Declutter for Summer: Top Storage Tips for a Tidy Home

If your home is feeling a little cluttered at the moment, it might be time for you to roll up your sleeves and clear out what you don't need! Whether you've been hoarding too many clothes, have a mountain of shoes near the front door or just need to tidy up your living room, every now and again a declutter is essential.

We’ve brought you some handy hints and tips for each room of the house; the ideal tidy-up guide for those looking to declutter this summer.

Bedroom & Wardrobes

Unless you have ample space to keep clothing, such as a spare room to keep wardrobes in, it can be difficult to organise clothes and prevent the area from becoming cluttered. You might even reach the point where you know you have too many clothes and you have to start getting rid of old sweaters, threadbare t-shirts and that pair of shoes you bought two years ago that still don't go with anything!

• Be brutal with old clothes - look at each item of clothing and think "when was the last time I wore it"; "when am I likely to wear it in the future"? If you can’t answer eithe of these questions, add the garment to a pile for selling, giving away or taking to a clothes bank
• Organise by season - try to put garments that you plan on wearing soon to the front of your wardrobe or drawers and those that you won’t be wearing (such as chunky knit jumpers during summer) towards the back. Need an extra wardrobe to put everything in? Try our Deluxe Large Canvas Wardrobe
• Store away unused clothing - use Vacuum Storage Bags to store clothing you won’t be using and save space in the long run
• Use drawer dividers - instead of allowing drawers to become a mess, use dividers to separate different types of garments. This will save you time when finding items of clothing, as well as stopping them from becoming creased in the drawer

Bathroom

With an abundance of cosmetics, soaps, creams and powders, your bathroom can easily get cluttered up with various products. Unless you're organised, your clean space can easily become awash with products you barely use.

• Add shelves - if you are struggling with places to put your toiletries and don’t have much space to work with, try adding shelves in cubby holes to give yourself more options
• Don’t keep old bottles - just like your clothes, you need to be brutal with what you keep. If you have any shampoo bottles with a tiny amount left and you’ve already moved on, throw out the old bottle, making sure to recycle if possible
• Keep makeup or cosmetics organised - use our Vanity Organiser to separate different types of makeup from lipsticks to eyeliners

Kitchen

Your kitchen often becomes a well-used space if you make a lot of home-cooked meals, and can easily get overrun with miscellaneous items that fill up drawers and cupboards, despite not actually being used that often.

• Get rid of unused gifts - we’ve all been there, receiving kitchen gadgets or accessories that just take up room without being used. If they are still in the same packaging or just haven’t been used, put them in a pile to sell
• Use your space wisely - running out of cupboard room? For everyday items you might even want to store them on show, for example by hanging pots and pans on hooks, or getting a magnetic strip for kitchen knives (out of the way of children of course)
• Have a tupperware purge - an abundance of tupperware taking up too much space? If you have anything cracked or missing a lid, put it straight in the recycling. Same goes for old pots and pans - ask yourself the last time you used it, just like an item of clothing

Hallway

Unfortunately your hallway can easily become cluttered with people going in and out, with shoes and coats messily left on the stairs. Try the following tips to tidy up the space:

• Organise your shoes - use our Spaceways Shoe Organiser to organise your shoes instead of having them in a pile on the floor where they could potentially become damaged
• Put coats away - if you have an overloaded coat rack, make sure to remove coats you haven’t been wearing and put them into a pile to sell, or just into storage until you will be using it next
• Avoid piles of paperwork - the most common type of clutter that ends up piling in the hallway is paperwork. Try and find a place such as our Really Useful Storage Tower to file bills, documents and letters out of sight

General

If you have a general problem with clutter, you might need to use storage solutions to remove items from your house or just to file them away.

• Put away toys and games - use our Really Useful Storage Box to put a multitude of miscellaneous items away temporarily. Whether it's toys, games or important documents, make sure they have a place in the house
• If in doubt, box it up - whether it’s put into the garage or filed away in a study instead of cluttering up your living room, our stackable 20L Storage Box will allow you to remove items such as old magazines or important files and store them safely, protected from dust and mould

B&M Top Tip: If you're in a high flood risk area, it's worth keeping important documents and precious belongings on shelves rather than the floor to avid water damage.

Have you decluttered your house for summer? Share your before and after pictures over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!