Archive for category: Home Organizing

Do you have a tiny house and don’t know how to make it functional? Creativity is the answer to many of life’s problems, and when it comes to smaller homes, it is absolutely key. When space is limited, it’s essential to be inventive and resourceful about what you do have by making the most of your square footage. Follow these tips and tricks to organize your space and make the most of it:

Hidden storage spaces

If you want your place to look clean (or even minimalist), you can use hidden storage that keeps things out of sight. Furniture tricks, like a sofa or bed with storage underneath, can stylishly disguise items you’d rather not display. These spaces are usually great to store blankets, pillows, sheets, and all your bedroom essentials.

Double duty furniture

Pieces that can work in a variety of ways are a wonderful fit for smaller houses. Home offices, for example, can be a bit tricky to assemble out of limited square footage. However, if you strategically place a bookshelf with desk space and a small stool, you can have a little office without taking up too much space.

Maximize the area above the cabinets

Put the dead space between the ceiling and cabinet top to good use! Buy some nice boxes and baskets and fill them with all sorts of items. But remember: don’t put too much stuff in there, as it can very easily veer into cluttered territory.

Use plenty of hooks

Hooks and hangers are the backbones of an organized tiny home. Super-strong magnetic hooks make a great solution for the kitchen, for example, as they don’t require tools or drilling holes in your walls. You can also grab space on the back of a door and place more hooks and hangers for coats, hats, umbrellas, and other small accessories.

Open up storage

Cabinet doors take up square feet that may not be available in small spaces. If you get the opportunity to choose your furniture, opt for narrow open shelves to gain extra surfaces to store frequently used items, such as plates. To keep the shelves looking neat, be strategic about what you store and try to leave plenty of open space between stacks of items.

Vertical shoe storage

It might not be the most attractive solution, but over-the-door shoe racks get the job done and use dead space in an effective way. You don’t have to put one of these on every door – your closet doors are probably enough!

Key pieces of furniture to arrange the spaces

In small houses, often the living room is also the kitchen, dining room, or even bedroom. If you want to organize your spaces strategically, you can select block furniture and handy storage to divide them. For example, a freestanding island can be a great option to divide a kitchen and dining area. Placing units behind a sofa is another genius way to maximize your storage space.

If you have a small house and don’t know how to maximize its potential, we’re here to help! At ClutterBGone, we provide many levels of organizing services depending on your needs, lifestyle, and budget ranging from coaching to hands-on organizing and maintenance plans to help you achieve a clean, organized, and peaceful environment. Get in touch with our team of experts, and we will be delighted to offer you a free consultation!

Summer is finally here, with plenty of colorful berries, tomatoes, summer squashes, peas, peppers, and rhubarbs to liven up our meals. But if you know you’ll probably struggle to eat all of summer’s bounty, there’s an easy way to keep it for months to come: freeze it.

But before you engage in this labor, you need to make sure your freezer is properly clean and organized.

Organizing a deep freezer is not always easy, but if you neglect this task, you’ll soon begin to have to dig down in the abyss for your frozen berries, which can get very frustrating.

In this article, we’ve collected a series of fundamental tips to help you make the most of your freezer and keep it properly organized for the whole family. Take note:

Everything out!

When was the last time you took everything out of your freezer? Probably a long time ago, right? So this is the moment to do so. Take out all the items and open up every container to do a thorough inspection. If anything is freezer-burnt, spoiled, or just plain old, throw it away or compost it. Then, you should also clean it (we recommend using a mixture of warm water with baking soda or vinegar) and dry the interior with a clean dish cloth.

Organize your food into categories

Now that everything is out on the counter, here’s the first golden rule: always group your frozen food in categories. This way, it will make it easier for you to keep track of what you have and easily access the ingredients/meal you need on each occasion. You can, for example, use categories such as ground meats, frozen vegetables and fruit, prepped freezer meals, or homemade soups.

Separate the items with containers

If you don’t use any type of storage container when organizing your deep freezer, you’ll quickly have a jumbled mess. To makes things more manageable, use a series of easy-to-move bags and containers to separate the food. Needless to say, you should avoid plastic containers as plastic is prone to cracking under freezing temperatures.

