When you sell your house, you will find that most of the people who are interested in buying will hate clutter. Even the things that nobody would give a second thought to seem to bother them. CD and DVD collections, kitchen accessories and so on are very distracting. Let us take this room by room:

• Living room – try not to create open storage for books, ornaments, photographs and so on. Keep your bric a brac to a minimum and if you have a pelmet, put some ornaments on there. If you have a large collection of books, store them away in a box

• Kitchen – a Welsh dresser overflowing with china or pots, pans and cooking implements hanging from the ceiling. While this may appeal to you, it may feel to some too crowded. Set out a few plates of similar design or colour on the dresser, store the other crockery and pans etc. away in a drawer or a kitchen cupboard

• Bedroom – store clothes out of the way, in a spare room if possible. If not, under the bed storage boxes would be ideal, just be certain they are hidden from sight using a valance

• Bathroom – make use as far as possible of ‘closed storage’, cupboards with doors in other words to create a sleeker look. Open shelves, no matter how tidily arranged, will still look cluttered

• Halls and landings – keep these as clear as you can, shoes and coats should be stored in an under stairs cupboard.