What is clutter?

So, all the house improvement programmes tell you to declutter. Yes, but what does that mean? What is clutter? Decluttering is not the same as tidying up. A house can be beautifully tidy but still cluttered. Clutter comes in a number of guises but usually implies that there is too much of something:

- Excess furniture
- Excess personal items eg photos, collections
- Excess paperwork

what is so bad about clutter
- it makes it hard to use your house efficiently
- things get lost or broken
- it makes your house feel small
- it makes viewers (and you) feel you have no room

why do we produce clutter
- it is hard work tidying up all the time
- we dont have storage space to put things away
- we think we need to leave it where it is so we can 'deal with it later'
-it has sentimental value or we feel we mustnt remove it (it belonged to my grandmother)

what can we do about clutter
-be ruthless, get rid of it
-if you are planning on moving, do you really want to pay to pack this or have it packed for you
-if you cant bear to be parted from it, put it in storage but over 50% of items put in storage are never reclaimed. An expensive way to throw something away!