Whether you have a massive mansion, an arguably small apartment, or a tiny home, it always helps to make the most out of your available space. This starts with sound daily habits to keep all your habitable spaces neat and clean.
Of course, having tasteful organizational solutions in place helps makes it easy to get your home in order while making the most out of your functional living space. This includes things like:
Optimizing Your Entryway
Your foyer or entryway is the first thing people see when they set foot in your home. It’s also the first and last thing your family sees as you set off on your day. A disorganized entryway overburdened with clutter not only gets in your way, but it sets the tone.
Some of the best ways to optimize the space in your entryway include:
A Bench for Seating & Storage
Installing a bench or some other type of sitting area gives families and visitors a dedicated space to remove shoes and get ready to face the day.
Hanger Hooks & Personalized Cubbies
Giving everyone in the family their own place to hang their literal hat and coat, helps keep everyone’s items neatly organized. It also goes a long way toward preserving family harmony.
Shoe & Boot Trays
On a functional level, a good shoe or booth tray helps keep mud and melted snow from accumulating on your entryway floors. It also encourages everyone in the family to keep their shoes neatly in the tray, rather than spilling them around at random in the foyer. This goes a long way toward maximizing the functional floor space in your entryway.
Maximizing the Space in Your Kitchen
The family kitchen is another area where there are tons of ways to maximize the functional space. This requires a multi-front approach to tackle some of the more problem areas crowding up most kitchens.
Clean & Organize the Counters
Countertops and other vertical surfaces are the primary workspaces in most family kitchens. Getting them cleaned and keeping them organized is a critical first step in freeing up functional space. This might mean putting flour and sugar in sealable canisters, investing in a bread box, and other ways to keep seemingly loose items in their place.
Go Crazy with Lazy Susans
A Lazy Susan is a great way to make the most out of your corner space. Family members can rotate them to quickly access what’s in the back. They’re also easily portable, which means you can put them anywhere, and change them up if need be. Lazy Susans are great for maximizing the space in:
- Deep cabinets
- Corner cupboards
- Pantry corners
Set a Dedicated Refrigerator Cleanout Day
The last thing any family needs is a messy, funky, smelly refrigerator. So, make it a point to clean out the refrigerator of any outdated food and forgotten leftovers. It’s best to set this up for the night before garbage day so unwanted food items can head out the door in short order.
Use Drawer Organizers
Drawer organizers or partitions are a great way to keep loose items organized. They’re easy to install and help maximize all your drawer space. They might even give you additional precious cubic inches to store things that were previously stuck living on your counters. Not to mention being your best chance for taming the nefarious Junk Drawer.
Maximizing Your Bathroom’s Storage Potential
The bathroom is one of the most used communal spaces in any home. Yet most bathrooms also tend to be frustratingly small, which makes them a hassle to keep organized. Though there are a few simple things you can do to maximize your bathroom’s storage space.
Keep Bulk Items Elsewhere
While you might save a pretty penny buying toilet paper and shampoo in bulk, they also take up an ugly amount of space in your bathroom closets. If possible, try to put the bulk of these items in a nearby hall or linen closet, and just a modest amount in the actual bathroom itself. This will open up a lot more square inches of storage space for other essential bathroom items.
Adjustable Shelves & Shelf Dividers
Installing adjustable shelves helps you make the most out of your vertical storage space in the bathroom closet. Especially if your bathroom storage needs tend to change with the seasons. Then adding adjustable shelf dividers lets you create personalized spaces for each family member to keep their personal bathroom items.
Making the Most Out of the Space in Your Living Room
The living room is another place of communal gathering that can descend into a cluttered mess in the blink of an eye. Your best bet for getting everyone in the family to participate in keeping this space tidy is to put easy organization solutions at their fingertips.
A Coffee Table with Creative Storage
The coffee table gets a lot of use in most living rooms. The top gets cluttered quickly if family members don’t have a place to put things like remotes, gaming controllers, magazines, and coasters. Investing in a coffee table with tons of storage potential lets you give everything its dedicated place. This goes a long way toward getting other family members to put things in their proper place when they are done with them.
A Charging Station for All
Phone chargers, cables, cords, and other random wireless devices have a knack for tangling together to rob your living room of functional space. By establishing a charging center near the couch or another highly used part of the living room you keep these wires out of the equation in the rest of the room. It also encourages family members to keep them out of the way, and not on the coffee table.
Ottoman Storage
An ottoman can be a great way to add an extra footrest to your living room. Though it can also take up a fair amount of space. Investing in one that has a flip top with a storage compartment increases its value, while also helping you maximize the space in your living room.
Tame Your Laundry Room
The laundry room can be a massive headache. Especially if you have teenagers or other family members who simply refuse to wash their own clothes. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to tame the chaos of the laundry room. It might even make it encouraging for some family members to help wash and fold the laundry!
Over-the-Door Pouches
Door shoe racks and over-the-door hanging shoe pouches are great places to keep loose laundry items. You can stash fabric softener, dryer sheets, scent boosters, and stain sticks in them to keep them organized and easy for everyone to find.
A Fold Down Ironing Board
For some people ironing boards are intimidating. They also take up a ton of space in the laundry room. Swapping out a traditional one for an ironing board with hinges that hang from the wall keeps it out of the way when you don’t need it, yet it’s perfectly at your fingertips when you do.
Maintain Multiple Hampers
A singular hamper encourages colors, whites, and delicates to intermingle. This later discourages proper sorting before washing. Creating one hamper for each type of laundry you need to wash, encourages sorting, while also making it easy to quickly throw in a whole load and go.
