People tend to stay in their family homes for a long time. It becomes their base and their home for many, many years. This is great as it provides stability for the family and a base for children to grow up in. The only issue is, the longer people stay in one home, the more stuff they tend to acquire!
Does this sound a bit like you or your home? Lots of stuff, cupboards full of junk, an overflowing garage? It’s one of the most frustrating things and one that needs to be dealt with! If you’re having trouble with home organization, check out these six organizational tips that you can try in your home. None of these cost the earth and they will all make a massive difference to your home life and clutter.
Beat the Clutter
Mess and clutter are not good things. Having a messy home can cause stress, arguments, and create a negative atmosphere. Plus, once things get messy it’s really hard to fix it. If one person sees the mess, the rest assume it’s okay to not pick up after yourself or to leave things lying around wherever they wish.
The other problem with mess and clutter is that it is just so distracting. If you have kids needing to do homework or you have work to get on with, doing so in a messy home can be a real distraction. When you go into work, you probably keep your office and desk area neat, and your kids’ school is probably kept neat, so coming home to mess is not ideal. Keep it tidy and you will feel more productive and happier at home.
1. Reduce Possessions
This may seem like a daunting task, but it does not need to be. People own far too many things, as it’s just so easy to pick something up, bring it home, and place it on the shelf or in a drawer. Over many years these items build up and the average home accrues 300,000 items – with one in four Americans having an issue with clutter.
As a general rule of thumb, you can look at an item and make one of three choices; bin it, donate it, or keep it. It can be hard to pick things to bin or donate, but it needs to be done. If you haven’t used the item in over a year, you probably don’t need it. If you really can’t bring yourself to throw some items away, then place them in a box and date it for exactly one year. When that date rolls around, throw everything away that hasn’t been used.
2. Sort Your Garage Storage
The garage ends up being an extension to our home, often filled with junk, but it doesn’t need to be. If your garage is full of rubbish, you need garage storage specialists in Las Vegas, or wherever you live. Get some experts to analyze your space and offer smart storage solutions for the garage.
One of the options these teams offer is overhead storage. Too often, the garage is a risky place to walk through, with boxes, cables, tools, and more littering the floor. Moving things off the floor into designated overhead storage can save you the risk of tripping and hurting yourself. You could also consider hanging things on the walls. The garage isn’t a place for lovely decoration, it’s a place for functionality. So, hang things on the walls to make them easy to find while also keeping the room tidy.
3. Smart Storage Solutions
Smart storage solutions can be found for other parts of the home too. For example, many sofas now come with lift-up sections, perfect for storing children’s toys – especially for a quick tidy-up at the end of playtime. The same can be done with kitchen benches, for example. Under-bum storage can be a perfect place for those items you don’t use very often.
It’s always worth trying to utilize corners, too, especially in the bathroom and kitchen. You lose so much space to corners and awkward shapes. However, there are plenty of well-designed cabinets that can take a lot of this issue away from you.
4. Kill Kitchen Clutter
Kitchen cupboards can be a nightmare. First off, do you really need 8 different-sized pots and pans? Do you need 12 different knives? Can you streamline and get rid of some of the sizes? As with everywhere else in the home, you should only keep what is necessary.
Then, consider completely changing the way you store these items. Kitchens look great when the cookware is on display. Buy some cheap hooks online and hang your pots and pans by their handles. This makes for easy access when cooking, while also creating a completely empty cupboard for storing something else.
5. Wardrobe Work
People often struggle with their wardrobes. Again, as you go through life you’ll buy clothes for different occasions and end up keeping them all. The same rules can be applied to clothing; if you’ve not worn it for more than a year or so, then donate it to a charity.
A smart idea for wardrobe storage is to use vacuum-packed bags. When there’s absolutely no need for winter coats, vacuum pack them all and store them under your bed or on a high shelf. Only keep the current season’s attire to hand. This will make your wardrobe feel lighter, more spacious, and easier to deal with.
6. A Daily Routine
This might sound like a lot of work, but, once you have everything under control you should be able to keep everything organized in just a few minutes a day. Take the kids’ toys example from earlier. At the end of playtime, you take two minutes to put everything back under the sofa before relaxing. Encourage your kids to help, too! Cleaning and learning at the same time.
These tasks can be done for very little cost, creating a more comfortable, clutter-free space for you and your family. Your home will feel far nicer, more spacious, and more efficient, too. Once you’ve got your home into this neat state, you’ll never want to go back.
Feature photo by Alex Qian
