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Good decluttering starts with careful planning and clear goals. That doesn’t mean it has to be hard! Learn how to declutter your living room effectively.
Slowly pulling back the frame, I gazed into the maze of mirrors.
At every turn, there I was. Next to me, there was another me. On and on and on.
For a moment, I was fascinated. That many me’s, moving in perfect sync, was mesmerizing.
My hand slipped, and the clatter of the frames crashing together jolted me back to reality.
My living room was no place for a mirror maze. But it had more or less become one.
The Challenging Problem of How to Declutter Your Living Room
If the kitchen is the hub of the home, the living room is the break room.
It’s where we go to relax, spend our downtime, and sometimes even eat. When you get home from a long day at work, you deserve to relax in a living room that you love!
As a result of the living room’s versatility, it’s often a high-traffic area that accumulates a lot of stuff. Personal belongings such as backpacks and shoes, and entertainment items like movies and games, often end up there instead of where they belong.
Your living room might even become an impromptu storage area for “I’ll get it later” items, like my collection of mirrors that had been waiting for months to be moved to the basement for storage. Add the fact that we often tend to accumulate lots of stuff in general, and it’s a recipe for a cluttered room. It can make the task of figuring out how to declutter your living room a little intimidating.
Fear not, though. With a checklist in hand and 10 to 30 minutes, you can easily declutter your living room to remove things you no longer use, need, or love, and reclaim your living room as a place to relax away from work!
…And decluttering your living room will be way easier (and much more effective!) with my Living Room Decluttering Checklist!
What the Goal Is
When decluttering your living room, your goal should be to clear surface clutter and eliminate any low-hanging fruit.
Surface clutter consists of items that are out in the open and are not where they belong.
Low-hanging fruit are items that you can easily identify as trash, things that belong somewhere else, or things you want to get rid of.
What the Goal Isn’t
Decluttering is just the first step in the organizing process. In the interest of decluttering as many items as possible, you’ll want to avoid jumping ahead to later steps toward organization.
As you declutter, resist the urge to:
Clean. If you want to quickly wipe down items or surfaces as you go, that’s fine. Don’t get sidetracked polishing collectibles or scraping the thick layer of dust off your console table. That’s a project for another day.
By the way, a home cleaning plan will help keep your living room, and the rest of your home, company-ready.
Deep purge. The goal of decluttering your living room isn’t to look at every single item and make a decision on it. That’s called deep purging. It’s an involved project that might be mentally and emotionally exhausting. It’s best saved for another day.
Remember, today’s focus is on surface clutter and low-hanging fruit.
Organize. There’s no sense in organizing before you’re done decluttering. Doing so could cause you to spend time and energy organizing items that will ultimately be moved to another room or repurposed for a different use.
Here’s how to declutter your living room, step by step… after you sign up for my free Resource Library and grab my free Living Room Decluttering Checklist, of course! 😁
How to Declutter Your Living Room
Just like with any other organizing project, there are a few steps to decluttering your living room.
Determine How You Do and Don’t Want Use the Room
When thinking about how to declutter your living room, first determine how and why you use the space.
What do you do there? Why do you do it there? Is that how you want to use your living room? Are there any ways you want to start or stop using the space?
As you declutter, put a special focus on removing items that don’t fit one of the ways you want to use your living room.
Prepare to Sort Items
As you declutter your living room, you’ll sort items into different categories based on what you plan to do with each item. You’ll probably need a box or trash bag for each category.
- Trash (and/or recycle) – Actual trash, plus items that are unusable and unrepairable.
- Keep/Relocate – Items you don’t plan to get rid of, but that don’t belong in the room where you found them.
- Donate – Items you no longer use, need, or love, and that are still in good condition.
- Put Away – Put away the items you’re keeping.
- Give to Someone Else (Optional) – Items you no longer use, need, or love that you know someone else would like to have
- Repair (Optional) – Items you want to keep that need repair, and that you’ll actually repair
Declutter
The sheer number of categories of items involved might surprise you. Don’t worry, though! My comprehensive checklist covers it all.
Remember to put a special focus on removing items that don’t fit one of the ways in which you want to use your living room.
Okay, drumroll, please… here’s the checklist! (Finally, right?)
- Throw pillows you no longer use, need, or love
- Extra blankets
- Extra or worn coasters
- Décor you no longer love or that is out of season
- Games you no longer use or love, that are missing critical pieces, or that can be put into storage
- Toys your kids no longer use or love
- VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs that you don’t currently use. Move items you do want to storage, and if you want to, compact them into a CD case. etc at a later date
- Home movies you don’t regularly watch
- Books you no longer use, need, or love; books you want to keep but that don’t need to be displayed; store them elsewhere
- Magazines that are outdated or that you’ve read. If necessary, clip any articles that you’d like to save.
- Family member’s personal belongings, such as shoes, backpacks, toys, etc; put them away or give each family member a basket to hold items they can put away themselves
- Old potpourri, reed diffusers, or candles that you no longer use or love
- Chargers for devices you no longer use or own
- Electronics that are outdated or that you don’t regularly use
- Fire tending tools you don’t use
- Firewood and wood storage racks you don’t use
- Items temporarily there for storage that can be moved to a permanent storage location
- Random items that don’t belong
How to Declutter Your Living Room: Conclusion
The living room is more or less the breakroom of any home, and it’s a place that you deserve to enjoy and relax in. Because it serves as a venue for a variety of activities, it presents unique challenges with regard to decluttering.
Getting clear on how and why you use the space will make it easier to identify items that don’t belong. As a result, decluttering will be faster and less intimidating.
Your living room will feel so much lighter once you’ve removed stacks of old magazines, old electronics, or a mirror maze from the space. You’ll feel less stress and more energy when you see your newly-decluttered space as a result. And you won’t have a stack of mirrors hanging out in your living room, like I used to! 😜 Join the ShowMe Suburban community and grab your free copy of my Living Room Decluttering Checklist and reclaim your living room today!
If you’re interested in decluttering other areas of your home, you might want to check out some of my other decluttering guides:
Clearing Clutter: A Step-By-Step How-To
How to Declutter and Organize Your Nightstand
How to Declutter Your House Super Fast
Do’s and Don’ts for a Clutter-Free Home
How to Declutter Sentimental Items
How to Declutter Your House in One Day
A Super Easy Way to Reduce Paper Clutter