Room-by-Room Organization Tips

One of the most daunting at-home tasks you can face is re-organizing your house to make more room, get rid of older furniture, or simply use the extra space more creatively. As with anything, however, taking the right approach and small steps can turn it from a merely impending change into an enthusiastic one.

Optimizing Your Storage Space

A quick assessment of the clutter in most homes reveals that unused and old items take up most of your space. In a sense, we all have a bit of a hoarding mentality – to different degrees, of course – and this signals where you should start when organizing. In the bedrooms, clothes that you haven’t worn in years won’t likely be worn for years more, so consider giving them away to Goodwill or boxing them up – especially if they’re out-of-season.

Closet organizers create more room so that these clothes aren’t just lying around, as well as provide a bit more symmetry to your overall décor.

There’s often much more space in even a small room than you realize from a first glance. Shelves that attach to a wall are good for storing extra books that won’t fit on a book shelf, so that you don’t find stacks of them on top of a laundry hamper or computer desk chair.

The Most Difficult Places to Organize

Bathroom

Although this varies widely depending on the specifics on your living arrangement, the hardest places to organize tend to be the bathroom and the kitchen. Let’s face it; for most of us, bathroom space is at a premium and organization must be guided by a firm hand – if you are to keep everyone’s toiletries arranged nicely and without clutter. This often necessitates buying things to section off and contain materials; for example, making use of the wall space with added cupboards and stands to hold towels, magazines, etc.

Pay special attention to the counter-top – toothbrush holders and a toothpaste basket goes a long way in maximizing space. The space beneath the sink is also troublesome, but there are various inexpensive rods and hangers that can maximize the space there for hairsprays, cleaners, scrubbers and more. Caddies for holding these items can be just as effective.

Kitchen

The kitchen is often a nightmare. How many months-old boxes of cereal do you have there in those cupboards and cabinets? Expiration dates should be adhered to, because if no one has eaten them by now, then no one probably plans to. More importantly are the things that accumulate in the kitchen that have no business being there – shirts, towels, non-cookbooks. Getting rid of those things to their proper rooms gets nearly half the organization job done. Ceiling hangers for popular pots and pans gives you both accessibility and clears room out from under the stove. Storing canned goods that are for rainy days in the garage or elsewhere clears the cupboards of space for commonly-used goods.

Just remember, organization starts with a single step. While organizing and decluttering your home, if you find you’re not ready to get rid of some belongings but don’t want them in your home, try a self-storage unit! Click here to see the different unit sizes  that EZ Storage has available.

Image by …love Maegan and licensed through Creative Commons.