Decluttering and organising your storage can seem like a daunting task, let alone if you attempt it in just one day. But, with the right tools and a little planning, you can have everything neat and tidy in no time with these easy storage ideas.
Before you start sprucing up your storage, you need to declutter your home for good. Do you go room by room? Item by item? Or even try clockwork cleaning? Start by picking out one of these methods to spend the morning clearing your home before the real work begins.
Similar to the Marie Kondo method, the four-box challenge makes sure that every single item you need to sort out has a place. Gather four boxes and label them bin, donate, sell or keep, in which case with the latter, you can organise them into a new storage system.
Instagram superstar Mrs Hinch has gained millions of followers for her unique brand of cleaning videos and she advocates the ‘clockwork method’. Start immediately to your left as you walk through the door as a section we’ll call 12 o’clock, then split the room into 12 sections and tackle each one, working from top to bottom. First, declutter and then go round a second time for storage.
If that doesn’t work for you, try the simple task of finding 12 items to throw away, 12 to donate and 12 to move to a new space in your home that lets them be fully appreciated. It’s a quick and effective way to sort through 36 things in one fell swoop.
To tackle collections like books or records, it’s best to work room-by-room, as there’s little point in hauling them all to one place if they naturally live in different parts of the home. Get rid of any duplicates plus any that don’t hold sentimental value. They’ve served their purpose, so pass them on. Whatever’s left should be able to fit onto your bookshelves and then you can organise everything alphabetically or even by colour like @jackiesbookshelf has done.
To get everything organised in a day, you need to make sure that absolutely everything has a home. Don't worry too much about placing lots of different things together in a cupboard, just use baskets of different sizes and shapes to put away similar items. So your hairdryer, brushes and rollers can go in one basket while crafting materials might be in another.
After you’ve spent the morning decluttering, it’s good to have a mantra to stick with for the future. Continuing to collect will eventually lead to more clutter and chaos, so when you get a new item, make sure to remove an old version; either by recycling, gifting it or donating it to charity.
The kitchen might just be one of the most fun places to organise. If you are looking for space-saving ideas, you can get creative by adding shelving in unexpected places. A door rack works well in pantries to hold spices and staples such as cans. A modular system lets you move things around as you need and will free up cupboard space so you can instantly find what you need.
It’s easy for kitchen cupboards to become a riot of mess. A great way to maximise your storage and to keep everything neat and tidy is by hanging things up to free the lower space. This easy hack by @inside_150 uses an extendable curtain rail, and also works well with dishcloths and cleaning products.
We've all had that moment when you open up the cupboard and all the reusable water bottles you've ever owned come tumbling out. The Organised Housewife shows how a simple magazine file will help to stop the bottles from toppling over, meaning you can easily find what you need.
It's nice to own special cutlery for celebrations but those big heavy boxes can be a storage nightmare. Take inspiration from chef knife rolls by creating a tea towel roll that will keep cutlery clean, protected and that takes up a fraction of the space. Things for Boys has made one with sewn pockets for each utensil set and labelled with stylish ribbon tape.
Whether it be the inside of a cabinet door in the kitchen or on the wall in your hallway, designate an area in your home to an organisation station. A place to store important info such as Wi-Fi passwords, memos and coupons. It's easy to do and will keep everyone organised.
If you are always hunting the house for reusable shopping bags, this hack by Polished Habitat will make your life a whole lot easier. Pop all your fabric bags in a storage basket, but for those pesky plastic ones, you can repurpose a tissue box and use it as a dispenser. Keep it in the hallway or stick to the side of a cabinet door using Command strips so you always have a plastic bag to hand.
So, you’ve finally decluttered all your paperwork. To stop it building up again the best thing to do is to create a place to keep it neat, tidy and most importantly, organised. This amazing IKEA hack shared on Instructables uses a shelf and some IKEA magazine files to create a pigeon hole system.
After you’ve sorted through your wardrobe, you might find you need more space for hanging clothes. This easy hack from The Shabby Creek Cottage uses tabs from drinks cans to layer up items to double your space for free.
A bit of a secret storage space, it’s easy to utilise that dark space underneath the bed with some extra storage boxes. However, for the ultimate easy storage hack, add wheels onto your boxes so you can simply slide them out. If you are starting from scratch, these DIY storage crates from School of Decorating are a great idea
Let's face it, kids can create a lot of clutter. But you can get the homework area in order with IKEA's SUNNERSTA containers; they make practical wall-mounted pen pots, with the handy rail. Craft supremo @kreativakarin jazzed hers up with decorative craft vinyl to add a splash of drip-effect colour to her space. For added interest and even more storage, mount a set above and below for other stationery items.
We all have a drawer somewhere crammed full of charging cables, but keeping them organised doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. Save up some toilet paper rolls and simply write on each one what type of cable it contains and insert the neatly coiled cords. You can also customise them with tape like One Good Thing has here.
Need some storage in a kid's bedroom? Even though this one requires some basic DIY, it’s well worth giving it a go. @jo_at_sixty8 shows just how simple it is to mount a spice rack on the wall as a makeshift bookcase. It’ll save space and you can paint them any colour you want to match the room, if you wish.
Your medicine cabinet is an ideal quick project for the day. Sort through and get rid of any medicines and pills that are out of date (safely, by returning them to your chemist or doctor). With what you have left, split into categories and store in baskets, or for the ultimate hack, use a lazy Susan like Instagrammer @organizingspacesbykim. This way you'll always be able to find what you need without having to rummage through a packed box.
You'd never have thought of this easy bathroom storage hack. If you have a fitted bath, have a look inside it to see if there's any unused space you can make the most of. These sliding bath panels might be a job for an expert, but it will make a huge difference to the appearance of your bathroom, and will put all that unused space to good purpose.
It can be hard to find a home for all the wrapping paper, ribbons and birthday cards that always seem to be dotted around the house. If you have a linen closet utilise the space and create a wrapping station on the back of the door like DIY Decor Mom did.
This linen storage idea is a 'why didn't I think of that?' hack and couldn't be simpler. Fold your freshly laundered bed sheet, duvet cover and one pillowcase neatly and then store them all together inside the remaining clean pillowcase. Reading My Tea Leaves has done just that in her perfectly organised linen closet.
Often scattered around random places in the house or kept in the 'junk drawer', batteries aren’t often something you’ll think of organising and storing. If you have a spare drawer, take inspiration from @organizedbycarly and grab some plastic containers and off you go. You can even separate your AAs from your AAAs, and store those awkward types that only need changing once every five years, so you're ready for the next time.
For an easy, low-cost storage option that'll take you less than five minutes, simply buy a heavy-duty metal muffin tin. This useful tip from Tattered Style means you can store and separate fiddly items like bolts and nails or handy stationery.
If you find yourself rummaging around for the right tools when you need to do a DIY job, try attaching things like spanners and wrenches together with a carabiner clip. This idea from Hooniverse is great because you can slot different tools on in size order so they’re quick to navigate and you can pick up carabiners cheaply in lots of outdoor and bargain stores.
Don't forget to tidy the garage in your declutter. If your household plays a lot of sports there is bound to be different pieces of equipment stuffed away in there. The nature of tennis rackets, balls and hockey sticks is that they can be hard to store together, but clever storage solutions, like these from The Container Store have got you covered. Now shipping to the UK, the wall-mounted ball claws grip onto any shape or size ball and the storage cart on wheels has three sections to keep things orderly. Use wall tracks to hang rackets and a net to catch all the leftover bits.
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