For many homeowners, clutter seems to accumulate in four major areas of the home - the closets, the entryway, the kitchen, and the kid’s room. If you’re guilty of having a little too much clutter in one of these rooms, you’re in luck. Here are 16 great tips on how to keep your home clean and clutter-free.
In the Closets
- 1. Hang up all of your clothes on hangers facing the same way in your closet. Every time you wear something, turn the hanger around. After a year, donate what you haven’t worn.
- 2. Keep matching sheets and pillowcases together by neatly folding the sheets and placing them inside the corresponding pillowcase.
- 3. Throw out any bedding and towels that are overly faded or have holes in them.
- 4. Remove anything that doesn’t belong in your closet such as passports, insurance papers, or tax forms. File these important documents in a filing cabinet or storage bucket.
In the Entryway
- 5. Use a hook or a catch-all dish to store keys so you’re not hunting for them on your way out.
- 6. Use baskets and storage benches to store and hide backpacks and sports equipment.
- 7. Put a trash barrel in your entryway so you can empty pockets and toss junk mail before it piles up.
- 8. Hang up slots for each member of the family to sort and organize incoming mail. You can also hang up an outgoing slot for permission slips or outgoing mail. Get too much junk mail? 41pounds.org is a wonderful site that will help cut down the amount of junk mail you receive while helping save the planet.
In the Kitchen
- 9. Go through your pantry and throw out anything that’s out of date. You’ll be surprised at how long some of those cans have been in there.
- 10. Do the dishes. If you can’t fit all of your dishes in your cabinets, you have too many. Keep your favorites and donate the rest.
- 11. Get rid of the oldest pots and pans that you don’t use anymore. This will free up quite a bit of space in your cabinets so you can put other appliances such as your mixer or food processor there instead.
- 12. If you don’t have a lot of cabinet space, install a pegboard to hold and organize your kitchen necessities.
In the Kid’s Room
- 13. Sort toys by likeness. Keep all stuffed animals in one container and all action figures in another. This is also a great way to teach your kids that everything has a home and at the end of playtime, everything has to go back to its home.
- 14. There are two times during the year that you should do a massive purge of your kid’s toys: Christmas and birthdays. Since your child will most likely be getting many new toys, clothing, and other items at these two times of the year, you’ll want to spend the time to get rid of any broken or old items to make room for the new ones.
- 15. Make a place for school papers. Hang up a slot in your kid’s room for incoming school papers such as report cards, permission slips that need to be signed, or homework assignments.
- 16. Quality over quantity. Instead of showering your kid with more toys than he or she could ever play with, opt for a few quality toys instead. This will save space and the toys will live longer.