Label everything

So that everyone can easily access what they need, you should also label the containers and bags with tags. You can use freezer-safe sticky labels or a simple Sharpie marker, which works well on all kinds of packaging, including glass.

Keep track of your stash

And lastly, always keep track of your stash. You can do it with a whiteboard attached to the wall by the freezer, with an app on your phone, or simply by printing an inventory list template. Make sure that you take off the list anything you consume and that you add in it all the frozen food you buy and the items you freeze at home.

Whether you’re stocking up on seasonal fruits and vegetables, cooking in big batches, or making your own convenience foods to eat at busier times, one thing’s for sure: keeping your freezer clean and organized is key. If you need help with it don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We’re here to help!

When it’s time to declutter, it can be hard to know where to start and what to keep. Fortunately, professional organizers have developed strategies that can make the task less daunting. Read the following sections to learn organizing tips from the professionals.

 

Start Now and Start Small

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re thinking about organizing your entire home. When the task seems like more than you can handle, you’re more likely to put it off until later. A good strategy is to start small and start right away.

 

Instead of tackling the whole kitchen, for example, try this organizing tip – tackle one drawer at a time. Take everything out of that drawer and donate or give away items that you have not used in the last year. You’ll enjoy a sense of accomplishment and your kitchen will be organized and easier to use before you know it.

 

Declutter First

When you’re feeling inspired and ready to declutter, it’s tempting to shop for cute boxes, stylish baskets and a trendy label maker. However, professional organizers strongly recommend decluttering before you do anything else. Otherwise, you may just end up storing your clutter in cute containers. The best strategy is to finish sorting and purging first, so that you’ll know how much “stuff” you have and how many containers you really need.

 

Organize Paperwork

There are many tools available for reducing those stacks and boxes of paperwork. For example, you can scan receipts and other important documents and store them digitally on your computer or the cloud. Is unwanted mail piling up every day? A great way to cut down is to unsubscribe from print catalogs and opt for online versions.

 

You may want to keep some paper items, such as bank statements or tax records. Keep records from the past six years for these items and shred the rest.

Get Creative With Containers

When you’ve finished decluttering, it’s time to get creative. There are many affordable storage options that will help you stay organized. One professional tip is to repurpose boxes and bins that you already have. You won’t have to spend money on new containers or bring home more items. It’s also an environmentally friendly alternative to buying more containers.

 

If you prefer to buy new storage containers, look for baskets. Available in a wide range of sizes, shapes and colors, they can be a stylish, creative storage option.

 

Deal With Digital Clutter

While you’re at it, remember to declutter your digital life, too! Is your inbox full of emails that you’ll never read or reference? Now is the time to click that “unsubscribe” link and delete all those unwanted emails. Create folders and file only the emails that you plan to reference.

 

Could your bookmarks use some organizing and decluttering? Delete bookmarks to pages you haven’t visited in the past year, and organize the remaining bookmarks into folders.

 

Get Support

Does your decluttering project still seem like more than you can handle? The experts at ClutterBGone are here to support you with professional organizing experience. If you’d like a free consultation, get in touch today!

If you have ever started to declutter your home or office, you might have quickly felt overwhelmed by the process. That feeling can be so strong that you procrastinate on the project, which only adds to the stress of it. As for what exactly is overwhelming you, it could be that you don’t feel you have the time to do so, that certain possessions bring up strong emotions or several other reasons.

To help you declutter a room, closet, or another physical space effectively without feeling overwhelmed, these five decluttering tips can be useful.

Decluttering Tip 1 Go Small

Start with a small area for your project. While you might like the idea of tackling the entire home interior in a day, that’s not a reasonable goal.

Instead, start with part of a room or even a shelf. Make that the goal for the day or even for the week. Why put exact pressure on yourself?

Decluttering Tip 2 Make as Clear Plan

Decide what you will declutter and when (day and time). Determine how long each day you will spend on this project if it extends more than a day.

