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We all need help organizing our homes from time to time, especially once children enter the picture!
Spring cleaning is a popular topic right now. Everyone is trying to remove excess clutter from their homes and improve the organization of all the stuff that builds up inside their homes. An organized home makes us feel better. Being organized reduces stress, puts you in a happier mood and boosts your energy. When there is a place for everything and everything is in its place, we spend more of our time enjoying our family, relaxing and doing the things we love. Don’t you agree?
I love to organize. I was that young girl organizing her sock drawer on a Saturday night. All of my Barbie and Polly Pocket accessories were put away in an organized way, making them easy to find and clean up when I was finished playing. Not sure what it is about organizing, but I love to sort stuff into piles and put away into bags, baskets and bins. Organizing just makes me happy!
Over the past 6 1/2 years spent living in our current home, I’ve figured out the best products for organizing all our stuff, controlling the clutter in our home, and maximizing the closet space in our home. Let me preface this with the fact that my husband is a collector of autographed sports memorabilia & various DVDs and I love to decorate our home for the seasons & holidays. Therefore, we may have extra items in our home that you may not. However, what we do have, is a 2 1/2 year old and a 4 1/2 month old. And my husband and I try really hard to prevent our house from looking like a toy store or day care center. I am hoping the products & tips I share in this post will spark an idea or help you jump start your own home organization project.
Clear Plastic Containers
We use clear plastic containers to store everything! From toys and clothes to seasonal decorations, these inexpensive containers keep everything clean, dry and dust-free. You can see what is inside. They stack well. You can find clear plastic containers in a variety of sizes to fit your organizing needs and space. We buy ours at Target, but you can find them at Walmart, Lowe’s, and Home Depot. The Dollar Store is a great place to purchase these small shoe box sized plastic containers.
Plastic Bags
I seriously need to purchase stock in Ziploc Bags because I use them EVERYWHERE. I could probably write a post just about the many uses of Ziploc Bags! They contain small items within a bigger container, making it easier to search & find a specific item.
One way in which we use Ziploc Bags to maximize storage shelving space is by using them to store game pieces and puzzles. We are a board games and jigsaw puzzle doing family, but keeping these in the boxes takes up SO MUCH SPACE. To solve this problem, I took each puzzle out of its box, cut out the top of the box (the picture to help us put it together), and placed it inside a gallon-sized Ziploc Bag with the pieces. Then, all of the puzzles fit inside a clear plastic container on a shelf.
Along the same lines as the jigsaw puzzles, we’ve accumulated many Minnie Mouse, Disney Princess and just Disney character sets. I organized them inside a large clear plastic container by putting the characters together in Ziploc Bags. There is a bag for Minnie Mouse characters & play pieces, one for the Little People Disney Princesses, and one for other Disney characters. When my daughter wants to play with these toys, she only needs to grab the bag and the pieces aren’t everywhere inside the container.
My favorite sizes to use are gallon and quart. Also, I prefer the zipper freezer bags over the slider storage because the the freezer bags are thicker and last longer.
Storage Ottomans
We love our storage ottomans so much that we purchased them for our living room, office and basement family room. We wanted to maximize the storage & function in these smaller spaces and add a piece of furniture that was stylish, too!
The first storage ottoman we purchased was in our living room and it serves as a footrest, extra seating when friends & family come to visit, additional storage for toys and a coffee table. The tops of the storage ottoman flip over, providing a hard surface to rest drinks. Because it has soft edges, it is the perfect piece of furniture for a home with small children. Our living room is not the biggest so the storage inside this ottoman is key to controlling the toy clutter in our main living space.
In the office, we use these folding storage ottomans to store all of the colored paper, stickers, activity and coloring books we own (I was a teacher for 10 years!). The other one stores materials I use for putting together activities for my toddler. Plus, they are decorative and serve as window seats. Since our office is one of the first spaces you see when walking into our home, I wanted the space to look nice and these storage ottomans are stylish and functional.
In our basement family room, we use this large storage ottoman to store extra blankets and pillows. My mom and brother occasionally spend the night. It also works for puzzle, game and movie storage. Once again, it provides additional seating for guests, a footrest, a surface for playing games or putting together puzzles, and the tops flip over to create a coffee table. The soft sides, tops and corners make it safe for our children. The basement family room was another space where we wanted functionality, but a stylish piece of furniture 🙂
Cube Shelves
Oh cube shelves, how I love thee! They are decorative and you can customize to match the decor of the room. The cube bins are available in a variety of colors, patterns and styles.
Increasing Closet Storage
We use cube shelves as clothing storage in the bedrooms. They fit well inside the closets, maximizing the storage space. Essentially, they serve the purpose of a dresser in our toddler’s bedroom and baby boy’s nursery. This way, we didn’t need to purchase a dresser for the bedrooms and nursery. We weren’t ready to invest in furniture for the bedrooms yet so the cube shelves were an inexpensive way to increase storage for clothes and baby accessories. Plus, we could purchase baskets and fabric bins to coordinate with the bedroom color & theme.
Organizing Toys in the Play Room
Cube shelves are the perfect solution for organizing toys in your child’s play area. Now, we are fortunate to have a finished basement where the main play space in our home is. However, if you do not have a designated space for play, using a cube shelf in the living or family room is an inexpensive, simple and stylish option for controlling the toy clutter.
