Since I have ALL this free time at home (#quarantine), I’ve been meaning to share with you guys our “tiny” apartment living. I live in a 6-unit condo complex where each unit has 1 BR and 1 BA. My shared home in San Francisco was much larger, but of course that was split between 2 other roommates so I finally get to call a place my home!

Since the unit itself is about 560 square feet (give or take), it’s imperative that we keep our shopping to a minimal and clean up often. I’ve included a few panorama photos so you could get some insight to the minimal space we have.

I’ve come to this conclusion that when I have more open space, the environment looks larger and it helps me feel calm and relaxed. I know there has to be other people who feel the same way! What’s worse is the more physical items that are present, the tinier the house looks. Without further ado, here are my tips on decluttering and I hope you find time to do it this week! Let’s be real here… you’re stuck at home anyways boo.

• Designation. Choose what area you want to declutter. I don’t recommend doing the whole house or apartment in one day because you’re just going to stress yourself out and end up fighting with the other members of your household. (I know this from personal experience, lol).

• Clear the air. Get rid of the unnecessary. I’ll use my bedroom as an example: In my desk drawer, there are old receipts… receipts from Target… from 2 years ago. Am I ever going to return those T-shirts? Probably not, so good-bye.  I also had this storage container full of office supplies such as index cards, highlighters, and ugly pens??????? Did I really need these things or were they taking up space? I’m sure you can answer that.

| Here’s the thing: We naturally hoard things as human beings because we have a difficult time letting things go. |

• THERE I SAID IT, FIGHT ME. So over time, we end up collecting all of these unnecessary, random items that are just taking up space. And as it continues to fill up the space in your home, we, the individual, begin to feel compressed and overwhelmed about being home. Maybe that’s the reason why some people don’t like staying home?
  • *food for thought*💡If we create an environment that we truly enjoy being in, imagine the peace and balance we’ll feel on the inside!!! (+ improvement on our mental health) and then we will be more inclined to spend time at home AND be emotionally okay with staying home…. (thus, eliminating the feelings of FOMO), and overall improving our well-being!

| So, in summary, think of the unnecessary like it’s pollution and it’s interfering with your breathing. You need that sh*t to go and the remedy ain’t Benadryl, it’s the trash bin, baby girl. |

• Move things around. Try to find a way to rearrange the furniture so that there is more floor space to maneuver around. Nothing is worse than trying to walk around and tripping over everything in sight. More floor space = larger appearance = happy human 🙂
  • Yesterday I focused on my bedroom. My bed used to be in the center of the wall where the mirror is, but it created this extremely narrow aisle to get around and in result, I kept jabbing my foot at the corner of the bed. Therefore, I decided to push my bed up against the corner wall and now there’s all this lovely space for the kitty to run around in!

• Narrow down any large items you don’t actually need. Guess what we got rid of? Our coffee table. Did we really need that? Your answer might be “yes you’re insane,” but let me tell you why I didn’t need it: Rather than using it for storing items like my TV remote, maybe a few magazines, something to set my drink on, it ended up becoming a storage unit for a bunch of TRASH and items that needed placement. So without a coffee table in the center of my already very small living room, I have an open space between my lounging area and our TV and I don’t miss the coffee table one bit.
  • “So where do you set your drinks or snacks when you’re watching TV?” — well we don’t need to be eating on that expensive sofa anyways. So we do our eating in the kitchen (this was very hard for my significant other lol)
  • “Do you have something in place of a coffee table?” — yes! I picked up an ottoman/stool thing from Ross ($29.99) and purchased this cute food tray from Target ($5) and it has become the designated place for our TV remote, xbox controllers, etc. It’s small enough to fit a magazine and maybe my cup of Joe, but not large enough to become a junk collector.

In conclusion, to get rid of the larger things, I sold a ton of items of Facebook Marketplace. I’m never the type of person to sell things with the expectation that I’m going to get back $100 for this coffee table from Ikea. My intentions are to get some money returned to my wallet, and the satisfaction that I was able to help out another person who’s going to put the item to good use. Since I price my items at a very affordable price, I usually get rid of it in a day or two and ta-da, it’s out of my way and I have no complaints here!

I hope you guys find this article useful and if you have any questions about downsizing, LA living, or decluttering, please do not hesitate to contact me! You know where to find me.

with love and blessings, @tbh_xtina 💕