Organizing Tips

Grandma Donna wrote, this room is to share household organizing tips. We all have different types of homes and different sizes but we each have ways to organize our space.  By sharing our organizing ideas it can be very helpful to others.  This room is a good place to chat about organizing. 

I have a small two-story home, which is technically a story and a half.  I found I had a lot of trouble making myself clean upstairs and the biggest reason seemed to be that carrying a vacuum, mop, extendable duster, glass cleaning cloths,  polish and polishing cloth upstairs all seemed to be so much work, and that was before I even started cleaning.  I finally made room for an extra vacuum, mop, washable mop pads, bottle of polish, polishing cloth, glass cleaning microfiber cloth and extendable duster upstairs.  Most things hang or are on shelves inside my linen closet, while the vacuum is in the air handler closet.  I bought the cleaning tools on deep sale or second-hand, or accepted freebies from others, and I re-used bottles, tubs and spray bottles for my homemade cleaners and baking soda.   My upstairs now stays neat, clean and tidy.

I put my frozen foods in the upright deep-freezer in baskets and labeled the baskets with a marker - beef, pork, chicken, turkey, goat/venison/fish.  I have a basket for homemade frozen broths, one for fruits, and one for vegetables.  On the door I have a shelf for jars of juice from our lemon tree and another shelf is filled with pint jars holding stew and soup for work lunches or emergency meals. 

We  hung shelves on the wall of the laundry room over the washer and dryer and I have baskets there labeled for laundry, cleaning items and homemade solutions, garden concentrates such as Bt and Neem oil, and specialty cleaners such as leather and upholstery cleaner.  My detergent is homemade, so it's in a five-gallon bucket with a lid, on the floor by the washer.  

I used cardboard to create dividers in dresser drawers.  In a hall closet with solid double doors, I hung office wall pocket organizers, such as are used for magazines and files, on the insides of the doors and keep folded gift bags, tissue paper, folded wrap and gift tags in them.  I used a second-hand wine rack to hold rolls of wrap, and I attached small hanging baskets to the doors to hold scissors, tape, hole punch and rolls of ribbon.

I find life is much simpler when I keep things organized.  

Grandma Donna  wrote, Joan S, I just put this new topic up this week and thank you for kicking it off with sharing some of your organizing tips.  I think that is a great idea putting the cleaning tools and items needed for upstairs so you have it there when you go up. You have a lot of good tips.   I hope others will join in to this new conversation. :)

I have a similar problem with cleaning but there is literally nowhere to keep any cleaning stuff upstairs. There are no closets just stand alone wardrobes and they’re not big enough for anything other than clothes. The corridor is too narrow to put a cupboard there. Plus the house is so cluttered it’s hard to clean anyway. Embarrassingly I used to work as a cleaner for an orthodontist’s office. The cleaning part isn’t so bad ( well it wasn’t until my health got worse) but I really struggle with decluttering. I have a lot of hobbies - knitting, sewing , card making ; all of these have lots of supplies. And I also collect kpop albums and photocards.
I also have 2 of my older children staying with me ( long story ) so that adds to the clutter as I don’t have enough bedrooms so one has to sleep in the living room.  
This house has no storage. There isn’t even a cutlery drawer in the kitchen. There are no drawers at all actually. It’s really frustrating. 
Where do I start? 

Kasia A.

There are wall-hung organizers for mops, brooms and such.  I have one downstairs called "Grook" brand, but I see them in other brands.  The bar is screwed to the wall and the handles of cleaning utensils are hung in grippers or clamps on the bar.  Mine has semi-circular rubber grippers that I push the handles into.  One could be put in your hallway and that would hold all tools but a vacuum.  Back when I lived in a tiny place, my vacuum sat in with my clothes in the closet or just out in a bedroom corner.  Not ideal, but it worked.

Go through your crafts.  Chances are, you are hanging onto things you "might" use, but have no plan for or no timeline to start.  Get rid of anything you won't use in the next 6 months.  Consider dropping some of the collections or hobbies that require a ton of supplies.

If you have space under the beds, put boxes under there. My mother stored canned goods under her bed - I store out of season clothes and canning jars under mine.

Go through closets.  Donate what hasn't been worn in 1-1/2 years.  If you make more room by doing this, store non-clothing items in the new-found space.

Hang a magnetic strip on a kitchen wall over your countertop for knives, metal measuring spoons, etc.  Get a cheap vase or utensil holder and put cooking utensils in it by your stove.  Keep silverware in small containers in the cabinets.  Use any space over your refrigerator to store things.  Store your larger/heavier cookware in the oven and/or microwave.  It means you have to remember to move it when using either appliance, but I've stored my cast iron pans in my oven for decades, and my sister-in-law, who had a phone-booth sized kitchen, stored dishes and pans in her oven, microwave, on top of her refrigerator and on top of her dryer.  Get rid of any items you don't actually use.

Take a good hard look at any space you might have always overlooked.  Clear out the clutter, get rid of unused stuff and plan where the things left will go.  It's hard, I know, but it is very worth it.