Organizing the Home Office
Our office space needed additional storage for art & craft supplies. We also wanted a surface to display some of our favorite photos from our days before children 🙂 The answer was a cube shelf. Now, we used to have fabric storage bins on the shelf, but recently switched those out for these awesome baskets from Target. They fit perfectly in each shelf, are sturdy and easy to clean. Plus, they look pretty!
Baskets
I love baskets. I probably have a slight obsession with them, but I love how they look in our home. They come in a variety of shapes, styles, colors, materials and sizes. Baskets help to contain items so the surfaces in your home look less cluttered. Baskets are a decorative and an inexpensive solution for home organization!
Living Room Organization
We use baskets to store our TV remotes, our tablet, and various controllers in the living room. Also in the living room, there is a basket filled with diapering & baby essentials. Two large baskets house the many wooden puzzles our daughter enjoys and children’s books we switch out seasonally.
Nursery Organization
Baskets are a decorative storage option for the nursery. These wicker baskets fit perfectly on our open changing table shelves. We fill them with diapers, wipes, burp cloths & baby towels. Another wicker basket helps contain all those small board books, making them easily accessible for stories before bed.
Pantry Cabinet Organization
As I mentioned earlier in this post, these plastic baskets from Target are a favorite of mine! These inexpensive baskets maximize the storage space in our kitchen pantry cabinet. They help contain the many travel mugs & water bottles we currently own (I promise I cleaned out a few!). We also use them for storing coffee and tea bags. What I like most about these baskets is being able to wipe them clean if they get dirty!
Laundry Room Organization
We don’t have a separate laundry room in our home. Our washer & dryer is in the mud room area off our garage. Family & friends see this space when they use the powder room or come into our home through the garage. Therefore, we want it to stay neat, organized and clutter-free. In order to accomplish this, a local contractor installed simple white cabinets. Then, I purchased baskets to organize (and make it easier to take out & put away) the items contained in these cabinets. These small baskets store laundry accessories, various sponges & cleaning cloths, disposable gloves, travel packs of Wet Wipes, and Swiffer Duster refills. These taller baskets store extra baby wipes, rag towels (used for cleaning), bibs and kitchen towels. Being able to pull out the basket makes it so much easier to grab or put away a kitchen towel!
Over-the-Door Shoe Organizers
These over-the-door shoe organizers are the newest addition to our home in our efforts to improve and maximize the storage space that is available to us. The pockets aren’t just for shoes! They are such an easy & inexpensive way to organize small purses, baby accessories, toys (small stuffed animals & dolls, Legos, etc.), art & craft supplies and winter gear (hats, mittens, gloves, & scarves).
Hanging Closet Organizers
These hanging closet organizers make the most of the closet space in our toddler’s bedroom and the nursery. We store all of our toddler’s blankets on this organizer in her closet. In the nursery, we use this inexpensive organizer for storing blankets, crib sheets and mattress covers.
Command Hooks
These are seriously the best invention ever! Command Hooks make it so easy to hang things on the wall without holes. We use Command Hooks in every room of our home. These inexpensive hooks help get things off the floor and instantly make your home look less cluttered.
Recently, we created a little coat hanging spot for our children. Our daughter is really good about taking her shoes off and putting them in her basket when we come inside. However, her jacket gets taken off and thrown on the floor. With the addition of these decorative Command Hooks (at her level) our daughter now hangs her jacket on her hook when we come inside. She thinks it is the best thing ever!
A place for everything and everything in its place.
Benjamin Franklin
Organizing your home may seem like an overwhelming task, especially with little kids. But, with the right products, you can gain control of all the clutter and give everything a home.
When everything is in its place, cleaning & putting things away takes up less of your time. I don’t know about you, but I want to spend more of my time playing with my kiddos than cleaning the house (or looking for something I need)!
Giving everything a home saves you money because you know exactly where an item is when you need it! No need to buy another because you can find it!
Choose one of the products I shared with you today and think of a space in your home where you can utilize it. Then, simply focus on organizing that space. Start small (1 drawer, 1 cabinet, 1 closet) because the small actions you take towards organizing your living space today will give you the momentum to keep going tomorrow!
Which product are you most excited to use in your home? Do you have a favorite way to organize the areas in your home? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
Here are some great articles about the benefits of organizing 🙂
- 5 Health Benefits of Being Organized by Erica Florentine
- Why It Pays to Organize Your Home by Elizabeth Scott
- How Cleaning and Organizing Can Improve Your Physical and Mental Health by Paige Fowler
I’m with you on loving organization! I use all of the things you mentioned. However, I never thought of the puzzle storage hack, so I’ll have to give that a try!
That’s great! I’ve started using the poly file folders for our wooden puzzles ever since you shared that hack on your blog 🙂 However, I love getting rid of the puzzle boxes!! I started doing this when I was teaching and the boxes always got ruined pretty quickly. I was tired of taping them constantly so started cutting out the picture and including with the pieces on the bag. You can even tape the picture on inside of bag so it doesn’t get lost! The bags are so much easier to store!
This post is all about my life. I love storage solutions. My favoite is the cube organizers. IKEA to the rescue!!
I love storage solutions, too! Cube organizers really are the best because they instantly hide all the clutter in ANY room, make the most of vertical space and look like a nice piece of furniture. IKEA does have a lot of great options for storage. Unfortunately, there is only one near us and it is an hour away so very rare that we shop there. I wish it was much closer! Shipping is not cheap either!