Organize Your Home

Most people get extremely anxious when talking about the organizational status of their homes/offices. Whenever I go to meet with a client at their home to see their prospective rooms, they immediately get very overwhelmed. They look at the tons of piles of junk and start getting hot, breathing hard, and shaking their head, saying, “I have no idea where to start. How are we going to get this room in order? There is NO way it can happen.” That is when I come in!

I don’t look at the room as a whole but as spaces. My method put simply is: start with one space and work your way around the room. I have a spacial brain, as opposed to a universal brain (which most people have). A universal brain looks at the room as a whole; the big picture – the starting and the ending points. A spacial brain looks at the process; how are we going to get from point A (starting point) to point B (ending point).

I am in the process of starting my own home organizational business. I get such a thrill out of starting with a room that otherwise looks helpless, working through the challenges, and ending with a beautiful, organized room as a result. There is nothing more  fulfilling than seeing a home owner walk into a room in their house that was once drowning in clutter and being completely speechless because they have never seen it so simplified and put together. Below I have put together a few organization tips.

Tips for Organizing Your Home:

1. Start with ONE area of a room (In an office start with the desk; in a kitchen start with ONE cabinet at a time; etc.).
2. Begin by sorting all items into three piles: KEEP, TOSS, SELL.
3. After throwing away all “TOSS” items, begin deciding where to sell your “SELL” items (Examples: eBay, CraigsList, Amazon, consignment stores, etc.).
4. After selling the “SELL” items, begin sorting your “KEEP” items into categories (Examples: Clothes, books, files, holiday decorations, dish ware, home accents, linens, etc.)
5. Buy appropriately sized containers to accommodate the categories of items. Choose plastic tubs in garages or storage rooms to be able to see clearly what is in each box. In offices, kitchens, closets, etc. choose fabric boxes to match the decor or your home and to look neat.
6. Label each box by the items in the box. For instance: you may have four boxes that hold holiday decorations so rather than labeling each with “Holiday Decorations,” label boxes more specifically: “Ornaments” “Christmas Table Decorations” “Easter Decorations” “Halloween Decorations”.
7. Install a shelving unit that is appropriate way for the room you are working on (metal racks are inexpensive and sturdy for attics and garages. A book shelf is a great place to store fabric boxes in a living room or home office).
8. Arrange boxes in a way that is most logical to YOU and that will give you easy access to the the items you use the most.

And boom! An organized room in no time! Typically I have found that for an average size room it takes about 1-2 days of organizing until the room is completely finished. The key to having an organized home is keeping it organized. This is why labeling is SO key. Just like we all learned in kindergarten: once you take something out, make sure to put it back in its place. So, remember to label so that everything in your house has a “home”.

I will be posting a new post very soon that is a Home Organization Survery. So stay tuned!