6 Practical Ways to Organize Your Home
Sometimes we look at a picture of an organized home with all the pretty baskets, perfect drawers, and colorful de-canted food and immediately get intimidated because our home could never look like that. And of course, those pictures are beautiful and inspiring to look at (we all love them!), but if we try to emulate them in our own homes, they can often be impractical for our every day lives. We don’t all live with color coordinated closets or have pretty toiletries to line up in the bathroom vanity, but we all need a well organized home so that we can find what we need when we need it. So I’m going to show you some easy and practical ways to help you organize your home more efficiently. The goal is that your home will be more functional and manageable for you. If it also turns out prettier, well, that’s just icing on the cake!
“The easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it.” -the Minimalists
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FIRST … DECLUTTER YOUR THINGS
Before you jump right into organizing, the first step is always decluttering. Once you’ve decided on a drawer, closet, or cabinet to organize, you will want to take everything out, go through all of it, and discard what you don’t need or use. Also set aside anything that doesn’t belong in that particular location. This will create the space you need to efficiently organize the items that are left. If you skip this step, and your drawers, closets, and cabinets are stuffed full of things, then it will be extra hard to organize them. And you might end up buying organizers to organize things you don’t even need.
NOW … ORGANIZE YOUR HOME
1. Knife Drawer Organizer
Instead of keeping a big knife block on the counter causing clutter and taking up counter space, consider a knife organizer that fits neatly in a drawer. Remember to first, decide how many knives you actually need and get rid of the rest. You probably have a few favorites that you use all the time and then quite a few that you rarely use. Keep in mind is that you don’t necessarily need a knife for every imaginable purpose. Most knives function well for multiple purposes and jobs, so you can pare down to just the essentials.
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2. Customizable Pot and Pan Organizer
Instead of shoving all your baking sheets, cutting boards, pots, pans, or muffin tins on top of each other in a drawer, use a customizable organizer to stand them up neatly. The organizer I use is technically for pot lids, but I find that it fits and works well in my skinny cabinet to organize all my baking sheets, cooling rack, and cutting boards. I love that you can stretch it out for big cabinets or shrink it up for smaller spaces, like my tiny cabinet.
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3. Lazy Susan
A Lazy Susan is perfect for containing soaps and cleaners under the sink, spices in a cabinet, or even condiments in the refrigerator. I have one under my kitchen sink that holds my cleaning supplies and gives me easy access to what I need. It has also encouraged me to try to reduce my supplies so that they all fit into my Lazy Susan.
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4. Expandable Bamboo Drawer Organizer
Both pretty and functional, these are great for organizing the utensil drawer, the junk drawer, a desk drawer, or even art supplies. I love that they expand to fit in different size drawers. Consider what items you need to store, measure your drawer size, and choose an organizer that has sections that meets your specific needs.
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5. Adjustable Drawer Dividers
I just recently discovered these expandable bamboo dividers. They work well for separating drawers into smaller sections. This keeps larger items like serving and cooking utensils neatly organized rather than them moving haphazardly all around inside the drawer. These dividers would also work great in an underwear drawer or in a drawer for rolled up neck ties.
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6. Shelf Dividers
Another recent discovery was these shelf dividers. And now I wonder where they’ve been all my life. They’re perfect for dividing and organizing a shelf so that you can use it for multiple items or purposes. For instance, you could use them in your linen closet in between sets of sheets or stacks of towels. I used one of these on a shelf in my boys’ closet to separate their sweatshirts. Since there wasn’t enough room for their sweatshirts in the drawers, this divider helps keep them folded and in order on the shelf.
Remember, the goal is to create spaces that are organized efficiently and make life more functional for your family. You don’t have to have a magazine worthy home to get a little bit of joy whenever you open an organized closet or drawer!
