A Cluttered House: Declutter Your Home
Even though you follow home design trends and your place is always in-style, that doesn't mean you don't have some pieces of furniture that waste your space and have no practical value.
Are you one of these people who has difficulty removing older furniture? Do you live in a cluttered house? Is it about time you decluttered your home? One way to do this is to rent a dumpster. A dumpster rental can be a great way to quickly and easily remove all unwanted items in your home and give you back the space you need.
No matter how big your home is, it still doesn't make sense to keep furniture that will only make it feel cramped and confined.
Further in this article, we've prepared a list of five furniture pieces that only take up space in your home. Also, we'll tell you why investing in space-saving furniture is a good idea and what mistakes to avoid when furnishing your home.
Advantages of space-saving furniture
Investing in space-saving furniture is always the best way, especially if you live in a small apartment or house. Multi-functional furniture is a great way to overcome various challenges of designing an inviting and functional space.
By using space-saving furniture, you can make your home feel warm, inviting, and cozy enough for winter while maximizing your available space. Here are the benefits of using space-saving furniture in your home:
- Multi-functional furniture helps you minimize clutter in your home. As you have fewer pieces of furniture in a room, you have less room to create mess and clutter. Also, most multi-functional furniture pieces have built-in storage that helps keep your rooms clutter-free.
- You'll also save money as you won't have to purchase multiple items. For instance, you can replace your coffee table with an ottoman with storage. This will give you additional seating space when you need it. On the other hand, you'll have a surface for the coffee table, too.
- Using multi-functional furniture, you can maximize your available space and utilize it more efficiently. You can't tear down a wall and build a new room whenever you want to. Why not then give a room for more than one purpose?
What are the pieces of furniture that waste your space?
No matter how big your home is, you still don't want pieces of furniture that add visual bulk without fulfilling a purpose.
You'll open up your space by removing or replacing them with more functional items. This is especially beneficial if your home is small. To help you understand which items to avoid, we've selected the five most common pieces of furniture that serve no purpose but only take up space in your home.
End tables
Most living room sets don't include just seating. They often come with a coffee table, a sofa table, and end tables.
This might make you question whether they are necessary for your living room. The answer is usually no, especially if you have a small home. Let's take nightstands in bedrooms, for example. Even though they can be great for holding lamps, they aren't necessary.
By installing floating shelves or adding a stylish sconce to your bedroom wall, you'll be able to light up your bedroom without losing valuable floor space. Avoid adding nightstands when furnishing your guest bedroom, too.
End tables and nightstands are great magnets for clutter. Just look at your sofa end table; you'll probably see piles of knick-knacks and other everyday items.
Even though it sounds like a minor issue, it can make your space feel cramped and confined. Consider adding a floor lamp or wall sconce instead, and we guarantee you'll instantly see and feel the difference.
Dressers
This might be the most surprising and unexpected item for most people. After all, many of us grew up and still have dressers in our bedrooms. However, most people don't realize that dressers are pieces of furniture that waste your space.
You might be wondering what to do with your clothing and accessories and how to store them. The answer is simple – focus on using vertical space. Alternatively, you can try organizing your closet to fit your hanging and folding items.
Desks
If you work from home and have a home office or a dedicated room for doing crafts, the desk or office desk is an essential piece of furniture.
However, it doesn't belong in your living room or bedroom. If that is the case in your home, you should rethink the space and try to find alternatives. Otherwise, you'll have a desk unnecessarily cluttering your bedroom or living room.
Nowadays, most people use laptops, so there is no longer a need to invest in bulky desks.
There are plenty of places in your home where you can sit and work, so why waste space by buying a desk? This is especially true if you live in a small house. Choose a small, fully useable desk.
Barstools
Even though they might not be big and bulky, barstools can sometimes get in the way. Avoid adding barstools unless there are no other seating options in your dining area.
If they don't have a purpose or you rarely use them, they will only take up your space and collect dust.
How often have you tripped over your barstools or told your kids to stop climbing? Or how many times have you had to move them out of your way for whatever reason?
Do you find them comfortable?
Having a bar doesn't mean you must add stools if you don't need them or plan on sitting on them. Why not consider it as a serving place instead?
Entertainment centers
In the late 20th century, the bigger the entertainment center you had, the more valuable and grander your home was.
However, the invention of flat-screen TVs and cloud-based programs made imposing entertainment centers pretty much unnecessary in most homes.
Now that you're free to stream anything you want on different platforms, you no longer need a DVD player and various other gadgets that were considered essential at some point.
So, instead of an entertainment center that takes up half of your living room, consider mounting your TV to the wall and installing shelving for your books and other things.
Without an entertainment center taking up much valuable space, you can maximize available square footage and use it most functionally.
Furniture arranging mistakes to avoid saving space
Even the most beautiful space can fall short and feel off-balance if your furniture is improperly arranged.
As you don't want this to happen to you, here are the most common mistakes you should try to avoid:
- Using out-of-scale furniture is one of the most common mistakes you should avoid. Large pieces can overwhelm your space and make it look unattractive. Also, remember that moving bulky furniture can be a nightmare, and you'll probably need to hire professionals to handle large pieces. You want to avoid this as moving is stressful enough without it.
- Using too much furniture is another mistake that many people make. It's easy to get carried away with all the lovely pieces you see in stores, but if you add too much, you might end up with your living space looking chaotic and overcrowded.
- Not adjusting for heights is where many people fail when decorating their homes. For instance, by adding an oversized coffee table taller than the top of the couch cushions, the piece completely loses its function.
- Adding furniture that partially blocks the windows is another mistake to avoid. It doesn't look appealing to see a bed peeking over a window frame when you look at your home from the outside. Plus, you are blocking natural light from coming in, which is a big no-no.
- Many tend to create a bowling alley effect when decorating long, narrow rooms. They are a challenge to decorate, but making them stylish and functional is not impossible. When decorating this type of room, the best way is to divide the room into zones.
The bottom line
We hope you enjoyed reading this article and, more importantly, that you found our advice helpful.
Now that you know what mistakes to avoid when furnishing your place and the pieces of furniture that waste your space, we hope you feel inspired to take a good look around your home and make adjustments that will help you make your space more functional.
