Cleaning supplies are one of those nuts and bolts things that every home needs to keep grease, grime, and dust at bay. Cleaning product manufacturers have been all too happy to come up with special sprays, solutions, gadgets, and gizmos to meet just about any niche need.
This can leave you with a hard to organize arsenal of cleaning supplies, and the conundrum of where to keep them all. Small children in the home can compound this problem, as cleaning supplies and curious little hands never mix!
If this sounds like something you are up against, you might want to try using one or more of the following tips for getting your cleaning supplies organized and keeping them organized.
Install Cabinet Locks For Safety
If you have young children in your home and you need to keep cleaning supplies in a lower cabinet or cupboard, then you need to install high-quality cabinet locks. This keeps curious little hands from digging around under the sink or in the cleaning closet.
Move Cleaning Chemicals Up High
High shelves and the top of the refrigerator are other great places for keeping cleaning products away from young children. It also puts them at or slightly above eye level. Keeping them inside a wood or stainless steel cubby helps keep them from being an eyesore.
Behind The Door Pouches
Behind the door pouches and mesh bags are incredibly popular in dorm rooms and small apartments. While they were originally invented to hold shoes and lightweight clothing items, they can just as easily be used to hold spray bottles and small cleaning supplies. It’s a great way to make use of the back of a door in your bathroom, laundry room, or linen closet.
Use Wire Shelves To Hang Spray Bottles
The trigger on the top of glass cleaners and degreaser spray bottles are designed to be robust enough to be squeezed dozens if not hundreds of times. This also means they are strong enough to hang on the front edge of a wire shelf.
Create A Rolling Cleaning Cart
Wheeled carts are often used in kitchens as a way to move a lot of food from the stove to the dining room table. Though you can just as easily repurpose one to hold cleaning supplies. This way you can keep all your cleaning supplies in one place. They can also move with you from room to room to save you time, as everything you need is right at your fingertips.
Create Cleaning Totes
Open tote bins with a rigid bottom and handles are a convenient way to bring cleaning products with you from room to room. Not only does it spare you having to go back to the kitchen or cleaning closet to get something, but you can also set up tote bis with similar or complementary cleaning products. That way the hand dusting wand and the dusting spray always stay together. If you have multiple floors in your home, you can keep totes grouped on each floor to save time.
Stackable Plastic Totes For Bulk Cleaning Supplies
Buying in bulk is a great way to save money on just about anything, including cleaning supplies. Though all those gallon jugs can take up a lot of space on their own. One way to minimize their footprint and still keep them close at hand for quick refills is to keep them in stackable plastic tote bins. The reinforced corners and heavy-duty lids usually let you stack them three or four high. Then label each one with a permanent marker so you can find what you want at a glance.
Install Lazy Susans Under Your Kitchen Sink
The cabinets under the kitchen sink are a very popular place for keeping cleaning products. Though the spray bottles and scrubbers at the back of the cabinet can be a real challenge to reach. Rather than getting down on your hands and knees to find something as simple as a spray bottle of glass cleaner, you can simply install a lazy Susan or two. They are easily affordable and spin easily to let you grab what you want from the back, while also maximizing your storage space.
Install Wire Baskets Under Cleaning Closet Shelves & Cabinets
The underside of cleaning closet shelves and laundry room cabinets often ends up being wasted space. One of the more popular innovative ways of dealing with this is to install wire baskets on drawer sliders that let you pull them out easily. It’s a great way to keep lightweight loose cleaning items where you can see them and grab them at a moment’s notice.
Shallow Shelves & Baskets
A lot of homes don’t have the luxury of having enough space for a dedicated cleaning closet. Though linen closets and laundry rooms often have some spare space behind doors and along walls. Installing shallow shelves and baskets onto these lesser-used spaces will give you just enough room to store spray bottles and small cleaning products.
Install Pegboards & Hooks
Pegboard and adjustable hook systems often go overlooked as being old-fashioned or meant for storing tools in a workshop. Though 21st Century thinking has repurposed the once humble pegboard with a lot of innovative hooks and versatile attachments. This includes things like clips to hold mops, brooms, and dusting wands, as well as heavy-duty hooks with the strength, to hold spray bottle triggers. There are even some adjustable bins that can be used to hold loose cleaning items like magic erasers and scrubbing sponges.
Use Shelf Dividers To Prevent Cross-Contamination
Cleaning product drips and spills are inconvenient on their own. When two different cleaning solutions leak the mixing of the two can be downright dangerous! To help prevent this from happening, you can install shelving dividers to keep potentially dangerous cleaning chemicals from accidentally mixing.
It also gives everything its own place to keep your cleaning supplies neat and orderly. Lining each space with a shallow plastic tray also keeps any leaks, drips, or spills from contaminating the wood of the underlying shelf, while making for a much easier cleanup.
