The Family Room

Today we are tackling one of the messiest rooms in the house. The Family Room. Take a deep breath and let’s get to it.

Get four tubs or boxes and label them “Toss”, “Donate”, “Keep”, and “Relocate”. Keep is for items that will stay in this room and Relocate is for things that need to go somewhere else in the house. Starting in a corner, work your way around the room. Clear off the top of each horizontal surface and empty out every drawer. Put the items in the appropriate bins.

Be strict with yourself about what you keep. Do you really need your collection of design magazines from 1992? Do you need a Barney VHS video when your “baby” just turned 12? Your local library loves donations like this. Better yet, with today’s modern technology and streaming services like Netflix, you can probably watch most of the movies in your collection at no additional charge. Why not donate them all? Imagine all that extra space.

Games are another challenge for the family room. If you can find all the pieces, then make space in a cabinet so your family can easily access the fun. If you are missing too many pieces to make it work, get rid of them. Who wants to play Yahtzee with only 3 die?

Make sure you clean, dust, wipe, whatever before you replace the Keep items. This includes the back of the electronics, the top of the picture frames, everything. You’ll thank me when you’re done.