Also, determine what you intend to do in the space and what you will do with the possessions you remove from there. By setting a plan, you are less likely to feel overcome with emotion that you lose motivation and stop midway.

Decluttering Tip 3 Deciding Where to Start

If you’re not sure where to declutter first in the home, begin with a spot that will likely have the most impact. It could be the entryway that people see as soon as you open the front door, for example, or the bedroom so that you can enjoy a calmer environment that is conducive to deep sleep.

When you use this approach, you are more likely to see a big difference right away. Having that positive result will uplift and encourage you to continue to tackle messes throughout the rest of the house.

Decluttering Tip 4 Talk with Your Partner

If decluttering seems hard because your partner is not supportive of your decluttering efforts, then it is best to speak openly with them. It may be hurtful that you’re open to clearing out many of your possessions, yet they don’t want to part with any of theirs.

Recognize that just as you likely needed time to conclude that decluttering is in your best interests, your partner, too, will benefit from time. If they aren’t ready to part with something, respect that. Suggest other items you would appreciate them tossing and explain why.

Decluttering Tip 5 There’s No Need to Be Perfect

In fact, there’s no such thing as perfection. So, avoid overwhelming yourself by trying to create a room that looks like it would be pictured in a magazine.

Those photos feature staged interiors, which means they are not everyday living spaces. Be realistic about your family’s needs and recognize that you are making a positive difference by doing this project.

If You Still Feel Overwhelmed

While the tips above will help you feel less overwhelmed as you declutter the home, but you may still feel there are obstacles. Thankfully, you’re not alone. Our professional organizers provide experienced assistance in a comfortable, supportive way. Reach out today to learn more about the process.

If you enjoy gardening, then you know that it’s a great way to calm the mind and enjoy the outdoors. But the stress can return after a peaceful weekend afternoon in the yard when you return the tools to a messy garden shed. To help you maintain your sense of calm, here are tips for organizing your garden shed for summer.

Get Shelving and Bins

If your shed lacks shelves, then it’s no wonder that the space is chaotic. Gardening involves a range of items, from planters to handheld tools, and don’t even get us started on soil mixtures. These things require a simple storage area within the shed, or they will quickly take over the interior.

One of the first organizing your garden shed steps, therefore, is investing in a sturdy open shelving unit. You may find that you need more than one, depending on if you store additional supplies there than only gardening-related ones.

Metal shelves are designed to hold heavy items and have an industrial look that suits a gardening shed. Plus, the shelves are usually adjustable so that you can tailor it to the height of the stored items.

Lastly, get metal or plastic bins for the shelves to help prevent clutter. Sort the items and put them into the baskets accordingly. For example, you might put seed packets in one, garden tools in another, and gloves in a third one.

Use Wall Hanging Hooks

Wall-mounted hooks are very useful. They can be used to create a tool rack so that you can easily grab long tools like hoes and shovels when you want to use them.

This storage solution uses wall space that would otherwise likely be empty. Add a larger hook to hang the garden hose on so that you’re not stepping on it or searching for where you put it the last time.

Create a Potting Bench

Find room for a potting bench within your garden shed so that you can transplant seedlings and do other gardening activities. It could be as simple as using an old table or find easy DIY tutorials online to build the work bench you’ve always dreamed of.

Hang a Corkboard

Keep a seasonal calendar hung from a corkboard on the wall of the garden shed. Within it, mark when you do certain garden and lawn chores, such as when the grass was mowed last and mulched beds.

Among the maintenance tasks for summer are fertilizing flowers and vegetables monthly and checking for insect damage or disease. The calendar can help you keep your garden at its best in summer. Keep the schedule up the rest of the year and continue to do tasks so that the exterior doesn’t get neglected.

Final Words on Garden Shed Organization

An organized garden shed can make your hobby more enjoyable. Now you will easily find items and know exactly when you are running low on twine or something else because you’ll see it’s running low. Enjoy the calmness too that comes with a place that is clean and tidy.

If you look around your shed and feel overwhelmed by the idea of starting to clear the clutter, reach out to our professional organizers for help. We are only a phone call away and are happy to provide suggestions for your storage dilemmas.