1. Assess and Prioritize
Pick a room, only one at a time. It will be less overwhelming when you focus on small areas. Decide if what you have, is working or if needs to be adapted. Many times it’s just a matter of organizing the material and downsizing, you don’t actually need to go out and get more organizing boxes and excetra.
Set goals, and answer questions. What is the purpose of this room? What type of feelings are you trying to evoke? What area is the most important to you or do you want to stand out? What type of space is available for storage? IE= shelves, bins or drawers. What area do you want to start with first?
Make a list of what you are going to need. Check around the house, to see if you can re-purpose anything IE= labels or organizing, pretty boxes for stoarge. Free is alway nice.
Decide what will house what, example; in your night stand you will put lotions, glasses, and remotes. Magazines will have a magazine rack.
*Tip -Shoe boxes are great for organizing small items. If you don’t like the mismatch of them you can always cover them with scrapbook paper to give a more uniformed looked.
2. DDSGAML!
Divide the room into sections focus on smaller areas at a time, For example: focus on the dresser first before moving to under the bed. If you come across an item that you want to keep but don’t want to put in the area you’re working on, put it in a box designated for miscellaneous items (this box moves with you around the room) as your organizing continue to go through it place items where you want them. Example: found remote when cleaning under bed put in box to later file with nightstand.
Designate a box or bag for: Items to be resold, recycling/trash, donate to Goodwill, and miscellaneous.
Sort, now is the time to go through and find all the pens that don’t write anymore and toss them. Clothes that don’t fit, things you don’t really want anymore, don’t hold back.
Group and or Categorize like things together. Colors, Size/Shape, and purpose are all ways to group. Example; Make up brushes, tweezers, and nail files, can all in the same make up bagor box, because they are beauty products.
Arrange and Rearrange, try a couple different lay outs. Keep in mind the items that you use the most. You will want those in front and they need to be accessible. Organization shouldn’t add all that much more work. It should help you find things and de-stress. Ask your self is this system easy to understand and follow. You want it to be fast and within reach, also easy to put away.
MIS it! Make it simple and easy for yourself! Example Place sheet sets inside a coordinating pillow case, so you only have to grab hold of one thing, and put away away one thing, all while being compact and saving room. Don’t add 5 extra steps. Chances are the more complicated you make it the less likely you are to use the system you created.
label sMABLE, You need to be able to know what’s in the box. It is not fun dragging all the boxes out and having to open them to figure out their contents. Make sure to type labels on the computer or do neatly by hand, either way the print needs to be nice and easy to read from -about two feet each direction. Also when working with food, pictures, or make-up from their original container add the date.
3. Make It your own
Use paper you like to make labels or decorate the boxes. Don’t be afraid to add your own twist. Add your own touch or things you enjoy in-between the shelves or drawers you are organizing.
4. Curb Appeal, meets Shelf Appeal
Add volume, depth and texture, when working with a high traffic area you want it to be appealing to the eye. Make sure your organization system flows with the furniture and things already in the room. Boxes with raised ridges or patterns add texture. Change the boxes, bins, and bowls to face different directions which allows for depth. For volume stack boxes or arrange books in different sections on book cases lay some horizontally and some vertically.
Make sure high traffic areas are free of obstacles; don’t stick a bin in an area where it is most likely to be tripped over.
Breakables and valuables should be three feet or more off the ground, below is the toddler/ tail zone things at this level are not safe.
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