We all lead a busy life so that usually means leaves less time for de-cluttering and organizing our homes. Yet a clean and organized home does contribute to a feeling of calm and comfort. These organizational tips for a modern home will help you to keep items displayed in an organized way, but also provide tips for storing items.
The first rule of easy organization starts with a detailed inventory of what needs to be stored and an understanding of where and how it can be stored.
Cupboards and pantries aren’t the only places to store items or hide them away. You can creatively display items and ‘store’ them at the same time. Here are a few décor-worthy organizational tips to help you fashionably keep your home tidy.
Measure: Create the right space by measuring the items you need to store and matching with them with storage space. That space could be a box, shelf or cupboard.
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Open Shelving: I love these to delineate spaces. Open shelving can be used to separate dining and living areas or a kitchen space. Use the natural warmth of wood or paint in a coordinating colour to suit the tome of your decor. Display vintage containers, colourful glass, books and magazine collections, or cover boxes with pretty paper and stack them. For a cohesive look, sort objects by colour.
Adjustable shelves are great when you need greater flexibility to display and store items.
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Rotate: You don’t have to display everything all the time. Create cleaner surfaces by rotating favourite items according to season, other décor changes or even colour. This prevents overcrowding and creates a calmer environment.
Rethink how you use shelves and cupboards to best suit your needs.
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Kid’s Toys: Teach young children to put away their toys by providing easy-to-access, low-level baskets, colourful plastic buckets, a toy chest or wicker cubes tucked into low shelves. Allow kids to have a say in their room décor and storage options so they feel a sense of ownership.
Use old tins painted in bright colours or pretty garage sale china cups to store pens, coloured pencils, paint brushes and felt tip pens.
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Divide drawers: IKEA and Howard’s Storage World, to name two, have flexible options to divide and customize your drawers. It’s so much easier to find kitchen utensils when they clearly divided into groups, or for individual bigger utensils. Drawer dividers can also be used for jewellery, lingerie, socks and ties, t-shirts, make-up, in fact almost anything.
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Repurpose an old cupboard: Keep the door but remove the middle section and replace with fancy wire, decorative tin or insert of your choice. Store anything from crockery and cutlery to books and bedlinen. Or take off the door and lie the cupboard on it’s side. Install shelves or buy storage box to fit inside.
Hook it: There are so many different types of hooks these days – metal, colourful plastic, animal, flower – you can personalize areas to hang towels, jeans, scarves, belts, coats, etc. Hooks can be installed to hang items for display, to utilize odd spaces (such as hanging towels under a window), on the backs of doors, inside cupboards and to create a ‘mud room’ to hang wet weather gear.
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For more expert cleaning and organizational tips please check out glass maintenance and cleaning, cleaning with bi-carb in the kitchen, and how to hang art works.
If you have any organizational tips you’d like to share with readers, please leave a comment.
