Simple, influencer-approved tips that won’t break the bank
New year, clean slate? While most of us will be focused on our own personal development in the new year, January is also the perfect time to invest in your home and give it some extra TLC.
But breathing life into your home doesn’t have to break the bank. Using empty space, donating unused clothes to charity or even a fresh lick of paint are just some ideas, but knowing where to start can be tricky.
Amy McElhaney, known to her 17K Instagram followers as Amy’s Home Life, lives in Barratt Homes’ St Clement Wells development on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
A crafty home economics teacher by day, the 27-year-old blogger moved into her three-bed Wemyss home with her husband Scott, 29, in 2019 and has since spent the last four years making their house a home.
Below are her simple, budget-friendly tips to help declutter your home, create more space and give it that New Year clean feel:
- Learn to love labels
My favourite things to have in the kitchen are personalised storage containers, with labels. This means I have less packaging and more space for food. It also means I can easily find ingredients when cooking and baking.
I love using my Cricut machine at home, but labellers like the Brother P-touch Cube are great too and can connect to your phone. For cheaper solutions, good old-fashioned stickers or paper and a pen work a treat.
- Hidden gems
We purchased storage boxes that are the same colour as our kitchen cupboards, which sit above our kitchen cabinets. It allows me to put the equipment I use less regularly and my recipe books in a safe place, but not cluttering up the house.
Supermarkets like ASDA have some cheap storage solutions that can be easily be picked up on your weekly shop. If you’re a regular shopper at Tesco, vouchers from Clubcard points can also be used towards covering the value.
- Rack it up
I cook from scratch most days, so my collection of herbs and spices is rather large. To save shelf space, we bought a spice rack which is a screwed onto a cupboard door. It is perfect as it saves space and makes finding jars easy.
Ikea have some basic spice racks under £5, or you can pick up in-cupboard racks for just over a tenner in stores like B&Q.
- Utilise hidden space
Being smart with space is always essential and buying an Ottoman bed really helped us with this. We have plastic box underneath for all bedding, towels, summer/winter clothes and then things like board games. It’s organised whilst also being hidden!
Wilko, The Range and Dunelm all have options that can be used for under beds, starting at under £10.
- On your marks, get set, clean!
To keep the house tidy after a good clear out and declutter, I set daily 30-minute timers to do my cleaning. I set the timer, put on an upbeat playlist and tackle jobs to save me doing it at the weekend. I find this essential when we both work full time and allows our weekends for fun stuff only!
Spotify has loads of pre-made playlists that are specific to cleaning and can also act as a timer for completing tasks.
For more information on Barratt Developments in Scotland, visit:
https://www.barratthomes.co.uk/new-homes/scotland-east/
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