Maintaining a house’s pristine condition can be cumbersome. More so if you are a busy person or if you have kids or pets.
Nonetheless, they should not be an excuse for keeping your house look organized and attractive. That said, you can follow these ten design tips to ensure that you have a clean house.
Pare down your belongings
The initial step in ensuring that your house is clean is to reduce what you own.
Spend a day or two evaluating and segregating the things you still use and need and those that you can sell, donate, or dispose of. This can be your clothes, old chinaware and cutleries, or duplicate items. Who needs two coffee makers, anyway?
This may seem like a daunting task. But you have to think of the space that you can free up when you let go of some of your things. That’s because the fewer items you have, the fewer items you need to clean.
Do it room by room
Sure, Marie Kondo said that you take out all your belongings in the entire house. However, we are aware that this approach is not sustainable. And your spouse may not be pleased if you throw away his favorite sweatpants without giving him the chance to say goodbye.
That said, focus on your belongings and organize one room at a time. Doing so allows you to build the habit of cleaning up after yourself.
This can also be an excellent time to figure out what cleaning routine will work for you.
Find a place for everything
Now that you have identified which of your belongings will stay, the next step is to identify how and where you will store them.
When every item has its home, you would know where to find them and put them back. As such, you will save time combing through every shelf and drawer while looking for a pen.
According to Cleaning Exec House Cleaning NYC, the best way to approach this is to group items based on location. Meaning, all kitchen items should be grouped, and the same thing goes with the living room, bedroom, bathroom, and more.
Group similar items
Once you can identify which items should go where, it is time to organize them. And you can use the same principle here.
For instance, it makes sense that plates, spoons, and forks are in the dishrack. Meanwhile, you can keep your pots and pans in a kitchen drawer.
Your coffee maker, coffee, creamer, and sugar can be placed in one corner. That way, you have a quaint coffee station in your kitchen. You can also place your toaster or microwave beside it, as no breakfast is not complete without toast and bread.
The space under the kitchen sink is ideal for storing cleaning tools and products.
Maximize vertical space
If you live in a small house or have a small room, you can maximize your vertical space for storage. This can be your wall or behind the door.
As such, you can build shelves, hang a pegboard, or use the back of a door. Often, making your house look organized and attractive is just a matter of creativity.
PRO TIP: Keep the items you often use on eye level or near the ground, while those you rarely used should be high up.
Install pegboards
In relation to the previous point, you can use pegboards to make use of an empty wall. The best part? It can be multipurpose.
In your bedroom, you can use a pegboard to hang your accessories and artwork. It can also come in handy if you have a home office, especially if you prefer using sticky notes to remember your tasks and appointments.
If you have a cluttered kitchen, BuzzFeed Nifty has a video on how you can use a pegboard to organize your utensils (skip to 1:37).
Use drawer organizers
Aside from installing storage solutions and maximizing vertical space, it would help if you also use what you already have.
You may think that you do not have enough storage, but only because your drawers are cluttered. As such, it would be best to buy drawer organizers. Better yet, make your own using existing containers.
The rationale here is so that you can organize the items in your drawers. That’s because organization allows you to reclaim more storage space.
Take advantage of this space and save a couple of bucks in installing more shelves.
Color-code your bookshelves
If you collect books, there is a fantastic way to organize your books in an attractive way.
Using the principles mentioned above, organize your books by color. And then arrange them on the shelf following the colors of the rainbow.
What you will have is a clean, organized, and Instagram-worthy bookshelf.
Use magazine holders
While magazine holders and file organizers are designed for storing magazines and documents, they can come in handy in various ways.
For one, you can use them to organize your cleaning items under the kitchen sink. The same thing goes for your pots, pans, and trays. Some use file organizers to organize their drinks in the fridge, while some use them to keep their linen storage tidy.
Of course, a magazine holder can be used in your home office or study table to organize your documents. What’s important is that you use your creativity on how you can maximize your existing storage solutions.
Pay attention to clutter hotspots
As you may have noticed, the key to making your home look attractive and organized is to get rid of clutter hotspots. These are areas in your home that get messy quickly and often.
An excellent example would be the kitchen.
For one, this is where you and your family gather to have a meal. Second, this is where you prep, cook, and store food. The leftovers alone can be a waste that attracts pests and vermins!
That said, you should pay attention to the different areas of your home that get cluttered easily. Doing so can help you determine which room you should clean and organize first.
