3 Steps Closer to the Home of Your Dreams

We all want a home so beautiful it could be featured in a home and garden magazine, but let’s get real for a moment, three things deny us the privilege in achieving our dream home: disorder, clutter, and grim. In this state you have two choices, hire a maid, a home organizer, and an interior designer OR do it yourself. For the majority of the population it just isn’t financially feasible to hire someone to do it for us.

So how do we get closer to a designer look on a budget?

Prepping your home is the best way to get started toward that magazine worthy look you’ve been dreaming about. Just like you would prep a piece of furniture before staining it, or your face before apply makeup, you need to prep your space to design it. It won’t matter how many designer inspired pieces you throw into a room, bought or DIY’d, if the room is dirty, cluttered, and in disorder.

Photo by Kara Rosenlund – More kitchen photos

Step 1: DECLUTTER

Declutter the room from top to bottom! Move everything you don’t want in that space OUT! If your over it, donate or sale it. If you think you’ll use it in a different room, put it there. If your not ready to part with it, box it. You might be surprised how good your room looks once all the clutter is gone.

Photo by LEICHT New York – Search kitchen pictures

Step 2: CLEAN

Clean your space. Once your space has been decluttered you’ll find it much easier to clean and maintain a cleaner environment. Dust those cobwebs, vacuum the floors, polish the furniture, windex the windows; spring clean every area of the room.

Photo by AMW Design Studio – More home office ideas

Step 3: ORGANIZE

You can declutter and clean until the cows come home, but if you don’t organize the environment then things will get back into disorder and clutter before the sun goes down. Decide what you want in the space you are working with and then find organize solutions for every area in this space. Example: where/how are you going to store the remote controls for the entertainment system.

These three important steps are going to give you a better picture of what you have to work with and what you can do with your space. By decluttering, cleaning, and organizing the space you can then proceed to designing and decorating it.

Sure, you can skip these steps and go about designing around the disorder and clutter but the process will be a frustrating up hill battle.