How to Make Your Space Bigger Simply by Clearing Your Clutter

The human eye is a marvelous piece of equipment. It's durable, needs minimum maintenance, and can take abuse, but there's a point beyond which one's eye would protest "Eeeeiaaa, no more." One straw that could break the camel's back is an overdose of visual stimulation. Too many accents, too many patterns, too much texture, too many throws, too many furniture--the overdose can crowd the eye, causing it to signal to the brain "This place's too small!" even if yours is a 15-room mansion.

Closely related to visual clutter is that physical clutter characterized by your taking forever to find anything. You look for the key to the garage tool cabinet and you have to scour an entire armoire to see if it's there, only to find it hanging in one of your wall candle holders. You look for the warranty of your lawn mower, and you have to rifle through two plastic crates of documents to find it. You need the name of the supplier of your leaf wall art, but couldn't remember where you've written it down. If this happens to you everyday, you have a problem with clutter.

Here are some tips to regain control of your house and drive clutter out.

Tip 1 - Throw away everything you don't need.

Ask yourself "If I throw this thing away, would life continue for me? If life will, throw the thing away. This might be old magazines, books you've already read, your kid's prize-winning science project in grade school (now he's in junior high), appliances that still work but have since been replaced, old sheets- any of the thousand- and- one "prized possessions" every home has.

Tip 2 - Keep all your keys in a key cabinet.

Screw in cup hooks in the cabinet. Label each cup hook. Label also each key.

Tip 3 - Reorganize your medicine cabinet

If an avalanche of cotton balls is triggered everytime you open your medicine cabinet, it's time for a makeover. Place cotton balls in a teacup, bobby pins in an egg cup. Your ear swabs can be placed in another tea cup, while spare shavers, tweezers, nail cutters, and dental floss, can all be kept in an old Tupperware box.

Tip 4 - Have a roller towel

A hand towel will always be within reach with this little marvel. Stitch together at both ends two linen hand towels to form a loop. Paint a 1/2 -inch wooden dowel and screw porcelain drawer knobs into each end. Slip in the dowel into the towel lop, and hang from two wall hooks.

Tip 5 - Have separate files for all your important documents.

Have an accordion file for each of your important documents: warranties, insurance policies, receipts for premium payments, car documents, mortgage papers, among others.

Tip 6 - Have a seed-packet file if you garden.

If you love to garden, you'd sometimes be amazed at how your seed packets keep on disappearing, and turning up in the most unlikely places. No more. Keep track of them by filing them complete with index cards and divider tabs in a carton box. Once a packet has been opened, transfer the remaining seeds to a coin envelope, attaching the original packet to it with a paper clip. Cool.