Assess Your End Goal

Before you begin the process of decluttering, you need to sit down alone or with the other people who live in your tiny house with you and decide what you want the house to look like in the end. This way, everyone is on the same page and you have a good idea of how much you have to get rid of. The best practice is to go through every step of this process with everyone who lives in the tiny home because then everyone can be in agreement about the changes that are to come.

Your end goal can also mean many different things. It can include how much you want to get rid of, how you want to store what you keep, and how you want to keep from building up clutter again. Once you have a good game plan, then you can move on to the next steps. 

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Create Sorted Piles

The first step after deciding what you want from the declutter experience is to lay everything out and sort it into piles. Each pile should be a category of things like kitchenware, clothing, books, old electronics, toys, and anything else that seems to be taking up too much space. If you are working with a small space, which is likely in a tiny home, then create your piles one by one. Take the time to look through every inch of your tiny home to make sure that there is nothing lingering that doesn’t need to be there. 

Once you have each pile, it’s time to implement the Marie Kondo method of deciding if each object sparks joy. If you are going through kitchenware and you see a bowl you haven't used since you moved in, then it is probably time to donate or sell it. The same goes for clothes. If you have a significant pile of clothes that you have not worn in months, then you may as well clear that space up to fit the clothes you actually wear. 

The items that you are choosing to get rid of can be designated to bags or boxes to be brought to donation centers or to be sold to thrift shops. If there are a lot of items that are too worn down to be donated and need to be thrown away, then consider hiring a skip bin to take away all of your clutter at the end of your project. 

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Hire A Skip Bin

Skip bins are a hand tool when decluttering your home because they can be loaded up and then taken away. This saves you time and allows you to stay focused on the task at hand. If you are interested in Skip Bin Hire, then check out the options in your area.

There are many different skip bin sizes to choose from depending on how much stuff you are planning to get rid of. There are even bins that have doors installed on the side in case you want to get rid of larger items and don’t have the means to throw them over the top of the bin. No matter what size or style you need, skip bins are the perfect solution for getting rid of your clutter before you change your mind.

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Designate Space for Sentimental Items

As you make your different piles of stuff, make sure to sort through everything and ask every family member about what they hold sentimental. This may include drawings, other art projects, childhood toys, and a variety of other items that people hold dear. The last thing you want is to throw something away without asking just to find out that it was a family heirloom or a treasured childhood memory. Once you have identified all of the sentimental items, you can either decide to display them around the house or store them in a safe place.

Luckily, if you have already moved into a tiny home, most of those sentimental items were probably already put in a designated storage area when you moved in. If that is the case, then this step may be the easiest in your decluttering process. 

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Build Storage Shelving

In order to prevent future clutter buildup, the best thing you can do once you have gotten rid of all of the things you don’t need is to build good storage shelving that will give you the highest level of organization and space optimization in your tiny home. A big reason why clutter tends to build up is because there is too much negative space where people can throw items and not think about them again for months. In a tiny home, your main goal, besides being a minimalist, is to optimize every little space you have. 

Some ideas for storage shelving include turning your bed and sofa into storage spaces, draping hanging storage units on the back of doors, installing drop-down shelving in the kitchen area, and hand cookware on the walls or ceiling as opposed to using cabinet space.

The best way to utilize bed and sofa space is to find a way to install shelves under the bed or build a bed frame on hinges so that it can be opened like a chest to reveal tons of space for clothes, shoes, and other miscellaneous items. The same can be said for the sofa, before purchasing a sofa for your tiny home, consider buying one that can be opened up under the cushions to reveal little storage pockets. 

Drop-down shelving in the kitchen can be installed if you have extra space in your ceiling. This way, you can store things like spices and baking ingredients in hidden compartments instead of having them all sitting out on the countertop. One of the biggest space hoggers in a kitchen can be the pots and pans, so hanging them on open wall space instead of stacking them in a drawer or cabinet. That way, those spaces can be used to store other things like towels, plates, and cutlery. 

One more pro tip to consider when thinking of utilizing as much space as possible is to look at your stairs. If there is space under them, then build a shelving unit or instate storage cubes where you can put toys, blankets, and other items that tend to just be thrown around when they don’t have a designated home.

As long as you make some of these changes to add order to your tiny home, you will see that it is more difficult to stack clutter up again and again.

Have a Yard Sale

If you want to get rid of your clutter but want to see if you can make some money by selling it, then consider putting on a yard sale. It doesn't have to be anything crazy as long as you set out a few tables and display your items for people to see. This is also a fun weekend activity, especially if you have kids. You can enlist your kids to help with labeling everything and encourage them to be little salespeople. 

This gives you the opportunity to interact with other people in your community and maybe make some money from the stuff you no longer want. As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You never know who will be interested in your things until you try to sell them. Having a yard sale every once in a while is also a great way to keep your tiny home clutter-free. 

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Maintain Your Decluttered Space

Now, once everything has been decluttered and you have installed new storage shelving and you have sold the things you don’t need anymore, it is important to keep your tiny home free of clutter. Maintaining a decluttered space can be accomplished by doing lots of little things in and out of the house. First of all, if you are at a store and you are about to buy something, make sure that you have the space for it in your storage areas.

If you don’t then only make the purchase if you are willing to replace something old with the new item. One more thing you can do is label all of the areas in your house where things are stored, this encourages everyone in the house to put things back where they belong and will prevent clutter buildup.

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Decluttering a home can be a lot of work, but it should be a comfort that because you live in a tiny home, you will have less space to build up clutter than a regular-sized house. This means that all of the steps listed above shouldn’t take more than a few days to complete. If you are considering taking on the task of decluttering your tiny home, then keep these steps in mind and be ready to feel the relief of having a clutter-free home.