It doesn’t take much extra stuff for a home to feel cluttered. According to professional home organizational experts Ann Lightfoot and Kate Pawlowski, reducing your stuff by only 10% can make a space feel more open and manageable. But they don’t want to stop at just reducing your stress by that 10%. They want to show you how to go through all your spaces, sort through everything you have, make decisions about how that stuff will best serve you, and create a new and usable space that will bring ease, beauty, and freedom to you and your family.
This mother/daughter team created their own business as Done & Done Home to help people declutter and reorganize their homes, and now they have taken all their professional insights and published them as Love Your Home Again, so anyone can create a manageable home with some hard work and by asking themselves some difficult questions.
The authors go through the home room by room, offering specific tips for each room. But the basics are the same, no matter where you are in your living space. First, they want you to ask yourself how you want to use the space. But no idealized lifestyles are allowed. They want you to match your home with how you really live. Then gather everything together, put like items together, sort through it to decide what you really use and what you can give up, and then put everything back in a way that will make it all most useful.
They have key concepts that they start from. They believe in Owning Well, or buying the best quality item you can afford and then caring for it so it will last you a long time. They warn you that while decluttering, it will get worse before it gets better. And they get real about sunk costs, the money you’ve already spent on items and can’t get back. If you’ve spent a lot of money of cleaning products that you hate, then that is money you can’t get back. You can keep using the products that you hate, you can let them sit around forever, or you can just let them go, releasing yourself from having to use them and freeing up space for a new cleaning product that you love.
But they are not asking you to get rid of everything you love. The things that you have kept because they have sentimental value they call “Save Forever,” and they have you collect those items from the various rooms as you are decluttering and creating a space for those beloved heirlooms and memories where they can be displayed and enjoyed instead of hidden in a drawer or the back of a closet.
They start with the kitchen, the busiest and often most stressful room in a home. They walk you through each drawer, each cabinet, the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, and they help you figure out what you use most and where best to store it. They help you clear out all those old spices and make the snacks easily accessible. They help you decide which of your small appliances need to be kept handy and which can be stored in a deep cabinet, or even donated to someone else who may need it more. They encourage you to use glass storage containers, so you can easily what pasta you have for dinner tonight and if you need to buy flour the next time you go grocery shopping. They help you make the space usable, so meal prep is easier and more enjoyable and cleanup is easier.
From there, they take you to the bedroom, to help you create a restful space and get a handle on your closet clutter. They help you make the bathroom a space for self-care and stress-free mornings, helping you manage all those beauty products and helping you stay organized even in a very small space that is shared by many. They help you think through your Entry Space, your Gathering Spaces, your Children’s Spaces, and Home Office. They help you make peace with your Laundry, Linens, Cleaning, and Utility spaces and make the most of Storage Spaces like your attic, basement, and garage.
Throughout, they help you make difficult decisions, to set you up for success by only keeping what you will use. They encourage smart storage solutions with clear labels. They make eco-friendly suggestions and include reminders on how to keep things uncluttered moving forward. And throughout, there are stories from some of their actual clients who have found success with the Done & Done Home methods, and there are beautiful, aspirational photos of well-managed home spaces to inspire creativity and functionality.
I have been wanting to dig into my home and get it better organized for some time now. We combined two households into one and then bought more stuff. At first, we didn’t know what all we would use or how to make the space work well for us. But we’ve been here several years now, and I think I’ve got a handle on it. But I still need to do the work. As I was reading Love Your Home Again, I found a lot of good ideas and inspiration for creating spaces that will work for us and moving on from all the things that we don’t really use or need. I will be keeping these ideas in mind as I clean and clear, and I will definitely think of those beautiful photos as I create storage solutions that will work. I think this book could be a really good tool for those are ready to dig deep and make smart choices for decluttering and managing their homes. Like other popular decluttering books, it may not be for everyone. But it’s a good place to start, to get some ideas and get some momentum towards a cleaner, kinder, manageable life.
Egalleys for Love Your Home Again were provided by Chronicle Prism through Edelweiss, with many thanks.
