter and downsize in an impossible situation and find a fresh start in a smaller space. You can do it, my friends!

Let me also add these tips are for ANYONE who wants to live a simpler life with less stuff or needs to figure out what should stay or go.

Be ruthless.

I don’t know any other word that describes the decluttering process I went through. Someday I’ll share the story of how I found and bought my darling cottage home but for now just know you’re going to have a limited amount of space to fit things in.

My ex wanted very few things from our home so the majority of this process fell to me. Our attic was crammed full of excess things I always thought would make great projects for the blog lol But knowing my new place didn’t have a floored attic yet kept me from packing most everything.

I also homeschooled my four kids for 23 years and still had tubs filled with all their papers and projects. When they graduated from high school I created a K-12 scrapbook album with samples of their work from each year.

None of my children wanted to keep the tubs of actual work so out to the trash they went! There was no reason to keep them so I was ruthless!

This is also the time to be realistic about what goes and stays. A limited amount of space means taking a limited amount of stuff. Please believe me when I say less stuff is less burden for taking care of things!

See if family and friends want any of your things.

This can be tricky because if your kids or relatives want nothing of yours it may hurt your feelings. What I’ve come to realize is most of the younger generation wants to find their own way in the world and develop their own style. This could be completely different than yours and that’s ok!

If these individuals don’t want your possessions you can try selling them on Facebook marketplace, at a garage sale or through local sources like consignment. But if you’re serious about downsizing give away everything that won’t fit into your new space.

(Read how to make a new home after divorce or loss.)

Select a holding/storage space.

Because we were selling the house I needed a place to put all the “extra” things realtors tell you to hide while your house is on the market. We rented a pod (a storage unit placed on our property) and I realized this gave me the perfect place for my emptied attic and all the items I wasn’t sure about.

Since the pod remained at the house until we both moved I was able to offer friends an opportunity to shop my pod! I moved before our home sold so everything left was up for grabs! If they wanted to donate a couple dollars that was fine but it was all FREE!

I didn’t open this to the general public for safety reasons but I was able to see the joy and needs met by being generous with all that I couldn’t use. Even with this, my friends and I hauled six pickup trucks, vans and cars to the Salvation Army to dispose of the leftovers.

Separate into keep, give or throw away piles.

This is tried and true advice from many a professional organizer! If you have the luxury of time (which may not help in actuality) find three separate areas for your designated piles.

The very first area I worked on was my clothes. I knew I had less closet space in my new home and I was least attached to my clothing. My youngest daughter came over and we filled four trash bags with clothes and shoes. I immediately put them in the car to donate.

GET THOSE DONATIONS OUT OF THE HOUSE! If not, you may be tempted to sort through again and that’s not helpful at all!

I had an entire dress up tub for my kids and grandkids. I gave most to my oldest daughter but kept my dad’s hat to use in my new home as a reminder of his presence in my life. You can see it hanging in the drop zone below.

There are definitely things you can just throw away, like broken or damaged pieces you’re hoping to fix one day. This may not be the best time to deal with your paper clutter but that’s a definite opportunity to shred all those papers you really don’t need to keep. If in doubt google how long you should keep taxes, receipts, etc.

In our neighborhood people ride around to see what might be left out for trash day. It could be a gold mine like all the goodies we left out for the trash ourselves!

Select your large furnishings first.

Since I was at the very beginning of taking back control of my life, I chose to decide about our good sofa and loveseat. I had actually been given these for a sponsored post and I thought I wanted to take the sofa.

However, I invited a blogger friend to look at my new home before I moved in and she suggested the sofa was way too big for the space. I chose the loveseat and have been grateful ever since that I took her advice!

However, one of my favorite projects is the china hutch makeover. This piece came from my parents and even though it was large it was coming with me! Not only does the hutch store a ton of china and servingware it also has sentimental value.I can still remember the day the hutch was delivered to our home when I was a kid.

Knowing if your furniture has a place in your new home is vital. Start with your favorites and go from there!

Detach from sentimental items.

I believe sentimental clutter is often connected to grief and loss. We don’t know what to do with those things that have memories and nostalgia attached to them. Or maybe there’s guilt over a death and the inability to repair the relationship before that person died.

And this is where the need to be ruthless came into play for me.

Hear me say that I didn’t get rid of everything! I kept the 16 piece set of my mom’s vintage china because I love it and will still find a way to use it. I didn’t part with any of my many scrapbook albums even though emotionally I haven’t been able to face looking back at my past yet.

I saved a couple of the framed cross stitches my sister had stitched. She died in 2000 and I wanted something of hers in my new home.

(I donated both my wedding dress and my veil to Goodwill yet took a picture of the veil for memory sake.)

But if you’re downsizing you’re probably facing harsh realities in your life (getting older, wanting to spend less money on housing, etc.) This is not the time to touch every picture, paper, piece of clothing and accessory you own.

This is the point where I start singing “Let It Go” from Frozen! I promise you less stuff is freeing if you can find the strength to push through the sentiment and ties to the past.

(You can read more about how to get rid of sentimental clutter here. It’s worth the read!)

If you get stuck take a picture of the item and move on!

Don’t miss this great piece of advice! You don’t need to love scrapbooking like I do to create a file on your phone with pictures of belongings that are difficult to part with.

I had a poster size acting picture that was displayed in the lobby of one of the theaters I worked at. On the back were signatures and messages from the cast. I had saved this for nearly 40 years but there was no way it was coming to my new home.

(Please enjoy the Farrah Fawcett hair at my expense! Yikes!)

So I took pictures and now have it in a folder in dropbox if I ever want to look at it again. This is just one example of sentimental possessions that might tug at your heart. I’m not advocating for throwing away all your heritage photos and only you can make the decision on each and every item.

This Japanese doll was a gift from my sister in the 1960’s. What was I thinking hanging on for so long? Now I have a photo to help me remember that time.

Don’t leave all your belongings for others to deal with after your death.

Ouch. I know this one is hard but I had to do this for my parents. Thankfully they had moved into a smaller home and decluttered along the way. But they went from their home to a nursing home in a matter of a few days and I wasn’t prepared.

This is a topic for another post but that process had to be undertaken while grieving the realization my parents were not in good health. I also still had small children I was homeschooling and many other hats I was wearing. I wish I had known how to help my parents organize and make decisions before the worst happened.

I know my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to go through all the physical and emotional pain as I prepared their home to be sold. With this in mind, my downsizing into a smaller home allowed ME to make decisions and prepare for my older years. I’ve prepared documents with all the information my oldest daughter needs for both the personal and business side of my life.

I want to leave you with this thought. Even though this prior season in my life with a divorce and HIV/AIDS diagnosis was the most heartbreaking experience of my life, I did survive and I’m living proof heartbreak doesn’t have to break us.

God has used this in-between season to heal my broken heart, body and spirit. I would never wish this on my worst enemy but I’ve seen my family and friends step up to carry me as I became a single woman at age 60.

Your story may not be the same but we all carry wounds that need to be addressed in order to step fully into healing and newness of life. I’ve had to accept my life looks nothing like I imagined yet it’s better and more fulfilling than I could have dreamed.