Basic Principles of Home Organization that Apply to All Areas of Your Home

On this page about home organization we are looking at the bigger picture of your whole home and how to keep everything organized. This will help you plan the individual closets and make decisions about their design.

Here are some guidelines and rules for home organization that will help you start, get things done and stay on track until your house is an inspiration.

First Rule: Put Like Things Together

Sounds simple? It is, and it works.

All tools belong in one place, where they are easy to find. In most homes that place will be in the garage. But it could be that your husband has an hobby room in the house and that is where the tools are kept.

Within the tools you may have subcategories, like metal working tools, woodworking tools, electricity-related tools, paint tools, etc..

Breaking the First Rule

If you need to break this rule, know why.

In my house, there are several pairs of scissors, and they all belong in different places:

• We have one pair in each office.
• We have a sewing pair that stays with the sewing machine.
• We have a gardening pair that stays with the gardening tools.
• We have a kitchen pair that stays with the cooking utensils.
• We have hair scissors and nails scissors in the bathroom.
• Our Swiss knives have scissors and they belong in my husband's pocket, my handbag and my car.

We know where to find these things because we keep them where we need them.

Second Rule: Have a Place for Each Thing.

If you put like things together, you will always know where to find something, just by figuring out which category a thing belongs to.

Before acquiring a new thing, make sure you know where it will belong. If there is no space for it, maybe you need to "weed out" that area, in order to not start clutter.

This rule is simple. The challenge is in following it, consistently.

Third Rule: Get Rid of What You Do not Need.

This one is more challenging. There are many reasons to hold onto things. It is OK to keep something for sentimental reasons, as long as you know that is the reason. The thing has value to you.

And certainly you can buy a bigger house with more closets, it might do the trick for a while, but how complicated will you allow your life to be?

Questions to ask yourself if you cannot decide to let go of something:

• "How frequently do I use this?"
• "When did I last use this?"
• "Would I really miss this if I let it go?"

Just be very honest with yourself.

Establish some ways you can give things away. Think about who would love to receive something of value you do not need any more. Give yourself the pleasure of making another happy and grateful.

Fourth Rule: Create the Space You Need.

What if one or several closets are missing? This is where we need to get creative with home organization.

Say the linen closet is missing, then one option is to create a section in the walk-in closet that will be designed specifically for linens. Another way is to figure out a bathroom cabinet that can accommodate the linens, or to build one if you have the space.

Some houses have a room with a closet that is not used, because the room is sufficient to itself. It could be an office for example, and the office cabinets provide you with all the storage space you need. Then the closet, behind doors, may become your off-season clothes storage.

For extra storage outside of your existing closets, you can always design a wall unit in a niche, build something under a staircase, have a wall to wall unit built under a window or along a wall.

Again a good designer will help you with options that work for your home organization needs and increase the overall value of your home.

When all options for storage space inside the house are exhausted, it is time to consider the garage. Any garage cabinet can be transformed into a missing closet. It can have drawers, pull out baskets, vertical dividers, pull out shelves, any kind of organizer that would match the missing closet.

Fifth Rule: Keep the Same Order in the Garage as in the Rest of the House.

The entirety of your home reflects who you are and influences how you live.

The garage can be a challenging place because it tends to get dusty, and that is why most garage storage solutions are cabinets behind doors. Shelves are cheaper, but they collect lots of dust.

A garage cabinet allows you to have things readily available, on shelves, so that you can reach what you need easily.

A stack of bins is not a good storage option, because most of the time you will just put the item on top of the bins, and that is the beginning of clutter.

Organize your things in such a way that supports putting them away where they belong.

Some people keep shoes in the garage in a mudroom area.

The paper goods have their own cabinet, and the cleaning supplies, and the emergency foods, and the off-season clothes.

One client of mine did not like the smell of fish in her house, so she had a second oven, fridge and microwave in the garage to allow for fish cooking. It doesn't matter how unique your lifestyle is, home organization will still follow the same principles.

Some people who have no pantry have a garage cabinet that is a pantry.

Of course, very often the garage accommodates "men's" tools and gardening tools. It may accommodate some out of season clothes and shoes.

Set Yourself up for Success

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the vastness of the task?

One secret of home organization is to break it down into manageable parts. I have designed garages that were installed in two or three installations, because the homeowner had so many things in the garage that there was not enough room to free up all the walls to get the installation done in one time.

Another secret is to plan these manageable parts by putting them into time. Schedule the jobs you tend to procrastinate in. Have a dedicated time for a project that you will make your priority that day. Find a friend who will be there with you that day.

And then plan enough to see results, but do not try to do an impossible task that will have you discouraged and unable to start the next thing.

Miscellaneous Tips About Home Organization.

• Organizing your home has everything to do with the way everyone moves in the house. You can help yourself remember where something is, because you put it where you will need it next. For example, you may have a place near your car, where you put items that you need to take with you next time you leave the house. My recyclable shopping bags always go to that little shelf in the garage where I will see them when I leave.
• If you are asking your cleaning help to put things away, make sure you explain to her where things belong. I have seen households struggle each time their cleaner came, because they could not find things… The house looked nice, but it had lost some of its organization.
• Also, in a large household, you may want to label shelves and drawers in some parts of the house. This can be done discreetly with white or clear labels and it will help people put things back in the right place, but also find them. You may find it worth acquiring your own labeling machine.
• If the job ever appears too big or overwhelming, remember to break it down into smaller parts and to schedule time for each part.
• As things are put back into beautiful melamine cabinets, the useless things that you were holding onto become obvious clutter and it is so much easier to get rid of them.
• Read these thoughts about home organization for additional inspiration.