photo by Barb McMahon

Trying to declutter your home can be a challenge. It can be tough to decide what to keep. The first reader tip can help you narrow down what you actually use. You can use a similar concept with other rooms in your home. Box up items you’re unsure you want to keep, label the outside of the box and store it away. Keep anything you fish out in a year and purge the rest. Start to think of clutter as indecision. Then take action.

DECLUTTER: I took all of my small gadgets and cooking utensils and put them in a box on my kitchen island. When I needed something, I got it out of the box, used it, and then put it away where it belonged. After a month, what I hadn’t used I took to the garage-sale pile. I did take out a few things that I know I use for holidays and special occasions, but the rest went. Use your space creatively, too. I hated that my knife block was taking up so much space on my counter, so I got one of those magnetic strips to hang by my stove that the knives hang on. My spice containers are also magnetic and stuck on the side of the fridge (which is within arm’s reach of the stove). — Hope, Missouri

FAMILY WORKDAY: This is something we do in our family, and I thought others might want to try it. It really works for us! We are a family of four adults. We draw straws, with the one getting the shortest straw being the first to have a workday. Say I get the first day. The entire family will work for me for at least eight hours, doing whatever I want them to do. Then the next longest straw gets the next work day until we’ve each had our day.

Then we start all over. In this way, we all get help with our projects. And it makes it easier to get those really difficult jobs done. You know the saying, “many hands make light work”! Sometimes we do all four in the same week or sometimes we do two or sometimes only one a week, depending on how hard we had to work. Some of the jobs I have had help with include painting two bathrooms, transplanting ferns, getting birdhouses and feeders built, and getting all my mending done. Some things I recall for other family members include helping my son clean out his electronics shop, helping my daughter build a storage system in her bedroom closet, helping my husband plant grape vines and putting in posts for the trellis, among many others. It’s fun as well as productive. — D. Huffman, Virginia

MOIST CAKE: If you want to make a boxed cake mix taste much better and less like a store bought mix, add 1 cup of sour cream to the batter. Once you have mixed all the dry and wet ingredients together, add the sour cream, continue to mix as usual. It will puff up a little more, but don’t worry. It will end up great, and the cake will be super moist! May have to cook a little longer (five to 10 minutes). To make a canned frosting taste much better, add and beat (with your mixer) an 8-ounce square of cream cheese to the can of frosting. — H.M., Michigan

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