Top Five JUMBO Space Hogs in Your Home

I love the concept of "low-hanging fruit," the things that are easiest to do that bring fast, significant rewards. Identifying large clutter that you can easily remove is a great way to reclaim your space. Here are five of the biggest "space hogs" that we see in clients' homes that are so easy to resolve... do you recognize any in your own home?

1. Exercise equipment: Purchased with the best of intentions, these devices often end up as guilt-inducing clothes racks. Unless you really use it regularly, sell it on Craigslist or to a sports consignment store and get your bedroom back! Use the money to get a gym membership where they have much more equipment. It's much better to buy equipment like this as a reward once you've proven to yourself that you can stick to a program for a certain period of time. (You also might want to try "workwalking" if you really want to keep your treadmill-- see this previous post.)
2. Bulky specialty appliances: Deep fryers, professional grade slicers, bread machines, and buffet serving dishes take up a lot of space and are used so rarely that it almost always would be better to borrow or rent the equipment rather than store it yourself. Are you really frying that much? When is the last time you baked some bread? (Thanks to @TannaC on Twitter for giving me a laugh about bread machines that made me think of including this in my post!)
3. Large children's toys: Anybody have a Little Tikes kitchen set or a Thomas train table? How about all of those "ride-able" toys in your garage? These large toys are great for a while when the child is really involved with them, but often they fade into oblivion as the child matures and they are onto other interests. They become part of the scenery and it is easy to overlook them... or you are tempted to save them for a future child or relative. Remember that they are often easy to find in children's consignment stores... and if you must keep them, try to put them in your attic or other less accessible storage (we call this a "D" space in our Clutter Diet® program) and get them out of the way of your daily living.
4. China and other collections: When is the last time you got out your formal china settings for a large meal? Most people never use it. And many people don't have any kind of sentimental attachment to the plates they picked out for their wedding registry when they were much younger and had different taste in design. If you want to sell it, the conventional wisdom is that you get a better return selling china by the piece on eBay rather than selling as a set. You can also sell a set to a local consignment store. Of course, maybe you do use it, and maybe it does have sentimental meaning to you, and that is okay and wonderful. But if you realize it's taking up space, maybe with its own piece of furniture to store it all, it might not make sense. And that goes for other collections that may have have outlived your fascination with them. 
5. Spare furniture: You got a new sofa, and your old one is "perfectly good." Wouldn't it be great to save that sofa for your son who will be going to college in a few years? Great, if you have space to store it, but if you don't, it is a very bulky thing to keep around for something you are not sure if you will need. Whatever you do, don't get a storage unit for that stuff... remember that at some point (and it doesn't take long), the rental cost of the unit exceeds the replacement cost of the items inside, especially if those items are "used." 

Are items like these taking up a spare bedroom that you would be happier using as an office or creative space? Are you stepping over this kind of stuff and forcing storage of things around them that you do actually use frequently? Think about how you'd like to use your precious space to make your life better TODAY, instead of keeping things you are guessing about possibly needing for the future. Share your jumbo space hog stories in the comments!

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Comments

[Craig Jarrow]

Lorie - Big items can clutter up a house quick! For me, it is usually the exercise equipment that tends to close off an entire area or room. Unless they are used very regularly I recommend clients use a gym membership instead.

Another item that doesn't sound big, but adds up quickly is book collections. I find that many people still have large areas blocked off for books. Unless they are a collector, there are not as many reasons to buy and keep books. Most information can now be accessed online, so keeping a bunch of books for future reference is not needed.

- Craig

[Kay]

we finally moved the NordicTrak into the garage. But I swear I'm going to use it in there! Just maybe not when it's 105 this summer!

[Kim]

Thank you for giving me permission to get rid of my "good" china set! I've had it for 18 years and I think I've used it maybe 5 times. AND...it is not even a complete set and the pattern is discontinued, so I won't be able to make it a complete set. SO...thanks to this blog post, I'm going to dispose of it. I think I'll check into ebay or craigslist. And YES...it has it's own, very large, piece of furniture that also needs to go. And YES...I could certainly use that space for something else, namely bookshelves. GREAT POST!

[DebraC]

Kitchen appliances and gadgets can take up a lot of space in your cupboards. My rule is to have only a certain amount of space in the cupboard allocated for appliances and gadgets, and the rest have to go. That's one way of keeping the clutter under control.

[All Women Stalker]

I once bought a treadmill and it's been 3 years now, it's in a room and it's hardly touched because i simply don't have time to exercise

[Sandi Conrad]

I just got rid of my Nordic Trak that sat in my garage for 10 years (10!!!) I used it at my previous home pretty regularly but moved to a smaller house where there wasn't any room at all. I used it in the garage less than a dozen times in those 10 years. Next garage removal? 3 Dead Engines and a dead transmission!

[Mo]

I got rid of a food processor many years ago and a treadmill a few years ago. In defense of bread machines, I have a small bread machine that gets used several times a week. That's not going anywhere.

[Sandy Lindquist]

I do a lot of crafting, but don't want to get rid of ANY of my stuff. So, I'm turning a closet that really isn't needed (full of too small clothes)into a closet with adjustable shelves, so that items may be oranized by holiday and an area for tools for my crafting. Hope to start during spring break from my job. I am partrially disabled, so it takes me twice as long to get things done, but I'm determined to get it done. I'm sure I will feel beter when it's all organized and finished. Have a pretty photo screen to put in front of it as there are no doors.

[MJC]

I gave a full truck load of furniture & household goods to my nephew when he & his wife were moving into their 1st home. Oh, my, that felt so good! They had a use for all of it since they had nothing to begin with, & I got a huge amount of open space that had been taken up with things I no longer wanted or needed. And I'm continuing to let go of things I no longer want/need in my life.

[Belinda]

Thank you for allowing me to give up my mum and dad's china - I've held onto it for nearly 11 years and this week I've boxed it and it's going to the garage sale along with a heap of other stuff that was cluttering up my spare room.

[Alyce Wasden]

We have 5 sets of china, only 1 of which we use! Maybe I can convince hubby to let go of his aunt's 2 sets, along with my mother's! The last set is unique and interesting, so we might keep it. Amazing how we feel obligated to hang on to this stuff...