Cleaning and Home Improvement
Where do I start organizing my home? While some home organization specialists will tell you to start in the kitchen, I’m going to advise beginning in another area. The kitchen will be the third place we attack and this doesn’t make it less important, but I will explain why I’m starting elsewhere.
First, if you look around your home, you probably see lots of clothes. Am I right? You’ve got clothes in closets, you’ve got clothes in piles (meaning to put them away and not having time, eventually just pulling them out of the pile and wearing them), and you’ve got clothes in laundry baskets. You might even have rumpled clothes in the dryer or (heaven forbid!) the washer. If it’s the former, the clothes are only rumpled. If it’s the latter, they’re probably rumpled AND smelly and (potentially) mildew-y. Yuck! If you don’t have a laundry room but have a laundry closet (with room for the washer, dryer, and some shelves), I’m betting you haven’t seen the top of your dryer for weeks or even months. It’s covered in rumpled clothes and towels, right?
Have you guessed where we’re starting? That’s right! The laundry area of your home. And here’s why: if you get your laundry room cleaned and organized, you’ll be much more apt to actually DO the laundry that plagues you and helps your home to be disorganized. And because you won’t want to undo the work you’ve done in the laundry room, you’re more likely to fold the laundry when it’s done, and put it away. There’s something that’s a breath of fresh air about a straightened laundry room, sort of like when you walk in to a closet where everything is hanging neatly.
So start with small steps: Can you see the floor? No? Then pick up what’s on the floor and put it in laundry baskets. If you don’t have enough laundry baskets to accomplish this, then just sort the things in to piles outside the laundry room. I make piles of light clothes, whites, darks, and towels/rags.
Can you see the top of the dryer? If not, put the excess clothes in the aforementioned piles. Grab one rag to dust and have two plastic grocery bags, one to collect junk, and the other for later. Dust the dryer from the lint leftovers and use a little window cleaner if it doesn’t come off readily. Don’t neglect the area where the “start” button is, that can be grimy, too!
Ok - now you’ve got your washer & dryer cleaned off. Congratulations!
Now take a critical look at your supply shelves. Do you have empty bottles or boxes lying around from spent detergent and/or fabric softener? Clean those out. Use that grocery bag that you’ve put excess dryer lint in and pitch those empties. Then organize what’s left. If you need to add things to your shopping list, now is the time—now you know what you’ve got and what you need to buy. When you organize your supplies, I recommend putting the detergent and any liquid softener above the (gasp!) washer. Make it easy to reach. Put the dryer sheets over or on the dryer why reach more than you have to? If your shelves are higher than you’d like, use the top ledge of your washer & dryer to hold supplies! I’ve never seen a washer and dryer that didn’t butt up to a wall for the electrical plugs they need. So use that space to your advantage. Put the detergent box or bottle on the top of the washer, along with whatever other washing supplies you have.
If you have wire shelves above your washer & dryer, you’ve got a built-in place to hang a trash bag. Use that extra grocery sack and cut one of the handles in half. Then tie those two ends around some of the wire shelf and use the bag to collect dryer lint and empty containers from your emptied laundry supplies. When it’s full, cut it down and put it in the trash and put up a new one.
Now look at your floor. Does it need sweeping? If so, grab a broom and sweep. It won’t take you more than 5 minutes and you’ll feel much better about your room and your work, especially if something you’ve just washed falls on the floor as you’re transferring stuff to the dryer.
Congratulations! You’ve done the preliminary work of organizing your home, you've won the battle in your laundry room! Take a 15 minute break and enjoy this victory. Then start the task of doing the excess laundry that you’ve been collecting, one pile at a time. When the first is done, swap it out immediately to your dryer or to hangers, if that’s more appropriate. Take it one pile at a time, in other words, small steps! Soon, you’ll find that it really only takes 5-10 minutes to fold warm clothes from the dryer and put them in laundry baskets, ready to transfer to the appropriate rooms, closets, and drawers. Now that you have some extra time, you can start on another room. How to start organizing your home wasn't all that hard afterall!
About The Author
Karl Thompson is the owner and webmaster of http://www.home-family-parenting.com website which is a growing 24 category directory of articles and products concerning families and parents in their day-to-day living.
How To Clutter Control Your Child's Bedroom
by: Sherrie Le Masurier
Kid’s clutter. What a chore. Things are put away and in no time the room is messy again.
With a little clutter control, your frustration over your child’s messy bedroom will be a thing of the past. Just think of how great it will feel to no longer take one step forward and two steps back.
With some clutter control and a personalized organizational system your child will have a solid foundation in which to build and maintain a clean and tidy room upon.
Let’s begin with your child’s clothes. Sort through everything. Start with one big clothing pile or attack things drawer by drawer. Make sure your child is available to try stuff on and share their input re: favorite items.
Making your child part of the clutter control process can lend itself to some great one-on-one-time not to mention it can also be a great learning opportunity for her.
