How we decluttered our home and you can too

We all accumulate stuff over the years that can make our homes feel cluttered.

But reclaiming the space with a clear out can feel overwhelming - it's hard to let go of items which hold sentimental value.

Angie, Sarah, Susan and Jenni have all recently tackled the task and share their top tips for how they did it with BBC You and Yours.

I got my daughter-in-law to help

Angie and her husband live in a large four bedroom house. Now contemplating downsizing, they wanted to tackle the clutter of things accumulated over decades with their two children, Katie and Simon.

Their children weren't keen to help but daughter-in-law Louise offered to step in.

"She was up for the challenge and it made it less stressful," says Angie. "Decluttering brings back memories and it's hard but she made it fun."

Louise says she was happy to help lighten the load. "I love Angie and I wanted to help because I know the experience can be overwhelming and difficult."

Another tip Angie shares is her technique of splitting clutter into small boxes which she tackled one at a time "in a relaxed way".

"I look at everything, is it rubbish? Has it got another life? Can I sell it? Should it go to the hospice?" she says.

Angie says she has got rid of hundreds of items by either selling on Vinted or donating.

"It can be such a lovely process to revisit things that you've had from your past and to be able to see it one last time before it goes." she says.

I kept two boxes of sentimental items

Auction enthusiast Sarah had bid her way to a big collection of ornaments and trinkets which filled her three-bedroom house in Shetland.

She had two months to declutter before moving to a smaller house in Manchester and Sarah says putting a limit on items from each room helped.

"I made this deal with myself - you can have two boxes of sentimental items, things that you really don't want to get rid of and things that really mean something."

She says she felt "torn" because she loved everything she had bought over the years but ended up making well over £100 selling her clutter.

"A lot of items were old or interesting and came with a story - I loved the enthusiasm of those buying what I sold," she says.

"We had various old vintage items, including an antique grain bin which was part of Shetland history, which we ending up selling to a pub on the island."

Sarah was also able to donate to charity shops and says it felt great to move to Manchester for a fresh start without clutter.

I took photos of everything

Susan found taking pictures of things was the best way to keep the memory while losing the item.

She did this with her ornaments, which she has donated to charity shops, and is planning to do the same thing with her physical photographs.

Susan also has an abundance of cards dating all the way back to the year she got married in 1979.

"We kept all our special cards, so once a week, for an hour or two, I will scan cards in for a particular year and then [they will] always be there if I need them."

She also reuses the old cards to new ones and has let go of old cassettes and CDs.

"You can listen to stuff on YouTube," she says. "We've only kept stuff that we can't get anymore."

I decluttered one thing a day

Jenni began her decluttering a few years ago by committing to throw away one thing every day.

"Some days I did more than one thing, some went to charity shops, some went in the bin, some went to the tip," she says.

By practising this habit every day, she says she was able to train her brain to let go of things more easily, making decluttering a lot easier now than before she started.

"It wasn't overwhelming. If I'd said, 'I'm going to declutter the spare room', I think I would have had to go to bed for a week with shock, but because I thought, I will take one thing out of the spare room and get rid of it it was a method."