A cluttered home feels chaotic. You waste time trying to find things, and you waste money buying items you thought you lost, only to find them later. Regain control when you learn how to organize your home. Though it will take a bit of effort, the results will be worth it — you’ll feel relaxed and happy at home again.
If you aren’t sure where to begin, organizing your home can seem overwhelming. But with a few tips in mind, you can tackle the clutter and chaos. Get started with a bit of time and help from the guide below.
How to Organize Your Home
Every room in your home has different organization needs. Some have various items, while others are smaller spaces you’ll have to make the most of. Though we’ll break organization down room by room, it helps to know the essential steps to decluttering your home. Here’s how to organize your home in general.
Work in one room at a time: Start and finish organizing one room at once to avoid creating too much clutter to handle in one day.
Evaluate what you have: Take everything from one room and assess what you have. The clutter will initially be overwhelming, but soon, it will lead to a systematic structure.
Sort your items into piles: Create groups for belongings to throw out, donate and keep. Clear out everything you’re getting rid of to give you more organizing space.
Sort what you’re keeping: Organize what you’ll keep based on the room. You may put together items you use regularly and have a separate pile for things you don’t need often.
Find space to put them: Think of logical places to keep things. You’ll want what you use often to be accessible, but think about whether you want it on display or not.
Corral small items: Buy bins, baskets and other containers to keep small items in. Ensure you put similar things together in their dedicated storage space.
Label your storage: Depending on what you’re storing and where, you can label containers to know what’s in them. Reorganizing a room means you have to adjust to the new layout, but labels will help you find what you’re looking for.
Make a list of your changes: If your memory isn’t very dependable, or you made a lot of organizational changes all at once, create a list of what’s where. This tip is especially useful for items you don’t often use, since you may forget where you put them.
Feel free to adjust how you organized your space down the line. You want to create an efficient and clutter-free home, and that could take playing around with to get just right. If you keep a list, update it based on your changes.
Living Room Organization
For many, the living room serves as an entertainment space for guests and a hangout for the family. A cluttered living room causes you to lose valuable entertainment space. To organize your living space, try doing the following.
Use multi-purpose storage: Use ottomans or benches with hidden space inside for an all-in-one seating and storage solution. Use them to store extra blankets and other items you only need occasionally.
Add a combination of open and closed storage: Avoid using exclusively open storage, like shelves and bookshelves, in your living room. That creates visible clutter and doesn’t make for an organized space. Instead, use open shelves for pictures, decorative items and books. Get closed storage, like bins or cabinets, to hide what you don’t want on display.
Organize in decorative ways: Make the most of open storage by organizing while being decorative. If you have an extensive book collection, arrange it by height or color for a pleasing display. That creates organization and adds an eye-catching touch to your living space.
Use cable organizers: Your TV and any connected electronics create a nest of cables. Use cable organizers to sort through the tangle and hide items like power strips. Add labels to the wires, so you know what’s what. You’ll have an easier time disconnecting devices from your TV or adding new ones if you label and organize your cables.
Bedroom Organization
Your bedroom should be your private oasis, but clutter can cause many distractions and various negative impacts, especially on your mind and mood. If you clean and structure your bedroom, it will make you happier, and it could even help you fall asleep at night.
While everyone’s room is different, clothes and other personal items are likely the chief sources of your bedroom clutter. Here are some bedroom organization tips you can use.
Free up closet space: If you can, use your closet only to store clothes, shoes and accessories. If you have other items in your closet, move them somewhere else. Put them in the basement, attic, a spare room or under your bed.
Get rid of clothes: Go through your closet and dresser to eliminate clothes clutter. Do away with clothes that don’t fit, are worn out or you don’t wear anymore. Remember to donate what you can.
Store seasonal items: If you don’t have a lot of space in your closet or dresser, store seasonal clothing somewhere else. Go through your clothes at the start of warm and cold seasons to put away clothes you won’t wear. You’ll then have to swap the seasonal clothes once the weather changes.
Use drawer organizers: When you rely on a dresser to store socks, underwear and clothing, things become jumbled. Buy fabric drawer organizers that slide into dresser drawers. They make it easier to separate small items of clothing while keeping them visible. That’ll save you time when you get ready in the morning.
Bathroom Organization
Toiletries, towels and other items call your bathroom home, and those can lead to clutter in a small space. Organize your bathroom with these ideas.
Keep everyday essentials within reach: When you organize your bathroom, it doesn’t mean you have to put everything away. Keep the things you use daily accessible. It will save you time and stop you from digging through a drawer to find what you need. Use countertop storage or a single-top drawer in your bathroom for these items.
Get rid of old linens: Go through your hand towels, bath towels, washcloths and linens and get rid of the old ones. Repurpose them as rags and create more space in your bathroom or linen closet for your towels.
Kitchen Organization
The kitchen is the heart of the home, and with so much to store there, it can quickly become disorganized. Follow these tips to organize your kitchen.
Put new food toward the back: Stock your pantry and fridge with the freshest items at the back. That ensures you and your family use the older goods first before they go bad.
Clear the counters: Having cluttered counters makes food prep stressful. Move appliances and bulky items somewhere else in your kitchen. Find storage pantries or a freestanding kitchen island to hold your small kitchen appliances.
Use drawer dividers: Avoid the jumble of utensils in your kitchen drawers with organizers that separate eating and cooking utensils. You’ll save time in the kitchen, since you won’t have to dig through a cluttered drawer to find a single spoon.
Add stackable storage: If your cabinets and pantries only have a few shelves in them, you can’t maximize your space. Buy stackable shelves or containers for your storage furniture to create more storage space. Store small goods, like cans, by stacking them on top of each other.
Organizing Other Rooms
You probably have more spaces in your home that you need to declutter. To organize your house, give a bit of attention to other rooms, too.
The garage: Use wall storage solutions in your garage to free up space for your vehicle. Organize tools in tool chests, keeping related equipment and accessories in the same drawers.
The home office: Organize with storage solutions like shelves and filing cabinets for everything in your home office. Go through your papers regularly to see what you need to keep, and consider digitizing files to save physical space.
The laundry room: Add a tension rod to empty wall space to make room for hanging clothes. Create counter space for folding clothes with a solution that goes over your washer and dryer or a table that folds down from the wall.
The craft room: Sort through your craft supplies, and organize them based on projects or how often you need them. Label your storage solutions, so finding your supplies is easier as you work.
The playroom: Kids create clutter, especially if they have a playroom overflowing with toys. Invest in cubbies and storage cubes for kid-friendly ways to organize.
The attic or basement: If these areas serve as catch-alls for extra items, you need to create some structure. Use waterproof storage solutions, like plastic bins, to store your things. Label these containers, especially if they aren’t see-through.
Create Your Dream Home With Streamline
If organizing isn’t doing the trick to eliminate the clutter in your home, you may need more space. Let the team at Streamline help you get the perfect home for your needs in Philadelphia. We’ve perfected the homebuying process for new construction buyers with our semi-custom homes. Bring your vision to life and stay organized with the perfect home from Streamline.