Start piles (or boxes) of out-of-season and outgrown clothing. Once compiled remove the unnecessary clothing from your child’s room. Or, at the very least store it on a higher shelf. The same goes for clothing your child hasn’t grown into yet. Box it up and store elsewhere.
Simplify the clothing that remains. Does your child really wear all 25 T-shirts or does she just favor a few?
One of the most genuine excuses children give for not hanging up their clothes is that they can’t reach the rods. Once you have purged the excess clothing, you need to make sure your child can access what’s left. Lower the closet rod and install shelves at child-accessible heights. Also consider investing in child-sized hangers and open plastic baskets or bins for socks and underwear.
For some great bedroom storage ideas visit http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net/kid-room-storage.html
Old fashioned ‘catchall’ toy boxes may be the answer for your child’s stuffed toy collection but for small toys and books think shelves, shallow bins or carts with see-through wire baskets.
You may even want to color-code shelves and bookcases. Come up with a color scheme that matches the room’s décor e.g. blue for books, green for games, and so on. The different colors will be a visual reminder of where things go.
To learn more about how organizing a child’s room is the forerunner to decorating visit http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net/organize-kid-rooms.html
Label everything. You don’t need to get fancy with professionally made labels. Simply print some out on your computer and tape on.
Now put the labels everywhere on the inside and outside of drawers, on shelf edges, on the outside of the plastic bins etc.
It’s all well and good to organize your child’s room but unless you devise a maintenance plan all your work will be for not. Create a maintenance checklist and tailor the effort to your child’s age and ability. Build regular room maintenance into her daily routine.
For more ideas on how organize your kids visit http://www.familysanitysavers.com/ Geared to busy moms this site offers smart organizing, decorating and sanity saving solutions for families on the go.
About The Author
Sherrie Le Masurier is an organizing consultant and member of both the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) and Professional Organizers in Canada (POC). She is co-owner of www.decorating-kids-rooms.net a site dedicated to decorating and organizing children's rooms and www.familysanitysavers.com a site featuring smart solutions for busy parents. Copyright 2005.
Cut the Clutter! by: Jennifer Gove
Is clutter bogging you down? Is it living on your shelves collecting dust and in your closet stealing valuable space, has it wandered down the hall to the kids room and taken over? It’s time to cut the clutter.
What is clutter? It is some thing you have had for more then six months and have used one time or less.
It is too many items crammed into a small space.
It is mail that is unsorted lying about in piles.
It is all projects lying about unfinished.
It is any thing you no longer have use for.
Where does the clutter go? You should sort clutter into three categories.
Trash – Paper, broken items or any thing in bad condition.
Sell – Brand name clothing items or any thing in almost new condition such as toys.
Donate – Clothing in good condition, toys or any usable item in good condition.
What will I need?
Grab two big boxes and a good sized trash bag. Label one box sell unless you do not plan on selling if not label it donation as well as the other box. Otherwise you should have two boxes, one sell and the other donations.
Getting into the clutter.
Once you have decided it is time to get rid of all that clutter it is just a matter of getting started.
Choose a room determine the clutter hot spots.
For example the top of the refrigerator is often a clutter attracting spot. Remove each item and ask your self is this trash? What value or use is this to me? Do I have more then one of these? Sort items into Trash sell or donate. If you decide to keep it designate it a permanent home. Move to each room fine the hot stops for clutter and repeat the process.
Clutter hot spots Children’s rooms (closets, toy boxes, dressers selves the floor) – broken or out grown toys, worn or out grown clothing, papers from school
Kitchen (counter tops, table, drawers, cupboards, under the sink) – Papers, mail, over abundance of useless appliances, empty product bottles or products that do not work
Bed rooms (closets, dressers, shelves) – Clothing, paperbacks, knickknack
Living or family room (shelves, Entertainment center, drawers) - Books, paper work, mail, toys, knickknacks, magazines, newspapers Bathroom (Shelves, medicine cabinet, under the sink) Old make up, used products, empty products, old magazines, newspapers
Coat room - make sure all outer wear has working zippers and fastens; toss worn shoes or unworn shoes.
This is not clutter what do I do with it!
Baskets are great for organizing many small related items together in one spot.
Totes are a woman’s best friend store away half your children’s toys and reticulate then every month or so. Put out of season clothing away or blankets.
Shelves give books magazines and knickknacks a place to live. Laundry baskets make great toy storage for stuffed animals and other big toys. They are also great to leave in a central location for family members to toss things in until they get to putting them away.
The golden rules of clutter If you do not use it lose it. Build a wardrobe, once you do when you buy new replace the old. Every thing has a place if it doesn’t toss it. Every thing must have a use if it doesn’t toss it. Less is almost always more! Less is easier to clean and care for!
About The Author Jennifer Gove If you enjoyed this article please stop into http://www.simplymoms.com or check out the forums at http://www.simplymoms.com/forum for great advice articles and ideas! Jennifer is a stay at home mother who resides in the state of Maine with her husband and children. simplymoms@hotmail.com