Many of us are spending more time at home at the moment. This is a great opportunity to look at your home with fresh eyes and clear out those items you no longer need or use. Maybe you will rearrange the furniture and realise that table or lamp no longer fits. With the change in season, you might channel your inner Marie Kondo and go through your wardrobe, thanking those items you no longer wear before bidding them farewell.
Here are our top 5 tips for decluttering
- Don’t tackle it all at once! If you start doing everything, you’ll probably end up a little bit bored and frustrated. Choose to go room by room, or tackle items at a time like books or clothing. Starting small will help you feel rewarded early on.
- Filter as you go – separate items into keep, donate and re-purpose.
- Be ruthless. We know it’s harder to say than do. All of a sudden the 3 extra kitchen dishes you’ve never used seem like they might be useful for something. They probably are but they’ll get more use in someone else’s kitchen than yours. If you haven’t used it in the last year, do you really need to hold onto it?
- Make it fun! Turn on the music, send photos to friends of hidden gems you find and get your bubble to join in!
- Try to avoid the trash pile. Most things can be re-purposed in some way. There are loads of interesting options so just have a google for ‘How can I re-purpose xyz?’ and see what you come up with.
So now you have a great big pile of stuff that you no longer want, what can you do with it?
Clothing
Good quality clothes are always in demand so pop them in a paper bag marked Hospice Shop.
Clothes that are ripped or stained can still be put to good use. Cut them up to use as cleaning rags or to make crafts – reusable face cleansing pads if you are good with a needle and thread or try your hand at weaving some fabric coasters and placemats. A child’s favourite t-shirt once outgrown can be made into a personalised cushion cover.
Furniture
Our Hospice shop is often looking for donations of furniture such as beds and sofas. We’d love to help you with your declutter! Larger household items and furniture might have to hang out in the garage for a while but stick a bright post it on them as a reminder.
Rotorua Hospice Shop offers a collection service for larger items. This service will operate once we are open again.
Books/Household Items
Once you have finished reading a book (and no-one else in your bubble plans to read it), pop it into a cardboard box and take a moment to enjoy the novelty of an empty shelf.
How does this help Hospice?
First up, staying at home will help keep everyone safe. If you can declutter and keep while you are at home, this will help support us once our Hospice Shop is able to reopen.
The funds raised through the sale of donated items go directly towards supporting people living with a life-limiting illness in the Rotorua community. Thank you so much for your support!
Stay safe, be kind, keep well.
