Double your living space

Remember the golden rules of sorting your belongings. Nominate a day, corral helpers and break the task into manageable chunks of time. Make piles of items you want to keep, chuck, sell and donate, and act on these immediately. Your sense of achievement will be immense and your satisfaction intense, and without laying a single brick, you’ll have an extra room in your home.

Refresh the room with a coat of paint and by steam cleaning your carpet. Bring in your sofa, bookcases and a multi-purpose storage and entertainment unit to help you streamline storage in your family room. Store children’s games and DVDs on the easily accessible bottom shelf. And display objects, even toys, between books to lighten the overall feel.

The spare room, cleared of its clutter, is so spacious there’s room for a study area. Back-to-back desks, each with a set of drawers, magazine holders and containers for pencils, pens and markers, ensure the room stays tidy.

Store kids’ craft, paint and paperwork in inexpensive boxes. Just remember to label them so you can tell at a glance where things belong.

Right down to pencil holders, storage specialists and office suppliers stock heaps of containers to help house your belongings.

Decorator’s tips to declutter

- Once you’ve cleared the space, use rugs and artwork to delineate different zones within the one room – here it is the study from the sitting area. A feature wall can also do the trick, like in this room, where a pale blue wall helps denote the entertainment zone.

• If you love the geometric artwork in this room, use Kaiser Colour Crafters Acrylic Paint to apply a couple of coats of a base colour onto a discount-store canvas, then leave it to dry. Working with one colour at a time and allowing it to dry between coats, mask off blocks and apply two coats of a contrast colour.