New Year, A New Home
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Happy New Year!
By now the tree is down and the holidays have all come and gone. Ready to tackle 2020? Your home may be back in it’s regular order,but there’s another important step for just after the holidays to help set the tone for the rest of the year.
Here’s an easy-to-follow organizational how-to so you can kick off the new year feeling mess (and stress) free!
Take it all out
Choose a room or cabinet to start with and take every single item out Marie Kondo style! Sometimes the mess has to get bigger to get better. When you pull everything away from a space, it gives you a chance to visualize the best layout to maximize the area. But be realistic, tackle one area at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed and to concentrate all of your attention to that one area. It’s amazing how many things can be forgotten in the back of a drawer or cabinet.
You know what they say, one man’s trash is another’s treasure.
With everything out in the open, this is the best time to purge and throw away things you don’t need and don’t use. Make a pile of all of the items that you think you don’t need. Once you’ve set those all aside, really sort through them and get rid of the things you haven’t used in the past year. You can donate barely used items to charity, or make some extra cash by using Facebook Marketplace or a yard sale to sell unwanted items. Want to take it a step further? Organize a clothing swap with your friends, family or local community, you’ll be doing something good for yourself while giving back to the community that you live in.
More than socks should live in pairs
All those hairbrushes? They stay together. Those extra blankets and sheets? They were meant for each other. Put everything into groups (or pairs) before you label and put it in a box or basket. This will help you really maximize your storage containers.
Put a box inside a box
Sounds silly but it is a great rule to follow when organizing spaces in your home like cabinets, closets, and drawers. It helps to keep smaller items organized and in place. Make it a little game of Tetris! Consider how often you use items to determine how accessible they are.Have fun with it you might need to move around where things go before you find the right spot for all of your items. We love to re-use gift boxes and product packaging for organizing drawers and cabinets (if you are feeling crafty paint the boxes first for a consistent look and feel).
*Bonus Tip: Don’t just shove those Christmas decorations back into the same old box where they’ve lived for the past ten years. Grab a few hangers and wrap your holiday lights around to keep them tangle-free. A tacklebox works great for dividing tiny decorations and keeping hooks at bay. Upcycle decorative Christmas boxes (and easily save them for next year) by using those to organize ornaments within your larger storage container. And we recycle egg cartons the entire month of December--they are perfect for keeping your ornaments from breaking (and we like to put the cartons inside of stockings for a little extra cushion).