It’s hard for even the most organized among us to keep a house neat and tidy if that house is small and has minimal storage and/or living space. If you’re going to make it happen, you’re going to have to get creative. Below are some helpful small home organization tips, which are broken down in a room-by-room format.
The Kitchen
Your kitchen is the room could probably benefit by a little bit of downsizing and smart shopping. It’s where you can make the most of buying minimalist. Consider the size of your utensils, dinnerware, and small appliances, and get rid of duplicates. Make sure that you don’t have any single-purpose kitchen tools or appliances (multi-taskers, please!).
Also, look into some easy-to-accomplish storage tricks. For example, using the inside of your cabinet doors to hang things or getting an island that has a lot of interior storage.
The Living Room
Because the living room is the sitting and entertaining room, many people with small homes don’t emphasize storage and organization there. That’s a mistake. Your living room is where you want to be cognizant of the storage potential of every piece of furniture. Your ottoman and coffee table should contain interior storage, and your end tables and TV stand should too.
And don’t forget: The living room is where you and your guests do most of your hanging out. Beyond organization and storage, it’s the room that you need to decorate in a way as to maximize space. The more spacious and organized you can make your living room appear, the better. You can accomplish this through mirrors, neutral paint colors, and using height in your decor, lighting, and furniture. In short: You need to get creative.
The Patio
Don’t forget that a small patio can become disheveled quite fast! You should opt for collapsable patio furniture, or invest in deck boxes and storage benches to store stuff like furniture cushions, pool supplies, and toys. You’ll also want to find ways to keep your plant situation organized. Container gardening, as well as hanging pots, can help.
The Bathroom
Most bathrooms — even in larger homes — suffer from a lack of storage space. The bathroom is a functional room in most home layouts; one where you get in, get your business done, and get out. It’s not meant to be spacious and full of storage opportunities. In a small home, this situation becomes even more dire and can lead to your bathroom looking especially unkempt. The key to organizing a small bathroom is to never take any wall space for granted. Think vertical. Some good ideas include floating shelving above the toilet, mounted wicker or wire baskets on any other free wall, and lazy susan storage in the under-sink cabinet.
The Bedroom
While you probably already know that an organized bedroom closet (complete with actual shelving, hooks, hanging rods, storage cubes, etc.) is vital to your whole small home operation, there is one area of storage that people often overlook: under the bed. Through a combination of skinny plastic slide-in storage bins and maybe even a vacuum storage kit, you can fit 70-plus square feet of stuff underneath you and completely undetectable to you or any visitors. You can make it pretty, however, if that’s your thing.
While all of these suggestions will help you keep a tidier small home, here’s the hard truth: All of the organization and storage tips and tricks in the world won’t help you much if you don’t first (and continually) focus on decluttering and possibly downsizing your possessions. Remember: It’s always easier to organize and store fewer things.
Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash