Do you have hot spots in your home? You know, those problem areas that always seem to become cluttered so quickly? When you think about every little thing in your home, there’s quite a lot to keep organised. There’s the kitchen, the bedrooms, toys, bathroom essentials etc but if you keep everything in it’s place, it’s easy to keep on top of these 6 hot spots in your home to keep organised saving you time and energy with the household chores.
When you walk through the door
I know what it’s like. You get home from the grocery store, arms filled with shopping bags. You dump your handbag at the nearest vantage point and set about packing the shopping away. Same as any time you walk through the door. You’ve probably collected the mail from the mailbox, the kids are just getting home from school and suddenly the kitchen table becomes the dumping ground for school bags, lunch boxes, your handbag, homework etc and soon after you’ll be preparing dinner and have all that to deal with.
At the front door
Create a spot as soon as you walk through the door for all those things that you’re likely to bring in the door with you.
You don’t need to go out and buy special use cupboards or fancy furniture. A simple coat hook to hang school bags, a basket or corkboard to pin school notices and for your handbag.
If you or your children are likely to kick their shoes off at the door, get a box to leave at the door for every day shoes or get into the habit of taking them straight to your wardrobes.
Bench top organisers are easy to find at thrift stores and can be easily painted to match your décor.
And don’t forget about your keys. Old cutlery drawer inserts are perfect for making a spot for all members of the household to drop their keys, wallets, phones and sunglasses at the front door. No more trying to remember where you left them.
Simple cup hooks screwed into anything and hung on the wall is a great solution to keep those keys in one spot.
In the Kitchen
Besides the bedroom, the kitchen is probably the second most used room in the house. It’s where all the food is stored, prepared and served. Setting up hot spots for the most commonly used items will help to keep you organised and save you time and energy.
Keep your every day crockery together. Things like dinner plates, side plates, bowls, cups and glasses. Make the most of vertical space by standing plates up in a plate organiser.
If you’re lucky enough to have deep drawers, keep all your crockery in the drawer with customised dowel fitted to keep all the plates/bowls from slipping as the drawer opens.
Pots and pans (with their lids) can be hung vertically instead of stacked inside of each other taking up valuable space which could be used for something else.
A towel rail screwed inside a door, a peg board or deep drawers with dividers are also great storage solutions for the most often used pots and pans in the kitchen.
The most often used utensils should be easily accessible to your stove. Make use of unused space under cabinets to hang them.
Splash backs are ideal to keep all knives, measuring cups and spices near your meal prep stations.
Remember to keep like with like in the space that is located near where you work for easy access and to pack away easily after washing.
Food
While we’re in the kitchen, keeping the food in one spot helps when choosing something to eat or when packing food away after you’ve bought it. It allows you to see, at a glance, exactly what you’ve got so you don’t double up on products or when you need to use food before the expiry date.
Drawers inside deep cupboards allows you to see what you’ve got right at the back of each shelf. Keep most used items in the middle, less frequently used items at the bottom and items you don’t want the children to find the most frequently used items at the very top.
If you’re starting out to get your food/pantry organised you don’t need to go out and buy all new, matching containers to store your products. Used jars, bottles and containers are perfect in the meantime. As long as everything is stored like with like so you know where to find it.
Keep baking supplies together, tinned goods, pasta/rice, herbs and spices.
Make use of all space in the pantry like baskets or purpose built shelves on the pantry door.
To get the most out of your food, make sure you store it correctly at the correct temperature and in the correct section of the refrigerator to avoid waste. Same goes with the freezer. Store like with like so you don’t forget what you have and it doesn’t get pushed to the back of the fridge or freezer. You won’t end up with more than you need and will use up the most perishable items first.
Bathroom Essentials
Where we clean ourselves can often end up a dumping ground for all sorts of things. If you don’t have the proper storage solutions in place, it will soon become a chore to find things.
Always ensure you have a dirty wash basket and waste basket. It might be hard to get children to remember to put dirty clothes in the basket but keep at it. If it helps, keep another dirty wash basket in their rooms. (They all seem to think the bathroom floor is where dirty clothes should go!)
Most used items like make up, shaving gear, cotton balls/buds, hair brushes and combs should all be in the top drawers of the vanity.
Make sure there are plenty of towel rails for wet towels.
Paper filing drawers make the perfect hot spot for first aid supplies like bandages, creams and lotions. Make sure any pharmaceuticals are kept out of reach of young children.
A towel rail mounted in the shower cubicle with hanging baskets is a great idea to keep all your shampoos, conditioners and bathing products especially if you have a few family members all with different products.
Clothing
If you have the appropriate storage for clothing for each family member, you’ll know exactly what you’ve got to wear and it make it easy when you’re packing away clean laundry. Keep on top of it by decluttering clothing you no longer wear or doesn’t fit and if it needs mending, do it straight away so it can be worn or pass it on or recycle/reuse for another purpose (like old tshirts).
Hang as much as you have room for and keep it all together like buttoned up shirts together, long pants, dress shirts and tshirts and sweaters can be folded.
Create dividers in drawers for folded socks, underwear, bras, ties and other small pieces of clothing. You can do this quite easily with cardboard from an old box as pictured above.
We don’t all have the luxury of a walk in robe so a spot at the bottom of your wardrobe for your shoes is perfect. Add shelves (as pictured above) to make use of space or there are a variety of shoe racks on the market for your shoes. Shoe racks are always readily available at the thrift stores.
If your jewelry is organised you can see at a glance what will match an outfit and you can return it as soon as you’re finished wearing it. Pictures frames are perfect to enclose mesh of some kind to store earrings and small hooks underneath for necklaces and bracelets.
Ice cube trays are perfect for earrings, brooches and men’s cuff links.
Linen Closet
If you’ve got a spot to store all your clean linen like towels, sheets, face cloths, tablecloths and tea towels, you’ll have the one spot to put it all away once clean and folded. It can often turn into a mess if you’re in a hurry packing it away but if you store like with like it will stay tidy.
Baskets are good for holding smaller items but if everything is folded neatly, linen can be stacked on top of each other, for example, towels together, sheets together, tablecloths together etc. Less used items like warm blankets, doonas and quilts can be stored at the top until required or put into vacuum seal bags to make more room. Label shelves if you need to get everyone in the home used to storing linen in the correct spaces.
If you can organise these hot spots in your home well with the appropriate storage solutions and return items when used or put them away immediately (like groceries for example), half your organisation chores are already done. It’ll be only a matter of keeping the house clean and working on other spots in your home that need a quick tidy up for you to keep your home organised.
