• Adding colour to your bathroom

• Buying a new bathroom (Part 1)

• Essential, but never boring….toilets!

• How to pay for a new bathroom?

• A guide to bathroom furniture

New Year’s resolution to declutter bathrooms

Now that Christmas and the New Year have passed, it’s time to look forward to 2022 and a period of new beginnings. A popular new year’s resolution is to make more space and January is the perfect time to get rid of all the clutter that’s accumulated over the previous 12-24months and to make a fresh start.

Physical clutter in the home can have a direct impact on mental health. Letting go of excess ‘stuff’ helps us feel more in control and less anxious and starting the new year off with a well-organised home and clear mind is one of the best ways (and least expensive!) to feel more positive about the year ahead.

Decluttering the home can seem overwhelming. The secret to success is breaking the project down into bite size pieces and tackling the house room by room to clear out anything you don’t use or love.

One of the rooms that often gets overlooked when it comes to clearing and decluttering is the bathroom/ensuite and/or cloakroom as the emphasis and time available tends to be spent on the more public rooms or those rooms that house the most volume such as kitchens, bedrooms, and playrooms. However, all three of these can easily become untidy, and lose that sense of calm tranquillity. Nothing clutters up a bathroom quicker than a load of toiletries and shampoo and shower gel bottles scattered over surfaces, around the bath or in the shower.

A well-organised and decluttered bathroom or ensuite will allow you to place your hands on what you need, when you need it, and will be a more enjoyable place to relax and unwind.

Being organised, however, isn’t necessarily easy.

Below are several steps to getting going:

1. • Decide how much time to commit to decluttering and stick to it. It could be 5 mins per day or half a day at the weekend.
2. • Set yourself a completion date
3. • Share your bathroom/ensuite/cloakroom decluttering resolution with family and get them on board
4. • If you keep first aid and medicines in the bathroom, check expiry dates on all and get rid of anything that’s out of date
5. • Go through toiletries and make-up – if you haven’t used an item in the last 12 months or items were opened over 12 months ago, get rid of.
6. • Review storage options – is there enough? Could you - swap a mirror for a wall hung mirror unit? - find space for slim, tall freestanding shelving unit? – put up more hooks for towels and dressing gowns etc? put up more shelving? – buy a caddy-tidy?
7. • Tidy away anything you don’t use daily. For the rest, if you have bath toiletries you honestly use daily, then gather them to one corner, ideally in a wall caddy to contain them
8. • Sort through hand towels, bath towels, flannels etc and get rid of those you no longer use.
9. • Decide whether any unwanted items should be recycled, donated, sold, or thrown out.
10. • Take stock of bathroom cleaning materials and dedicate space for them to be kept together – out of reach of children. Every now and then, give the basin and tap a polish – it’s amazing how a quick wipe of this area can instantly brighten up the whole room.

Thankfully, whether bathroom, ensuite or cloakroom, these are rooms that can go from cluttered to clean with very little effort – just a bit of determination! 10th Jan 2022