Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The Art of Decluttering


If you’ve had a home for a while, and especially if you have kids, chances are clutter is a bane of your existence. From stray toys underfoot (who can forget stepping barefoot on a Lego piece for the first time?) to simply a cumulative ugliness marring your home’s look, we at American Furniture Galleries bet you’re looking for spring-cleaning tips. While the time is opportune with spring just around the corner, we’ve found that these tricks to make your home seem more organized work well year round. We draw our inspiration from diverse sources, everything from top Western designers to customer feedback over the years to the ancient Chinese belief in feng shui (pronounced fung shway). The last includes the idea that clutter literally blocks a life-giving energy, called chi, producing deleterious effects that seem like plain bad luck! Tripping over your clutter would be unfortunate indeed, so let’s get started on that cleaning.

 queen poster bed

Stack the Stuff You Need Now and Stow the Rest

If you’ve got hips you don’t want to emphasize, you stay away from dresses with horizontal lines or patterns, right? This optical trick works in your home too. Try choosing furniture and wall art that emphasizes the vertical instead, such as poster beds or curio cabinets. Now, consider rotating your household items and even memento displays seasonally, not just for the holidays. Try gradually changing over from the wintry theme of hearth and home to outdoor and beach stuff now that the warmer months are fast approaching. If you need someplace handy to hide all the stuff rotating out of your room, consider an accent cabinet.

accent cabinet

Lose the Excess

The Japanese-born maven of tidying, Marie Kondo, has a simple Shinto-inspired rule for decluttering. If an item no longer brings you joy, toss it out. Perhaps you no longer need the item but treasure the memories. Do some soul-searching, then start filling the discard pile or bin to give to your favorite charity, for instance. One bit of wisdom: if you don’t regularly use it AND it’s easily available in stores, why have it wasting space in your home?

For furniture to fill your home the right way once it’s straightened up, stop by our Sacramento, CA store.

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