Advice from the Queen

What is a surefire way to raise your spirits every time you enter your home?

Spruce up the outside front of your home or apartment - the part that everyone sees - including you! This is also a great way to jumpstart your decluttering projects. The quick results will encourage you to keep going with the areas which are more challenging.

Now you may already have a beautiful exterior on your home, and maybe the clutter is all inside. But let's examine this. One of the easiest ways to figure out how your own home should look on the outside i s to drive around your neighborhood and figure out what everyone else is doing wrong!

After a while, your eye starts to get better and better at seeing what looks good and what looks like crapperooni, and why! It's true - some homes look so wonderful, and others decidedly not - and it's not always easy at first glance to see what makes that critical difference. But I can tell you ONE thing - houses with a bunch of STUFF outside (instead of nice trees and plants) have a clutter problem. Sometimes it's STUFF that the people obviously love and think looks great. But it doesn't, does it?

So take a little drive or walk around, and criticize your neighbors (just kidding - keep it to yourself!) and you might come back with some GREAT ideas on how to improve the exterior of your home! It's okay if you steal a few great ideas from the neighbors who have beautiful homes!! But of course, you have to be sure that what looks good on their home will look good on yours! But the MOST important thing is to reduce the STUFF outside your home - less is almost always more in this case.