Let Your Home Breathe this Spring: Small Steps to Simplify Your Living Space
By Katie Bennett, Contributing Writer
Spring is motivating.
The weather is lovely, signs of life are everywhere, and I personally, feel invigorated. It’s truly the perfect time to do some big cleaning and reorganization.
Last spring I changed my daily reality by simplifying many areas of my home. It was an eye-opening time for me as I realized how much easier and better life could be with less stuff around to get it in my way. Read more about that HERE.
This spring I discovered an amazing resource on what it looks like to simplify an entire home, space by space and step by step: Your Simple Home Handbook: 30 Projects to Help Your Home Breathe by Elsie Callender. She beautifully put into words everything I had discovered and so much more. As I read her book, I just wanted to say, “YES!”
In it, she offers 10 reasons to get serious about simplifying your living space.
Several of these that made me almost giddy out of total agreement.
My top five favorites are:
- Simplifying your stuff is energizing, addictive, and fun—once you start, you’ll want to keep going.
- Getting rid of stuff you don’t need or care about will help you have a more beautiful, peaceful home.
- With less things clamoring for attention, you enjoy the things you do keep more.
- Less clutter means less to clean and organize.
- Simplifying your life will help you define your style.
Elsie Callender, Your Simple Home Handbook
So, using her simple, practical steps, I’ve been simplifying my home once again this spring, and it feels wonderful.
Here are a few random projects I have done from her book. In just minutes, I’ve alleviated stress from my home and life and experienced all of the benefits listed above.
Pots and Pans
Your Simple Home Handbook gives several specific recommendations for simplifying the Kitchen cabinets.
For one thing, I’ve decreased the pots and pans stored by my cook-top down to the true necessities. While I still have a few others, I’ve moved the ones I don’t use frequently to another location.
I no longer have to stack pans or rummage around for matching lids. All of my “tools of the trade” are in plain sight and all fit perfectly in the space I have. This has improved my cooking and storage process and allows me to more easily function in my own kitchen. Brilliant. And, as an added benefit, I can’t let dirty dishes pile up, because if I need to use a pot again, I have to wash it then and there.
“You can get by without those complete cookware sets you see in the department store. If your stove is like most, it only has room for four pots and pans to be in use, anyway. Even though we both enjoy cooking, my husband and I have found that we can get by fine with just two saucepans of different sizes, a soup pot, a wok, and three skillets—cast iron, nonstick, and stainless steel.” Elsie Callender, Your Simple Home Handbook
Accessories
Accessories accumulate easily because they don’t take up much space, sell cheaply at stores and we tell ourselves, “maybe someday we’ll be in the mood to wear it.”
I find I end up with a lots of accessories that I don’t wear for years at a time. That’s a good sign it’s time to move them down the line!
Reading Your Simple Home Handbook motivated me to downsize my earrings once again. This is something I’ve done before, but sometimes it takes multiple me “goes” at it to get to heart of the matter. I don’t wear earrings all the time, and when I do, it’s no doubt going to be one of my favorite, go-to pairs. The rest either don’t match my style or hurt my ears. By eliminating these extras, I can more easily decide what to wear and more readily find them.
Spring decluttering is so nice! And small tasks feel doable, yet produce marked benefits. Start small, and in no time you’ll have caught the simple-living bug.
I hope you’re now motivated to get at it!
What small thing have you simplified to make a big impact?
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If you’re interested in purchasing the Your Simple Home Handbook, you can find it HERE:
Also check out some of my simplification tutorials:
Simplify Your Refrigerator and Freezer
Simplify Your Medicine Cabinet
