I am learning so much from these One on One Small Space Consultations. Thanks to everyone who has booked one! August bookings are full but I am booking into September now and with school hopefully going back in Vancouver I will have more availability.

During the consultations I’m trying to pay attention to themes as they come up and share them here. The first that has come to mind is that we are all at different stages of decluttering our small spaces. If I’m honest, I started this blog after we did the major decluttering of our small apartment to welcome baby Theo. I think i’ve always approached editing or decluttering on the blog from the perspective of an already edited starting point and have focused on not adding more clutter to our home or the maintenance of decluttering. I haven’t always shared how we got to this point. I sat with that for a bit and then put together a decluttering guide. I hope that the ideas and tips are useful. And remember that it took months and possibly years to build up clutter in your home so it will take some time to sort through it.

This is not a definitive guide as there have been entire books written about the subject but figured if you are here you might benefit from a quick guide. I know after writing it, it helped me edit down some items in our home. A quick example is, I have a box of cards in our “linen closet” that was intended to store thank you and Christmas cards and envelopes etc., anything needed for written correspondence. But when I opened it up today I realized it had become a dumping ground for things I didn’t want to part with. It had over 20 thank you cards from our wedding (9 years ago), 12 Christmas cards from 2 years ago and some Christmas cards that we will never send out and various photos. I saved 2 of each of the meaningful memories and recycled the rest (or put in the kids art box for future projects). The memories I put in my file box to save and now this written correspondence box is quite empty. I may get some more thank you cards ready to fill it or repurpose the box entirely.

Anyway here is the link to the guide. It asks some specific questions about the value and usefulness of the items you are considering, as well as some practical ideas for tackling clutter. I really hope you find it helpful! I’ve saved all the PDF guides here for easy access.