What’s the real difference between a house and a home? A home is a place that looks good, smell good…feels good!

This section of the blog will guide you through the essential steps you need to take to make your living space comfortable and functional for all your everyday activities, while reducing your waste and carbon footprint.

1. Declutter

Your house is probably the place where you spend most time in; and the way you organize and decorate it tells a lot about your lifestyle. If you decided to reduce the amount of rubbish destined to the landfill, your house is the right place to start your lifestyle revolution.

But let’s face it; many of us are attached to their possessions for different reasons, and it might seem very hard, if not impossible, to get rid of some of our stuff.

However, being minimalist is not really about the number of items you own; maybe you love reading, and you can’t part from your beloved printed books; maybe your favourite hobby is cooking, and you need all those different utensils in your kitchen; or maybe you are a collector, and numbers are important for you.

You might also be emotionally attached to something; remember that souvenir you brought back from your last trip? Or that blanket that your auntie knitted for you?

You see, for any of the examples above, it would make absolutely no sense to suggest to get rid of that “stuff”, because in those particular contexts, those things make somebody happy. Those things allow you to decompres spending time doing something you like, and make you remember a great journey or a beloved family member.

Becoming minimalist is about assessing the real value of our possessions; not an economic value, but a personal one. Is it something you need and use periodically, or something which makes you feel good? By all means, keep it. Is it something you never use, or worst, something which awakes bad memories or feelings? Get rid of it!

Going zero waste might seem like a daunting task, especially if you are just starting your journey; starting from your home and tackling a room at a time will help you spotting wasteful items in your and replacing them with more sustainable alternatives.

A decluttered house has psychological benefits, and it is also easier to clean; after getting rid of all the stuff you don’t use and/or need, give all your ‘things’ their own home, assigning a specific space to each object: this will keep rooms tidy and will make them easier to be found.

Reduce

Pick a room, go there and look at the items laying around; how often do you use them, and how many of them have been sitting there for ages? Be honest with yourself: if you bought that bottle of conditioner 6 months ago, and you haven’t opened it yet, you probably won’t need it very soon. If you’ve never wore that pink shirt you bought at last year’s sales, you might need to acknowledge it was just an impulse purchase.

Check how many of the same item you own; do you really need two bottle openers? Or four different bed linen sets? You’ll be surprised on the amount of things sitting around which you just don’t need, and you barely, or never, use! Getting rid of them is a great way to declutter your house; it’ll make your home look more spacious and easier to keep cleaned. And you’ll make more room for the stuff you actually use and care about.

By reducing the number of your possessions you might even find our that you don’t need a lot of space to be happy, perhaps making you consider downsizing to a smaller house; the size of the house you live in doesn’t really matter as long as you are intentional with your general consumption; but downsizing to a smaller house is a decision that in most cases would make you save money and could also have a better effect on the environment, helping reducing energy consumption. You can have a look at alternative ways of living here.

Have you already done all the hard work of decluttering your house? Well done! I’m sure you’re already enjoying the physical and mental benefits of a tidy living space. But how to keep the clutter away and your house uncluttered?

Sell or donate…don’t throw in your rubbish bin!

Somebody’s rubbish can be someone else’s treasure: by recirculating an item you give it a second life, avoiding another unnecessary trip to the landfill. And when you sell, you can make some money: second-hand market is a great alternative to fast fashion consumerism. Check out this post to see how you can make money selling ‘rubbish’.

You can also donate your unwanted stuff to friends, family and/or your local charity shop(s), just don’t use them as a dumping ground and remember to give them only clean and undamaged items that they can actually re-sell.

When you make the effort to sell or donate something, you become more conscious of stuff value, and you’ll become less prone to impulse purchases next time you go shopping.

2. Clean

Have separate clothes for different cleaning. You can use old t-shirts or rags as cleaning clothes

Create your cleaning routine, according to your schedule and your house’s needs.

A simple mix of water and vinegar can go a long way in cleaning most surfaces and objects in your house.

Don’t forget your laundry! How you do it has also an impact on the environment. Your laundry can be eco friendly AND cheap if you follow these 5 tips.

The quality of the air we breath every day is crucial for our wellbeing; in our homes, we can improve it with purifying plants and dried flowers and herbs.

3.Choose eco-friendly alternatives

Let’s be very clear here: I’m not suggesting you throw away items in good working condition only because they are made with plastic or other polluting materials, and replace them with new stuff from ‘zero waste approved’ brands. Fighting against waste is probably the most important step we need to take if we want to be honest about reducing our carbon footprint. Have you bought a lot of plastic tupperwares back in the day, when nobody had even heard about a ‘plastic free’ movement? Well, those plastic boxes have already been produced and they’ll still last for a long time; plastic never really breaks down and microfibres end up in our land and the ocean. Have you just realised that your wardrobe is full of clothes made with materials which are bad for the environment? If you throw them in the rubbish, you’ll send those materials to the landfill and eventually right into the earth.

Instead, reduce and/or eliminate single-use plastic; wait until an item breaks before replacing it with a new one, or buy second hand. Educate yourself and think twice next time you go shopping; look for environmentally friendly materials when buying new stuff, and whenever you can buy quality items, they’ll usually last longer. The purpose is to not create new waste, breaking the consumerist cycle; not to start buying more of other products only because somebody sticked a green label on them.

Start applying these easy steps to your kitchen, bathroom and bedroom…let’s start a revolution from your home!

Bonus tip: get crafty and recycle!

This might not be for everybody, but if you are an artist at heart you can find so many possibilities out there to recycle almost anything; and I’m not talking about dividing your rubbish into different categories and waiting for somebody to pick up your trash.

You can get creative and transform the use of almost any item in your house:

• keep your empty sauce jars, and reuse them to store food
• don’t throw away old clothes, but reuse them as rags to clean the house
• juice and mils cartons can be repurposed as seed starters, or as organisers for storage
• reuse packing bags as rubbish bags
• old maps, newspapers and magazines can become beautiful wrapping paper for your presents