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• 1/20/2021
• Stephanie Hollander
• Comments

As we enter 2021, we find ourselves at home more and discovering our home clutter is driving us more crazy than ever before. With our homes becoming our living, work, school, daycare and entertainment spaces it becomes even more important to find easy ways to organize your home while still adding your own personal style. Your home is a reflection of you and your family and in today's styles and trends, it leads to having a trendy home while still being able to organize those daily things that we have lying around our home.

Each room has its own purpose(s) which brings its own challenges. We will go room by room and talk about some quick ways to update and organize your rooms & spaces to give you some peace and hopefully make your day to day living easier and less stressful.

We All Have “Stuff..."

Mail, school papers, keys, change, remotes, magazines and the list goes on and on... Items that are a part of our daily lives that we need and can't pack away. How can we do simple things to help eliminate all the extras from cluttering our homes? With all of our spaces now doing double duty, how do we keep a work space and bedroom, or a classroom and the kitchen table being functional for both and yet looking nice and organized. Sometimes it can be just as easy as, if our spaces are doing double duty then so can our decorative items in our home.  Such as furniture having storage space or using baskets to add a pretty touch yet hold our items. I challenge you to go through your home and find places that have clutter and look to see what you have already in your home that can do a double duty and become storage as well.

Let’s Start with Entering Your Home

Most homes have multiple ways to enter our home. A front door and entryway, a garage or side door with or without a mud room. Each entry will have different needs to how your family uses these areas. The best way to get organized is by thinking about the functionality of an area and look at what is cluttering up an area. Then you can address the ways to declutter it. 

At a front door, place a dresser or counsel table, adding baskets to the table. This way you have a place for all the “stuff” but can still add style to your home. A dresser is great storage for things like hats & gloves, slippers and sandals etc. that many times are left laying around in this space. Use a top drawer, place some baskets in the drawer and now you have a great place to store mail, keys, loose change all those other things we seem to always drop when we come into the house. Making sure the drawer itself is also organized is key otherwise you will just be moving your clutter to a new location.  

Place a mirror above the dresser with hooks on both sides and now you have an easy place to hang your coat, purse or keys with the functional aspect of being able to take a quick last glance before you head out the door. Using a bench and placing a basket for each person in the family is also a great tip. That way each person is responsible for their own items and if a basket gets full it is that family members job to empty their own basket and put those items away, but in the meantime the items are not stacking up cluttering up the area. 

Adding a chalkboard or white board to help keep everyone organized for appointments and important dates for the month is an easy way to insure everyone knows who and where everyone is coming and going. A chalkboard surrounded with some cute wooden shelves and baskets is not only functional but a very trendy look. Gone are the days hiding away everything now you can have a basket for all the mail and it is functional and on trend. Today's trends lend to functionality. Buying some wood or metal organizational items and hanging them in a cluster has great eye appeal, and when those products are easy to access you are more apt to use them and keep them and yourself organized.

Another great tip is to add a small decorative trash can, that may seem odd but that way before you have time to bring all that junk mail into the house you can throw it into the bin immediately. This area of your home is one of the busiest areas so finding small ways to keep the clutter contained is important so it does not spread and enter into the rest of your home.

The Family or Living Room

Looking around most homes, some of the things that quickly clutter up this space are the same items that are meant for relaxing. Remote controls for watching tv, kids toys, blankets for snuggling in for the night, magazines and books to relax the mind just to name a few. Surprisingly this can be one of the easiest areas to declutter and decorate at the same time. Find unique containers to place on a coffee table or end table you can put remotes or all those magazines in them. Maybe you are thinking about updating some furniture in this room. When looking for new items, think about its functionality as well, can it serve a double purpose. Examples include:

• An Ottoman with storage is a great place to store kids toys, games or blankets.

• Couches or Sofas will often have storage built into them too.

• Coffee Tables with a lower shelf to place baskets on or an entertainment center with doors and drawers so you do not have to see the things you are storing away.

• Blanket ladders makes a great statement piece in a room, adds softness and organizes all those cozy blankets we need for the cold winter days.

• Large baskets hung on the wall for the kids or dogs toys, again adds a fun decorative look while being functional. There are so many options from decorative boxes, baskets and containers. Sky's the limit. Find some that fit your look (wicker, wood or metal to name a few) and place them around your room and now fill them with all those items that are laying around. Now all of your items are nicely out of sight but not where they are not easily accessible.

Let’s Enter the Kitchen

I am just going to discuss ways to add decor into this area of your home that will help with organization. We could talk all day about ways to organize your kitchen from cabinets, drawers, fridge and pantries. So let's talk about those areas that we can add some appeal to. Looking at your counters you can add a fun canister in metal for a modern look, ceramic or wicker for farmhouse and wood to add a more rustic feel. Add your utensils to these canisters and you have yourself a nice way to organize all those wood spoons and ladles while giving some charm to your counter. By doing so you have freed up some space in a drawer that you can now add items to store away that may not be so flattering to look at. 

