How To Organize Your ENTIRE House

Have you ever spent a day sorting through a pile of clutter, picking through what you want and what you don’t, and then neatly putting it back?

Feels good doesn’t it?

And then, maybe a week or so goes by and you can’t remember what you put where?

You just saw it. You know you did.

Where could it be?

Have you heard the saying that we use 20% of our stuff 80% of the time?

So that means when you want to find the other 80% of your stuff it takes you 75% longer.

Not really. I was on a roll with percentages and wanted to keep it going.

My point is, we can organize all we want, buy cute baskets and boxes and make all sorts of pretty labels. But if we can’t find anything when we’re looking for it, why bother?

Well, okay, because cute baskets and pretty labels are fun. But, you know what I mean.

My house is dual-living, meaning it’s actually two houses in one. I needed to come up with some sort of method so both my me and my mother could find what we want, when we want it.

I took the Plan I used in my old craft room and simplified it a bit and made an Organizing Binder.

For the entire house.

Every single drawer, cupboard, closet, and shelf – any place where stuff can sit or hang is in the binder. Every single room is in the binder – even the garage.

Before you think I’m Gramma-turns-Wonder-Woman, I’m not finished organizing. Far from it. But I’m off to a great start and the Binder is my guide.

Let me show you how to make one, but first I want to tell you about it.

Features of the Organizing Binder:

• You can see every storage space – closets, drawers, cupboards, in a matter of minutes, all in one binder.
• You can change it around as many times as you want until every item has a permanent home.
• Everyone in the house can use the Organized Home Binder. If you have little kiddos who aren’t reading yet, use stickers to for their clothes and toy storage.

At first this will seem like a lot of work. It is a lot of work. Shoot, organizing any space is a lot of work. But think how nice it will be to have one binder with every single storage space laid out.

Supplies to make the binder –

• plain paper
• sheet protectors
• ruler
• pencil & felt pen
• dry-erase marker
• binder tabs
• binder

Step 1 – Open a cupboard or closet.

Step 2 – Draw boxes that make a template representing the cupboard shelves.

Step 3 – Organize the space the way you want it (for the time being).

Step 4 – Place the template into a sheet protector. With a dry-erase marker write down all of the items on each shelf.

Step 5 – Move on to the next cupboard or closet!

Obviously the organizing will take a while but here’s the deal, if you take the time to make templates for all of the storage spaces in your house – closets, dressers, cupboards, toy boxes, wall shelves, and so on – then place them all into your binder, divided by room, you can quickly write down on the sheet protectors where each item is located.

If you change an item’s location, wipe it off the sheet protector and move it to where it’s new home is.

That’s it! Well, except for the organizing part. But from now on you’ll be able to find something after you’ve moved things around.

If you continue on, room by room, you’ll soon be able to see your home’s entire contents all in the confines of one binder.

And what about family members? Okay, so I won’t guarantee that this will stop the, “Honey, where is the . . .”, but at least now you’ll only have to flip thru a few sheet protectors. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll get the idea after a time or two and look thru the binder himself.

We can always hope, right?

If you’re lacking space, check out how I Maximize Storage Space. Pretty close to the same idea but not quite.

Did you check out my blog friends’ organizing posts? If you missed any, you can find them below and the date they posted.

Monday, January 20
Confessions of a Serial DIYer
Fresh Idea Studio
Rappsody in Rooms
Sweet Pea
Tuesday, January 21
Country Design Style
Curb Alert
Girl in the Garage
Wednesday, January 22
Just a Girl & Her Blog
Just Paint It
Our Southern Home
Simply Fresh Vintage

Colleen

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