Marie Kondo’s top 3 tips to keeping your living room clean

More than three years after the release of her Netflix show, and close to eight years after the book that inspired it, Marie Kondo is now a household name.

“Taking the world by storm” might be a somewhat cliché and overused phrase these days, but in this case it’s apt, as that’s exactly what she did with her fabled KonMari method. And while fitted sofa covers are useful for keeping your sofa looking clean, it can be a bit harder to keep the living room looking pristine in general, especially in a busy family home. So if keeping your own space tidy is something you’re currently grappling with, then some of Marie Kondo’s techniques are well worth a look. We won’t go into an exhaustive list here, but here are three of our personal favourites!

Tidy by category, not by room

Tidying the whole house is a huge job, so the standard approach that most people naturally tend to take is to do it room by room. But it turns out that’s not the most efficient way to do it, especially if you don’t get the opportunity to finish all the rooms in one go. Before you know it, the mess from unfinished rooms will start to seep into the spaces you’ve worked so hard on, which can be frustrating and disheartening.

Crucially though, doing it all room by room can make it hard to keep track of how much of each item you’ve actually got, and that can make it trickier to sort through them, organise them, and make decisions about whether or not to keep them. Take books for example. Chances are that you’ll have tonnes of books throughout the house, so you’ll probably find it much easier to collect all of them into one place so that you know what you’ve got, where you got them from, and whether they still have a place in your life.

Without doing this, it might seem like you’re still tidying up, but it can be very easy to fall into that trap of simply shuffling things around the house. Marie Kondo even has a specific order that she recommends for what needs tackling: start with clothes (as they’re the least likely to have any kind of sentimental value), then books, then papers, then miscellany, then sentimental items. As you’ve spotted, they get progressively harder!

Get the job done solo

It can be tempting to rope in help for a big job like this, and again it’s something that probably makes sense on the surface of it. Unfortunately though, it might end up making the task that much harder. You’ve got to be brutally emotionally honest with yourself, and make tough decisions about what has a place in your life anymore. And all that becomes a lot harder when you have someone else next to you saying things like “oh are you sure? I thought you liked it!”

Everyone means well in that situation. But parents in particular can have a stressful time seeing exactly what it is that their children feel is now valuable in their life – especially if it doesn’t quite line up with their own impressions. (And of course, there’s a good chance that you’d feel honour-bound to keep any presents from them until they weren’t there to see you throw them away.)

Don’t forget, you’re not deciding what to throw away so much as you’re deciding what to keep, and that’s a tough personal journey you need to undertake alone. It’s hard enough as it is – so don’t overcomplicate it more than you need to by inviting someone else along for the ride!

Learn to let go

Easy enough to say, isn’t it? But as we all know, it’s a heck of a lot harder to do. As we’ve briefly touched on while talking about presents above, feelings of guilt are really common when you’re undertaking this sort of big tidying task. Marie Kondo has a few wise words for just this scenario though, namely: “to throw away what you no longer need is neither wasteful nor shameful. Let them go with gratitude.”

Basically, to really treasure and appreciate the things that are most important to you, you’ll first need to remove everything that’s outlived its purpose from your life. It’s not just about keeping the room nice to look at – it’s about growing as a person, and letting your surroundings reflect your life now and your ambitions for the future. It’s all very deep stuff.

Everyone’s got their own advice for learning to let stuff go, but we’ve got one or two bits of our own. For starters, trust your body language. If you catch yourself shrugging at discovering a certain item, chances are you’re not overwhelmed to see it. Similarly, if you didn’t know an item was there, but you’d like to keep it now that you’ve seen it, there’s a good chance that it’s not been relevant to your life for a long time.

Don’t forget, the stuff you’re letting go of doesn’t even have to be particularly small. If your sofa is looking a bit worn and tired for example, you might consider getting rid of it and replacing it with a newer one. But if the underlying structure isn’t quite past its prime yet, a new fitted sofa might be all it needs.

That’s exactly where we can help here at Cover My Furniture. We provide a fantastic range of sofa covers, chair covers and more in a wide variety of colours to choose from, encompassing everything from red and orange to blue and yellow – and plenty more!

If you’re having trouble making a decision, or you’re looking for something in particular, don’t hesitate to let one of us know. You can get in touch using the contact form on our website, or through our Facebook or Instagram. We’re always happy to hear from you!