THE ILLUSION OF SPACE AROUND YOUR HOME
Making your home look spacious will help you to feel more calm and relaxed. A cluttered home makes your mind feel cluttered. You're constantly thinking about what all needs to be done and how much work it will be to get rid of all of this mess. It can be exhausting just to think about, so we put it off and the problem can compound.
It's time to say goodbye to clutter and give yourself some room to breathe. You don't have to get rid of everything that you own to create space. Sometimes you just have to be clever about how you store it. First, you should try to get rid of what you don't need by categorizing the things that tend to get messy.
For example, I have a craft room that I used to be excited about. As time went on, I accumulated more and more junk. I kept buying little plastic drawers and containers thinking that I was organizing. What I was actually doing, was compounding the problem. I would get a new container, say, for my sewing supplies, but it didn't hold everything. I would end up just putting my favorite things inside of it. Then when I needed a certain color button, I couldn't for the life of me remember what I did with it. I noticed that I was surrounded by a million little containers that I now had to sift through.
Don't go for the quick fix. Gather everything that you have in one category and decide if it needs to be broken down further. When you're done making piles, you can physically see how much space you will need for each thing. Instead of spending $10 or $15 here and there every couple of months, do a little research and find out what type of desk or dresser would work best for what you own. My mother keeps so much stuff beside her bed that she swapped out her bedside table for a media cabinet. Now all of her medicines, manicure supplies, books, lights, jewelry, and pens are hidden away in an attractive piece of furniture, but she can still reach them all from her bed.
When organizing your home, use the same rules that you would organizing your closet. The things that you use most should be front, center, and easy to access. Everything else should be out of sight or even out of reach. In your closet, you can use specialty clothing hangers, like cascading hangers or hanging jewelry organizers to get a lot of little things out of your dresser and hidden away in the closet. This opens up your dresser drawers to becoming storage for other things around the house.
See what works best for your home and keep experimenting until you discover what storage systems work best for you.
About the Author: Jo Granville is on the staff of Only Hangers, a leading online resource for excellent quality wooden, plastic and metal hangers. For more information, please visit www.onlyhangers.com.