How to Organize your House

Here are 15 quick tips to get some of the messier areas of your house back under control.  How to organize your house doesn’t have to be difficult.

1. Clear off your kitchen counter. Move packaged food to the pantry, put away your clean dishes, wipe down the counter and scrub the sink.
2. Hang your kitchen tools. If you don’t have much cabinet space, attach a pegboard to the wall and loop in metal hooks to hang all of your most-used items in the kitchen.
3. Clean out your fridge. Throw away your leftovers from too many days before, produce that’s starting to stink and anything with a past expiration date. Make a list of what needs replacing and post it on the fridge to take with you the next time you head to the store.
4. Pair your storage containers. Empty the cabinet and match every container to its corresponding top. If there is a missing top or bottom, recycle the lone piece. If you have a large container with no lid, consider using it to hold lids.
5. Empty your kitchen drawers. How many potato peelers will you find? Spoiler: you only need one. If you find any broken items, just throw them away.
6. Create a master grocery list. Look at your old grocery receipts and see what you buy most often. Group those items by where they are in the store (if you go to the same one frequently) so you can grocery shop quicker.
7. Color-coordinate. Assign each family member a color that only he or she can have, and use this as the organizing principle throughout the house. The towel, toothbrush, hamper and maybe even bed sheets could be coordinated. This will make it easier for everyone to find their own items…and put them away.
8. Check those expiration dates. Go through your bathroom cabinets, drawers and your makeup bag to see what’s old or just unused. Then arrange what’s left in the order that you use it, so your face wash next to your moisturizer or your contact case next to your glasses.
9. Check for wear and tear. Look over each towel, wash cloth and sheet set for stains, tears or general wear. More worn-out towels can be used for rags or given to a local animal shelter.
10. Donate old books. Go through your bookshelf and donate any books that have been gathering dust. Return your books to the shelves by height or color order for a less cluttered look.
11. Signature outfits. If you have an outfit you wear all the time, hang its components—shirt, pants, accessories—together for easier retrieval.
12. Keep, Alter, Donate. Try every item on in your closet and put it in one of three piles…you guessed it! Keep, alter or donate. Then actually only keep the “Keep” pile. Store your seasonal items, styles and colors together.
13. Heel-to-toe. Organizing your shoes heel to toe will maximize your closet space and gives you a quick survey of color, toe style and heel height, which can help speed up your decision-making process for what to wear.
14. Magazine cut-outs. Walk through your home with a shopping back and compile all of the magazines you’ve already read. If there was a specific article or recipe you enjoyed, cut it out of the magazine and recycle the rest.
15. Pair with plastic. Instead of guessing which cord goes with what on the power strip behind your TV or bed, save the tags from bread, write the name of the device and clip it around the relevant cord.