Day 16 - Living Room
Our living room is my favorite spot in our home. Depending on the day it can be cozy, quiet, loud, full, peaceful, tidy, or messy among other adjectives! My point is we LIVE in our living room. We love to host our family and friends in our home. Whether it’s having family over for holidays, friends over for a game night, college students over on Christmas break, or high school students over on a Sunday night discussing scripture and praying for each other. We just love having our people in our home and intentionally loving on them. The living room is where that happens! (Well, when all of the college kids come over it happens in the living room, the kitchen, the garage, the hallway, etc.)
Maybe your living room isn’t the main hub of your home. That’s okay too - just ask yourself what the purpose of your living room is and then take the steps to get it back to fulfilling that purpose today!
The goal here is not to have a perfectly clean living room all the time.
If you are LIVING in your living room it is impossible to keep it perfectly tidy 24/7. But if you get rid of clutter & put a few organizing systems in place it makes it so much easier to tidy it up when you need to.
Gather up everything that doesn’t belong in the living room and put it back where it goes!
Get the clutter off of all flat surfaces.
Say NO to paper in the living room!
Get the old magazines & newspapers out of there.
Don’t store your to-do paper stack in your living room (see my previous blog on decluttering paper!)
Get the clutter out of the drawers, cabinets, end tables, shelves, and other storage areas.
Throw away trash, add to a donation bag, don't keep JUNK!
Evaluate your decorations.
Outdated decorations that you don’t even like anymore? Get rid of them.
Just because there is an empty space does NOT mean you have to fill it!
Tidy the cords!
Toys taking over?
Only keep toys that will fit in a basket or storage container in the living room. Everything else should go somewhere else. (Make sure you read the blog on decluttering toys too!)
Tidy up the movie collection & purge if necessary.
Organize.
Use bins or baskets to store blankets, remotes, and other items that need to remain in your living room.
Put items back in order on your bookshelf or in your cabinets.
This step is going to look different for everyone.
If you thoroughly decluttered you should not have much left to organize!
Clean.
Dust & vacuum.
Light a candle or turn on your diffuser.
Sit down and enjoy it! (I know it may not last long!)
Maintain.
Make picking up in your living room a frequent habit.
Keep paper & things that belong in other rooms out of the living room.
Reset your space before going to bed. The more often you do that the less likely you are to be back where you started!!
Don’t forget before and after pictures!