Creative Organizing Ideas
Spring is almost here and many people use this time of year as a time to clean and organize different areas in their home. This article will provide some ideas for organizing your kitchen, bathroom, office and laundry room so that there's less clutter.
Kitchen - One great way to organize and add aesthetic appeal to your kitchen is to add neutral colored foods and baking staples like rice, flour, sugar, oats, and chocolate chips in pretty jars. Jars can be found relatively cheap at stores like Walmart. The jars can be labeled so you know what's in each one, and you'll be able to see at a glance how much you have left. You can put the jars on your counter if you have enough counter space, or store them in a pantry if you don't. The same thing can be done with spices, except if you're low on counter space for storing spices you can get a spice rack that can be mounted on your wall if you have enough wall space.
Bathroom - If your bathroom has a closet and/or drawers in it, these can be a great way to keep your bathroom organized. The best way to make use of these spaces is to figure out what you want to put in each drawer or on each shelf, and then label the drawers and shelves accordingly. For example, if you want to use one shelf for bathroom towels, label it "Bathroom Towels." You want to use one drawer for things such as hairbrushes and combs, so you might give it a label such as "Hair Brushes/Combs," or simply "Grooming Supplies." Another thing that can help organize in the bathroom is a medicine cabinet. If you don't already have one of these, they can be purchased at stores such as Walmart, and are relatively easy to attach to a wall in your bathroom. If possible, label the shelves in the medicine cabinet as to what you want to go on the shelf. Prescription medications might go on one shelf, cold medications on another and general pain relief medications such as aspirin and ibuprofen might go on another.
Home Office - If you work from home, you probably spend a lot of time in your home office. As a result, the office can become quite cluttered. Here are a few suggestions for how to organize the home office:
- If you have files or information that you don't use often, install shelves above your desk if possible, and store them there. That way you won't trip over them.
- Information you want to keep more readily available should be stored in a file cabinet. If you're worried about the security of these documents, buy a filing cabinet that locks, and keep the key in a safe place.
- One good way to organize your desk is to get a small shelf unit that sits on your desk. This can be useful for organizing mail that you need to read or that needs to be mailed.
Laundry Room - If you're lucky enough to have a spacious laundry room with cabinets and/or drawers, organize them so that only certain things are kept in each cabinet or drawer. For example, you might use one cabinet for laundry supplies such as detergent, fabric softener and bleach. If you keep building or painting materials in your laundry room, you might dedicate another cabinet to those things. If you live in a house or an apartment that has a smaller laundry room, you'll be limited on the things you can keep in your laundry room. In that case, installing an overhead shelf or cabinet for your essential laundry supplies is the best way to go.
These are just a few ideas for how to organize different rooms in your home. There are many other ideas available for how to organize not only different rooms, but different things such as bookcases, jewelry and coupons. These ideas, as well as many others, can be found at The Inspired Room blog.