10 Chaos-Taming Tips to Organise Every Room

Feeling overwhelmed by all your stuff? Here’s how to organise your things to make them easier to find and put away

Laura Gaskill 16 January 2018

Houzz Contributor. I cover decorating ideas, Houzz tours & the monthly home maintenance checklist. My favorite pieces to write center around the emotional aspects of home and savoring life's simple pleasures. Decluttering course + discount for Houzzers: https://www.lauragaskill.com/welcome-houzzers

Houzz Contributor. I cover decorating ideas, Houzz tours & the monthly home maintenance... More

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Getting your home organised is a great feeling, but working out the best place to start can be overwhelming. Keep the process simple by following these 10 key principles of organising, which can be applied to any space, at anytime.

ASB Architecture

1. Discover active and passive zones
Active zones are those areas in your home that you pass or touch daily (usually multiple times a day), and include the hallway, top drawers and eye-level shelves and cabinets.

Passive zones are the less frequently used spaces in your home, including the guest room, garage, basement, very high and very low shelves, and nooks deep within cupboards.

A common organising mistake is to clutter your prime active zones with items you don’t often need. For example, don’t keep spare lightbulbs in the top drawer in the kitchen as you only need one every few months.

Crowell + Co. Interiors

2. Make open storage beautiful
Every home needs a combination of open and closed storage. Open shelving puts items out on display, so what you choose to store there should be visually pleasing.

The living room is a good place to display books (arranged by colour, as seen here, if you’re feeling creative) and pretty objects, not beaten-up board games and stacks of video games. Similarly, in the kitchen, open shelving is the place to store matching sets of drinking glasses or your favourite teacups, not plastic food containers.

How Open Shelving Can Solve Your Kitchen Woes

Neat Method San Diego

3. Keep things find-able
“Out of sight, out of mind” is an especially apt expression when it comes to organising items. Clear containers are ideal when you want to be able to see the contents at a glance, and open baskets can store loose items while still letting you look inside.

If you use containers that aren’t transparent, label them clearly – or take it a step further and label each one with a photo of what’s inside (instant cameras are ideal for this).

Abaca Interiors

4. Make it easy to put items away
When it comes to kids’ stuff, making it easier to put things away is most important, but we can all benefit from this rule.

When you need to get something, you’ll get it – it doesn’t really matter where it is –but when it’s time to tidy up, we can all be a little lazy.

To increase the likelihood of you putting things back in their place, use easy-to-access bins, baskets and hampers, simple filing systems and wall hooks to hang frequently used items.

User

5. Group objects by task
Think of this as the first-aid kit phenomenon: when you need a band-aid, you may also need antiseptic cream, perhaps some tweezers to remove a splinter and a gauze pad. In a first-aid kit, everything you need to complete the task of caring for an injury is conveniently located in one place.

When you’re organising your things, remember this system and group everything you need to complete a task in the same spot.

For example, use one box to store medications, another for spare office supplies, one for cake cases and sprinkles, and so on. Labelled shoebox-size containers (like the ones shown here) work especially well for grouping small items together.

CG&S Design-Build

6. Create a holding space for things in transit
We all have a certain amount of stuff that’s constantly in transit: library books waiting to be returned, bags and keys, the dog’s lead, that casserole dish a friend left after your last party.

Instead of allowing these random items to pile up, create a dedicated space to keep them tidy. A spot by the front door is the most logical area to keep such things – a few baskets on a shelf and some wall hooks should do the trick.

See more well-organised entryways

7. Subdivide and conquer
Unorganised drawers are an invitation to clutter, so always use an organiser if you’re storing small items. Use drawer organisers for cutlery in the kitchen, office supplies in your desk, small household items in your junk drawer, and daily essentials, such as door keys, in a drawer near the front door.

Organized Living

8. Go vertical
What happens when you reach for something that’s right at the bottom of a pile? That’s right, it topples.

Avoid this organising nightmare and go vertical instead. Use shelf risers to increase cabinet capacity, store baking sheets and trays in a vertical organiser, and use wall-mounted holders to store brooms and mops so they don’t tip over.

Reform inc.

9. Choose the right container for the job
It can be heartbreaking to find that some of your most precious items – old family photographs, your grandmother’s wedding dress – have been ruined thanks to improper storage.

Take preventative measures by choosing the right storage container for the job. Photographs and paper memorabilia should be stored in acid-free containers or albums, and textiles should be kept in breathable storage boxes or bags designed for that purpose.

10 Ways to Get More Out of Your Printed Photos

Studio Dearborn

10. Store heavy items low down
You should never have to balance on a stepladder while trying to lift something heavy. So keep hefty items at or below waist height, including boxes, kitchen equipment (casserole dishes and stand mixers can weigh a tonne), and anything else that takes real effort to lift.

Tell us
What’s your biggest home-organising challenge? Share your thoughts and tips in the Comments below.

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Amy Francis

I have many home organizing challenges but I’ll mention one. I have a living room/dining area combo. My kids constantly (I am guilty too!) leaving their belongings on the table (where we eat). My oldest has a tiny room and lacks storage. My youngest has her bedroom upstairs and has a hard time putting things away. Not having a defined place to store kid’s stuff is a challenge.

1 Like 11 April 2022 at 10:58am