How I organize our everyday household items throughout the house!
I’ve been on a mission over the past few months to get our house decluttered and organized…for good!
I feel like I’m finally getting our life in order (at least the stuff part!). We’ve only lived here seven years. 🙂
I figured I’d share the ways I’ve organized our everyday household items throughout the house.
Keep a few things in mind as you read this! First up, I’m nearing the big 5-0 and with every year I want less and less things in our home. I thrive and function so much better in a clutter-free home, but even ten years ago that was not the case at all!
Our son recently turned 18 (!!) and will be going off to college in just a few months, so I’ve had more time over the past few years to tackle these types of projects. (And the days of Nerf bullets and toy clutter are gone, although I still step on the occasional Lego!)
This may sound like I’ve gotten rid of everything in our house, which is soooo not the case. I love my stuff. 🙂 But what we do have, we use and enjoy AND most everything has a dedicated spot.
1. Take advantage of your closet space
Closets are great of course! But if you don’t utilize them well, that storage space won’t benefit your home as much as it should!
I did a quick declutter and it looked so much better!:
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But it still wasn’t functioning as well as it could. So I’ve been working on it here and there over the past few years.
The real organization started when I found these plastic basketweave storage bins at Big Lots a couple of years ago:
RIP to Big Lots by the way, I’m SO sad about them closing! I loved that place.
They had a taller version (pictured) and a shorter version. I grabbed a bunch of them, mostly in the larger size. I grouped like items in the bins, like tissue boxes, trash and grocery bags, medication and vitamins.
We reach for something out of this closet every single day, and I can’t tell you how nice it is to find exactly what we need quickly:
I still hate the wire shelves and plan to address those someday, but the plastic storage bins slide easily and don’t get caught on the wire at all.
That closet off is probably supposed to be more of a linen closet, but we have a dedicated linen closet upstairs that I use for that purpose:
I made better use of this closet by making the new shelves a bit deeper so they would comfortably hold the bulky bedding. I also added a smaller shelf up above to hold seasonal items we rarely reach for.
Plus, the wood shelves work SO much better in general — everything slides so much easier.
I prefer this method to hanging everything, plus it’s easier to store seasonal or holiday themed clothing.
In our first house, I noticed how much unused space there was at the ends of our guest room closet. If you have a closet full of clothes you’re probably using it, but if not, it’s just awkward and difficult to optimize.
I recently added one more small shelf on the other side to store our dust buster that we keep plugged in.
2. Use pretty dressers and furniture for everyday storage
I’ve blabbed about this for years, but it’s worth mentioning again! I have found the most beautiful vintage dressers on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace:
But I don’t just use dressers for clothes — actually usually there aren’t any clothes in them. 😉
In our bedroom dresser, I store our travel supplies (we have a lot because my husband travels so much for work):
I also keep all of our travel items like extra charging cords, travel bags, etc. The bottom drawer holds extra sheet sets for our bed.
We moved it to our foyer and I absolutely LOVE it here. It’s just beautiful.
What a shame it would be to not use all of that glorious storage! In the top drawers I keep some everyday tools like a hammer, level, screwdriver, etc. It’s so convenient to grab them here instead of the garage.
I have a supply of candles that I use throughout the year, and this dresser is a great spot to store them:
We have a gorgeous credenza in our basement that serves as storage as well:
We keep some odds and ends like extra charging cords in the drawers, and puzzles in the bottom cabinets:
Our main bathroom is quite large, but the storage is lacking. We have one tiny closet and the vanities have very little useful space.
This tall Ikea Hemnes cabinet gives us so much more storage for towels and toiletries:
See that Hemnes cabinet makeover here — this is one of the simplest furniture makeovers I’ve ever done, but might be my favorite.
3. DIY custom built ins and cabinets
If you’ve read my blog for long, you know I LOVE a good DIY built in or bookcase! So of course I have to include them in this list. They create SO much useful storage space!
The bonus is all the stuff is tucked away in cabinets, so everything looks great no matter how organized they are inside. 😉
We have one room that combines our mud room needs and laundry, but the storage was seriously lacking when we moved in.
The base cabinets ended up looking like built in furniture, which I love.
These are FANTASTIC for so many random items like gift bags, cards and party supplies pictured above.
I think that cabinet was one of my smartest storage solutions ever, and it’s beautiful! We now have a couple of empty drawers because I’ve purged so many things lately.
I hope we never move from this house, but this added storage will be a big selling point someday!
Bookcase built ins in an office are the perfect way to create both form and function:
I keep all of my craft and office supplies in these cabinets, as well as my sewing machine and computer supplies:
We keep photo albums, toys (for friends and family) as well as all of our board games in these:
If you’ve been considering adding something similar in your house…this is your nudge to do it! 🙂
I love using bins and containers for stuff, but sometimes you can make storage go much further with shelves.
4. Storing paper, photos and art
When our kids were little, paper clutter was my nemesis. I just couldn’t get a handle on it.
This thing is a game changer — so helpful to be able to carry it around. We keep our daily mail in one of the mud room drawers I shared earlier, and every week or two I go through it and file papers away.
I usually do this at the dining table, so it’s GREAT to be able to file everything right there.
They come with labels — both monthly options and plain ones you can customize. I find the easiest way to file them is by month.
Our accountant recommends we keep three years of receipts and tax documents, so I have three that I rotate out every year.
I went through almost all of our photos (I’d still like to do a deeper dive into those someday), the kids’ artwork and all of our keepsakes from travel and school. The portfolios I found have been wonderful for organizing all of these items!
It’s so nice to have them sorted and labeled, and we can quickly find what we want. It’s also lovely to be able to pull them out to reminisce with family and friends.
I’m getting closer to getting our home organized and clutter-free! Thisclose. I have three problem areas remaining — our son’s closet (which is in progress, I’ll share that soon!), my husband’s office closet and his main clothes closet.
It will take at least another year to complete those, but maybe by our ten year anniversary in this house I will have it all organized. 😊
On a more personal note, I wanted to share what’s been going on with our family over the past few months. Our dog Peanut was diagnosed with collapsed trachea more than a decade ago, and we made immediate changes to hold off the progression.
(It’s recommended to use a harness on your dogs instead of collars. CT can affect any dog, but especially smaller breeds.)
Unfortunately last year the CT got worse, and on New Year’s Eve we had to rush him to the ER because he couldn’t stop coughing.
We were able to control the cough somewhat with meds afterwards, but collapsed trachea is a progressive condition. Deciding the right time to say goodbye to Peanut was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever faced. (With our other angel pets, their decline was so fast we had no other choice. Peanut hid his pain well.)
Fortunately we were able to say goodbye to him at home, with him cuddled in our arms. It was actually quite beautiful, having that time with him. I will cherish that forever.
We know it was the right decision and he’s at peace now, but we are completely devastated. Living without him is unimaginable.
Our family is healing, but I wanted to let you know why I’ve been quieter over the past few months. I didn’t realize how much of my time and attention was going to lessening his discomfort until he was gone. We fought so hard for him, but he fought even harder.
Today was the first day I haven’t cried, until now as I type this. 😞
I know many of you have been here with me for years and have seen him in photos over the past 14 years. 💙 He was so loved and we miss him terribly.
My posting schedule will go back to normal shortly, thank you for hanging in there with me.
Rest in peace, our most beautiful boy.
We love you, we miss you.
