The New Year has arrived and people everywhere are deciding on which lifestyle changes they plan to make to be healthier and happier in 2018. In addition to upping the workouts and going to sleep at a decent hour, getting their living space in order should be at the top of the list. An organized, decluttered home will help promote an organized, stress-free life! Luckily, Marty Basher, home organization expert at Modular Closets the DIY custom closet company, is here with helpful resolutions to help you declutter and organize your living space for the New Year;
Resolutions To Help You Organize Your Living Space For The New Year
Every New Year, many Americans sit down and decide on their resolutions for the upcoming twelve months: eat less, eat better, drink less, spend less time on their phones, exercise more… These are all great resolutions, but what about the goal of getting your house in order?
After all, you live in a space with other people and that space seems exponentially smaller if it’s always cluttered and messy. You can nag your family as much as you want, but at some point, too much clutter just seems like an insurmountable task. Where to start? Where to finish? Do you need the services of someone like this Concord Mass Remodeler?
Here are a couple of resolutions to help you start organizing and keep going throughout the year.
New Year’s Resolution ONE
Start with the space that is typically the biggest contributor to household clutter: the clothes closets. Using the chair or ottoman to throw your clothes on isn’t unusual. Having piles of clean laundry that need folding is a state most of us can relate to. But all of that clothing clutter starts and ends with your closets.
A disorganized closet, with a jumble of clothes, shoes, accessories, and more, is just an invitation to never end up putting your laundry away again!
Step one: Pull EVERYTHING out of your closet. Do this on a day when you can really own the task and get it done. You need to go through each piece and decide if you really want to keep it or if it can be donated or thrown out. This is hard, as we tend to get sentimental about that old fringe jacket from high school, but the reality is that if you haven’t worn it in upwards of five years, you probably never will.
Step two: While everything is out of the closet, get a tape measure out and take your closet measurements. With those numbers, as well as the amount of things you are planning to keep piled up, you can use a DIY custom service to design a new closet system that you can install yourself, quickly and easily, and at a fraction of the cost of using a firm, such as ModularClosets.com.
Step three: When you’ve put your fabulous new closet all together, you can start putting all your stuff back in and suddenly, you’ll find you can locate those favorite boots easily, or lay your hands on all your scarves without digging through a pile of old clothes.
Get into the habit of putting away clean laundry as soon as possible and you’ll find your clutter level drop, helping to create that zen, comfortable feeling that a bedroom should have.
New Year’s Resolution TWO
Your next step is to go investigate all the communal closets, like the front hall and linen closets, and reorganize them in much the same way as the bedroom clothes closets.
Here are a few ideas to get your linen and front hall closets in order:
- Keep your sheet sets organized by folding them and placing them in one of the matching pillow cases. That way, you have a complete set, ready to pull out and put on the beds without rooting through all the sheets to find the various pieces.
- Fold large towels down into thirds with the fold facing out, for a tidy look.
- Decide if what you keep in the linen closet needs to be in the linen closet. For example, extra vacuum bags, new light weight canister vacuums or other cleaning products might be better off stored in the basement storage, or even the garage.
- For hall closets, having baskets, shelves, or drawers for each member of the family to store their various smaller items, like mittens and scarves, can make it easier to put things away every day and find them again the next day.
- Hooks are your friend: hats, scarves, purses, are all more accessible and kept off the floor with hooks.
New Year’s Resolution THREE
Don’t forget your small storage spaces! Your kitchen cupboards and bathroom medicine cabinets could probably use a sort:
- Go through pantries and discard any past due or old items. This is true for the medicine cabinet and your makeup drawer too: old makeup carries germs, so it’s best to get rid of it and treat yourself to something new! Old medication needs to be disposed of safely.
- Maximize space by getting rid of packaging and instead leveraging canisters or clear food grade plastic containers for all your dry goods.
- In the bathroom, you can keep a container with cotton balls in the cabinet with the rest stored away in the linen closet, instead of a big bag of cotton balls that falls out every time someone opens the door!
- Make sure that everything in the kitchen and bathroom has a proper place, so counters can avoid being cluttered. If you don’t use your breadmaker daily, it can probably go into a storage cupboard, rather than staying out on the counter. There are a lot of nifty hangers, baskets and other storage implements that can help you keep everything from toilet paper to towels in an accessible but tidy place.
New Year’s Resolution FOUR
Add organization to other areas like basements, cupboards under the stairs, and the garage, to maximize all available storage spaces. With a proper closet installation, you can create the perfect place to store your seasonal items, like decorations, sports equipment, and off-season clothing, as well as things you don’t necessarily use every day, like your vacuum cleaner or other tools. That said, weather-related problems could affect your home and you may end up with a flooded garage which may affect your stored equipment. For garage floor water containment, you could opt for custom-size containment mats that could help you keep your garage dry.
It’s all a question of assessing what you have, what you need, what you can get rid of, and where you will put each of the remaining items. When everything you own has a proper place to be stored, it’s much easier to stay on top of the clutter!
Marty Basher is the home organization expert for Modular Closets. Modular Closets are high-quality and easy-to-design closet systems you can order, assemble and install yourself, in no time at all. Using closet modules (closet pieces you can mix & match to design your own modular closet), homeowners everywhere are empowered to achieve the true custom closet look- for nearly 40% less than standard custom closets.