How to Organize Your Home

Life can be hectic, which in turn can make your life stressful. You may not be able to control every facet of your life, but you can take control your home’s organization. In honor of National Simplify Your Life Week, here are helpful tips and tricks for how to organize your home.

Before you get started, clean the area you intend to organize. Vacuuming, dusting, or even wiping down the area first will make the rest of the organization process easier and more satisfying.

Kitchen

• If you’re wasting too much time digging around drawers for measuring cups, spoons, and other commonly used kitchen tools, hang them inside your cabinet doors for easy access. Just add a few temporary hooks and you’ll never have to worry about losing them again. Similarly, consider hanging your pots and pans instead of storing them in cabinets. You can do so with an overhead or wall-mounted rack, allowing you to take stock of where your pans are. Not only is it functional, but it can double as eye-catching décor.
  
• You shouldn’t have to duck and cover every time you open your cabinet! Take out all your food storage containers and ensure there is one lid for every bottom; get rid of any pieces that don’t make a set. Try stacking like bottoms together and nest smaller containers inside larger ones. An easy way to organize the lids is to store them in magazine holders. This helps keep them corralled and prevents an avalanche of lids from happening.
• Use drawer inserts for utensils to separate your utensils and other kitchen tools. You can also use inserts to clean up your junk drawer.
• Make the cleaning products under your sink easier to keep track of by making your supplies more visible. Install a tension rod inside your cabinet and hang spray bottles on the rod to utilize the extra space.
• Some knives come with a block or sheath to keep them protected, but some don’t. For the knives that don’t have a covering, put a heavy-duty magnetic strip along the wall to store your sharp tools. This will prevent the blades from dulling and protect you from getting hurt trying to pull them out of a drawer. As a bonus, it can serve as an interesting display for your kitchen.

Living Room

• If you have young children, it’s almost inevitable that their toys will find their way into your common area. You can clean up and manage this part of your home by creating a designated play area to the side or in the corner of your living room. Put a small, wheeled bin the area that all toys can go into at the end of the day—it’s a perfect solution!
• Your furniture isn’t just for looking pretty; you can use it as a storage and organization solution. If you have furniture with built-in compartments or ledges, you should store things there. You can even put a few nice storage bins underneath your coffee table if you don’t have multi-purpose table.

• Filling your home with pictures of loved ones is a wonderful way to make your home feel happy but having several picture frames sitting on surfaces can add to the clutter. Consider hanging photos on the wall or compiling them into a photo album. You’ll get the bonus of having an easier time dusting.
• When in doubt, add a basket! Baskets can be a stylish way to store things that pile up in your living room, such as blankets, magazines, or pillows.

• Stop misplacing the remote control and start keeping it in a convenient and consistent location. You can use an attractive tray on the coffee table to keep remote controls, just be sure to always put the remote in the tray when finished using.

Bedroom

• Consider organizing your closet by color, season, or style to make things easier to find.

• Cull your wardrobe by removing any clothes that don’t fit or that you don’t wear—donate or repurpose the clothes from the toss pile.
• Store blankets, shoes, or long items under your bed in a large container so they’re not taking up space in the closet or open floor.
• Folding your clothes makes a huge difference when it comes to optimizing space and trying to find certain items. You can maximize how many clothes you can fit in your drawers by folding a standard folded shirt in half so that it forms a small rectangle. Then, store the shirt upright so you can easily see what is in your dresser. Additionally, drawer inserts can be useful for making your dresser more manageable.

Bathroom

• Try adding a side-hanging caddy to your sink to hold hair appliances and favorite hair products instead of constantly leaving them out. When possible, aim to keep the items on your counter to a minimum, ideally hand soap and your toothbrush. If it isn’t possible to store grooming items in a medicine cabinet, you can use a small, tiered stand to maximize the supplies at hand.

• Having an over-the-door shower caddy is a handy solution to keeping shampoo and body wash containers from being strewn about. Having all your essentials in one place will not only make your bathroom look neater but will prevent having to cram bottles everywhere.
• Make use of your bathroom’s walls by installing hanging baskets or floating shelves. You can feature smaller towels, making your bathroom feel like a luxurious spa!

Garage

• Having a toolbox is the traditional way to store your hand tools but consider using a pegboard to hang and display them. They’re versatile, easy to set up, and will allow you to see everything in front of you—no more digging around for that one screwdriver!

• Store your bikes by mounting them on the wall or in an overhead rack. This frees up valuable floor space in the garage and adds flair to a utilitarian room.
• If you have the space, add some sturdy shelving to put larger items, such as storage bins.
• Instead of leaning your ladder against the wall, put it in a ceiling rack so you have even more space in your garage. Most people don’t use their ladders frequently, so it’s smart to tuck them away where they won’t take up so much space.
• With all the different nails, screws, and bolts you’ve acquired, it’s necessary to keep everything in order. It’s effective to use a small parts organizer, but you can also use a tackle box or even jars with lids to keep things separate.

• For large tools like rakes and shovels, try hanging them on the wall using a track system. They’re simple to install and use; some systems even allow you to hang baskets, giving you more options for organization.

It’s important to remember your home’s organization will only be as effective as you are, so be sure to consciously keep clutter to a minimum and try to maintain neatness. Taking the time to organize your home may seem like a chore, but it’s self-care in disguise. It will give you a sense of accomplishment, a clean and neat home, and hopefully fewer headaches in your daily life.

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