Organize Your Home
You’ve probably heard the old phrase “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” But when was the last time you could describe your home that way? Occasionally, things get out of hand, or you’re simply tired of an untidy room or cluttered closet and need a little help sorting out the mess. Whether your question is how to start organizing your home, how to know if you should keep an item or get rid of it, or how to maintain the organized home you’ve achieved, we’ve found helpful Web sites that can give you some answers.
Expand All Guide SectionsStart Organizing Your Home
Finding the motivation to organize your home and deciding where to begin are among the biggest hurdles people face with organization efforts. The Web sites in this section offer some advice to help you start organizing your home, give you some basic strategies for different types of projects, and teach you how to evaluate your possessions so you’ll know what to throw out, keep, and donate to charity.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Your home likely didn’t become cluttered overnight, and you’re not going to get it organized overnight, either. Set some reasonable goals as you work to restore order, and don’t expect it to all get done in a day.
- Cleaning and organizing often go hand in hand. For helpful online resources for housekeeping techniques and products, see our findingDulcinea Housekeeping Web Guide.
- For additional help in cutting back on the number of material goods you own, consider reading Organizing Plain and Simple: A Ready Reference Guide with Hundreds of Solutions to Your Everyday Clutter Challenges.
- Ironically, some Web sites from professional organizers may seem a little … disorganized. Many organizing sites have sections dedicated to the common rooms in a home, so look for headings like “kitchen,” “bedroom,” or “closet” to increase your chances of finding the tips and information you want.
- Whether as part of or aside from your New Year’s resolutions, January may be a great time to commit to organizing your home. The National Association of Professional Organizers sponsors “Get Organized Month” every January.
Dulcinea's Picks
Before you get started …
White Space
is a professional organizing firm based in Chicago. This blog entry from the company’s Web site tells you how to recognize your organizational style, which will ultimately affect how you straighten up your home.
Ask the Decorator
features a video with Cynthia Ivie of the organization firm White Space. It provides some short, practical organization advice that includes how to choose a room to start organizing and where to begin working on sorting out your possessions.
For general organization tips …
The National Association of Professional Organizers
answers common questions about getting organized and offers helpful sections filled with home and office organizational tips.
HGTV.com
devotes part of its Web site to the Mission: Organization TV show. Click on episode titles to see real-life organizing makeovers, or use the links on the left side for articles and videos full of additional tips about reducing clutter and advice about effectively making use of your space.
The Clean Team
supplies this list of clutter control rules, each of which comes with an explanation of how to apply the rule to your home. The rules include “Use it or lose it” and “Items displayed in the house have to pass a test.”
For sites that focus on organizing a specific room …
Lowe’s
has organization tips for kitchens, bedrooms, laundry rooms, and living rooms. Search here for advice about installing shelving and other space savers, as well as information about incorporating universal design elements into these rooms. One distinctive article on this site teaches how to organize a home according to the principles of universal design, which aims to accommodate people of all ages and physical abilities.
HGTV.com
teaches how to implement an effective closet storage system in this article, starting first by providing instructions on how to determine what kind of storage you’ll need.
LifeOrganizers.com
dedicates an entire section of its site to steps you can follow to organize your home office (just don’t let the ads distract you). Learn how to organize computer and paper files, optimize your desk space to improve productivity, and handle the unorganized elements in your office that could ultimately reduce the amount of work you accomplish in a day.
GarageTek
offers a garage safety checklist that tells you how and where to store many of the items you may keep in your garage. The tips aim to improve the organization of a garage and lessen the chance that a preventable injury might occur there.
Life Tools for Women
explains how to organize your home’s pantry to maximize use of space and make this part of your home more efficient to use.
For help organizing your collectibles, keepsakes, photos, and papers …
Style at Home.com
is the site of the Canadian-based magazine with the same name. This article offers some helpful advice for managing your keepsakes “before they take over your home.” Note that this article and some of the other related articles you’ll find here have some pop-up ads.
The Organizing Network
helps you learn how to sort through your papers to determine what needs to be kept in your records and what can be thrown away or recycled. There are also tips for organizing your photos.
Mrs. Clean Northwest
offers some helpful advice about organizing your collectibles and offers suggestions on ways to display them so you’ll appreciate your collectibles for years to come.
For blogs …
Unclutterer
is a blog that adheres to the credo “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” Read the entries for recommendations about various products that could help reduce clutter in your home, or other helpful hints and skills that can help you be more organized at home. Search the categories on the right side of the page to find entries on topics such as “Inherited Clutter,” “Minimalism,” “Cable Clutter,” and “Decluttering.”
Neat & Simple Living
comes from organizing coach Ariane Benefit. Check here for organizing tips and information about organizing workshops. This blog has a ton of information, so you might do better by heading straight to the “Categories” section to narrow your reading options with the help of some useful headings (scroll past the “Archives” to find the “Categories,” below).
I’m an Organizing Junkie
almost manages to makes home organization fun. The “Getting Organized” section of the blog takes you straight to some insightful posts about organizing your home and the process of getting organized. Check the category headings on the left of the page for posts on specific organization topics.
Declutter It!
is another good blog by a professional organizer with tips to help you straighten your home. The entries are written in a friendly tone, and the handy tips are easy to understand.
For information about hoarding …
The Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
presents this site about hoarding. Learn what compulsive hoarding is, how it’s treated, and how hoarding can affect family and society. Information about hoarding support groups is also available.
Oprah.com
offers a “Hoarding Severity Scale” to help you assess whether you have a significant hoarding problem. See video footage from a hoarder’s home and learn what to do if you have a hoarding problem or want to help someone with a hoarding problem.
Who knew?
Mommysavers
has a short article about managing the clutter on your refrigerator door, whether it’s multiple artwork displays or a magnetic set of alphabet letters.
Home Organization Products
If you find your home lacking in storage space or you just aren’t sure what to do with some ... read more »
Professional Home Organizers
If you feel like a room in your home, or even your entire home, is in too much of a disorganized ... read more »
Disposing of the Clutter
If “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” it’s true that some ... read more »
Maintaining an Organized Home
Don’t waste all that hard work you put into getting your home organized by letting it slip. ... read more »
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