Finding a unique mail system container is another great way to organize all those papers and mail that always seem to accumulate in the kitchen. Many of them have small drawers and compartments on the top. You then have a place to put stamps, pens, bills, cell phones, tablets and the list goes on. You will have it all organized in one spot and many of these mail station containers are very charming and look more like decor then an organizing systems. Adding glass jars with covers is another great way to organize food products from cookies to sugar. These are also great for storing coffee or those coffee pods and tea. If you don't want to use them for food items it is another great place to store other items that are cluttering up your kitchen. Having a clutter free workspace is guaranteed to make cooking dinners a lot easier and more enjoyable.

The last item I would suggest for your counters that can be used for multiple ways to organize your kitchen is to get a wine rack, yeap! I said it - wine. It is great for storing wine, however it is also a great way to store all those water bottles you may have or a decorative place for all your cooking oils. Again, I will repeat placing some unique baskets around or hanging on the walls is a quick and easy way to declutter. Ultimately organizing your cabinets and drawers will remove clutter on your counters. Always remember to designate a location for everything and then you simply remove the clutter from piling up.

Art projects Everywhere?

Kids are always excited about those projects and papers they bring home. They typically end up getting hung on the fridge, but never taken down... Sometimes it is just as hard on us parents to get rid of those projects. Let's discuss a couple easy tips to help make this an easier process and not just accumulate piles of papers. Have a clothes line with 3 to 5 clips on it for each child. You can have this in their room, an office space, mud room or even make it your art in your family room. Let the child fill their clothes line. However when there are no more spaces they must remove a piece of art. 

The retired art can then go into a tote in a storage room, closet or basement. I suggest using a small tote. Again if the tote gets full then the child needs to purge down the papers. This way you are keeping your clutter to a minimum. Showing off the important papers and giving the child some control by teaching them how to declutter and organize. You can do the same concept with 2 or 3 picture frames, and you now have framed art. Personalizing your home is always the best decor you can have. Using similar frames will help from making it seem like clutter and disjointed to your homes decor. Use frames with similar colors you are decorating with. For a more modern look use all the same frames and organize them in a collage on your wall. 

Miscellaneous Kid's Things

I mentioned it before but a cute ladder in a kids area is also another great way to organize all their special items. A ladder can hold all of their special blankets, you can place stuffed animals on them, or even open books and place them over the rungs as a place to hang all those books. This will be cute and decorative in your child's play area or bedroom. Do you have a two story house and get so tired of running up and down, or piling things on the steps for your next trip.

I would suggest placing a decorative basket with each child's name on it, place the baskets one on each step. Now when you are picking up around the house, place the items in the child's basket and on their next trip to their room they need to take everything out of their basket. Having all of your totes, baskets or other storage containers labeled with what toys go in them helps teach kids to return those items when done playing with them back into the correct bin. Kids are like us adults and if there tons of toys, books, blankets, trinkets and whatnots all over it is overwhelming for them.  Making it easier by labeling containers helps them declutter their play areas and gives the child direction.

Bedrooms

Bedrooms, this area needs to be our sanctuary. The place that should be the less stressful of your home. This area usually is cluttered with things like clothes, clean and dirty laundry, jewelry, cell phone charges and all those things we pull out of our pockets from loose change, wallets, gum and even gum wrappers. One of the first ways to declutter your bedroom is start with continuing to purge items and not get attached while holding onto them for longer than you should. Clothing trends are always changing and we are always buying new items, whether it is for a new look or because we have worn through those old socks. 

Placing a bag, hamper or basket in your closet that is a donation basket. That way as soon as you know it does fit, you just do not like it anymore or whatever the reason may be to place it in the donation bin immediately. Once that bin is full take it to your car and donate it. This way you are not waiting until you have to go through your whole closet in the spring to purge or wait until there is no more room to hang anything because you bought a new blouse. Multiple hampers is another great way to help organize your day to day to living. Having a his and hers or a whites and darks hamper helps eliminate the process of sorting laundry.

May I also suggest a small garbage bin, this way those wrappers or receipts when pulled out of pockets can be thrown away and not placed on a dresser. Nowadays, you can find so many cute bins or garbage bins that will add a decorative look to your bedroom but with the functionality of being used for garbage. Over the door hooks are a great place to hang items that you may use on a daily basis. I like to hang the door hangers facing inside the room or closet. It is a great place to hang your pajamas and robe from the night before, or an outfit that can be reworn. 

The bedroom is another area of the home when looking for furniture to think of ways that can help organize. Side tables next to your bed, use a small dresser and this will give you more storage. You can use the top drawer to place cell phone chargers. Simply drill a small whole out of the back to run your charger through and now you have a great place to charge your phone and ipads that are out of the way, but still close if needed. A side table or dresser is also a great place to keep a book you are reading, your reading glasses and the list continues.

A bench at the end of the bed is not only useful for sitting on to get dressed but can also be a place for storage. Keeping this area of your home decluttered and calm might be one of the most important areas for you and your family. It is the first part of your day and the last. If you begin each day in a cluttered mess and end each day in one is not good for the soul. 

Overall decluttering our homes is as simple as where is the clutter and what is the clutter? How can I contain it and give those items a place? Everyone will all have to work on staying on track to become more organized but with each area it will become easier for everyone in the family by remembering to give everything a place. Simple changes and looking at ways to use items you have in your home to decorate and how they can be repurposed to help declutter a space.