My New Year’s Resolution for 2018 was to get organized, and I’m excited to share with you 5 Easy Organizing Solutions that have made a big impact in my home!
If you’re anything like me, organizing can feel really overwhelming. I’ve spent years living with lots of clutter and very little organization, and once I made my resolution I wasn’t even sure where to start.
There’s old saying, “You won’t change anything until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.”
Boy is that true!
I spent years haphazardly throwing my stuff into closets, drawers, cupboards and shelves with nary a thought to how they were arranged.
Crap avalanches were a regular part of my life. You know, when a pile would get too high and I’d need something from the bottom – or – I’d reach to the back of a cupboard or closet and cause a crap avalanche when I pulled my item out past everything standing up in front of it.
Crap avalanches are no fun.
You know what is fun??
Getting organized and feeling joy when you open things up to reveal properly stored items that each have their own place!
You know what else is fun?
Avoiding crap avalanches! LOL
Ok, let’s get down to brass tacks.
How do we make this happen?
I started my home organization journey by getting helpful tips from Instagram and Pinterest. My two favorite Instagram accounts for organization inspiration (say that 5 times fast!) are:
I scrolled through each of those feeds looking for solutions that would realistically work for ME. Not every color-coded, perfectly-labeled organizational fix is right for everyone.
I needed easy organization solutions that would work in MY home.
I also browsed Pinterest for helpful tips. You can follow my Organize Me board on Pinterest to see some of my inspiration.
Once I had a few ideas in mind, I started purchasing inexpensive items to help me accomplish my mission.
Someday I’d love to visit The Container Store but for now I needed to shop stores I regularly frequent. The products I used for these 5 Easy Organizing Solutions all came from the following stores:
- Target
- Walmart
- Marshall’s
- Ikea
(Don’t worry…I’ll include some Amazon links for those of you who prefer your stuff to come to you!)
Let’s check out a few areas in my home that needed serious organizing help…
1. THE JUNK DRAWER
We’ve all got one and they’re usually a disaster. But not anymore!
Using a two compartment drawer organizer from IKEA (1), a couple of small plastics square baskets from Marshall’s (2) and two narrow acrylic bins from Target (3) I was able to create “zones” in my junk drawer.
It’s amazing how much it helps to simply corral various items together. Things don’t get all tangled up, and it’s so much easier to see what you’re looking for.
I started by getting rid of anything that was truly “junk” and then sorting what was left. I played around a little with various small bins I’d purchased along the way until I found a layout that worked for me.
2. THE PANTRY
Pantry shelves have always been prime real estate for crap avalanches! You go to grab one granola bar and end up knocking over 4 half-eaten bags of chips. No, just me?
But really…boxes, bags, bars, snacks, etc can get really out of hand if they’re just tossed willy nilly onto the crappy wire rental home shelves.
Enter clear pantry bins!
Start by taking every individually wrapped item out of it’s original packaging and figure out how much space it takes up. Next, purchase a few long, narrow bins and neatly sort individual items inside.
For reals….corralling like items will change your life!
When you come home from the store, immediately throw away the cardboard boxes and toss your individual items into their respective bins. It only takes a minute and it’s worth it!
(From left to right in my photo: 4″ bin, 5″ bin, and 8″ bin – I usually use the 4″ bin to store veggie pouches for Drew but we’re out right now so the Goldfish bags infiltrated the zone!)
3. BATTERIES
Until I purchased this life-changing organizer my battery situation was a TOTAL DISASTER. Tons of torn packaging, loose, half-used batteries everywhere and serious crap avalanche potential.
This organizer allows me to separate everything and keep all of my batteries in one place.
This is also a great place to keep those tiny screwdrivers you need for pesky screwed-shut battery compartments!
4. SPICE CUPBOARD
While I do love that tiered spice rack on the bottom shelf, lots of people already use those, so let’s turn our attention to the top two shelves and take a look at the lazy susans!
Talk about avoiding a crap avalanche!! These are the BEST!
Place items you’d normally just throw onto a shelf onto one of these bad boys instead and spin your way to joy and happiness!!
Use a larger size to corral bottles under the kitchen sink!
It may look too simple to make much difference, but let me tell you IT IS NOT.
These things are game changers! I picked mine up at Target, but you can find both the small size in a 2-pack and the larger size individually on Amazon.
5. GIRLS HAIR ACCESSORIES/MAKEUP/TOILETRIES
Having two young girls means having about 2,000 hair accessories to keep track of. For as long as I can remember, we’ve been throwing all of their hair bows, head bands, and hair clips/elastics into a bin.
When it was time to fix their hair before school or church it was, “Godspeed!” to anyone who drew the short straw and had to find the right hair accessory in that bin of doom.
We’ve said “Sayonarah” to that problem now that we store everything in one of these 3-Drawer Storage Bins under their bathroom sink! We’ve divided things up by size/type and it’s a breeze to locate the perfect hair accessory for any occasion!
I grabbed mine at Target but Walmart also carries them. *The ones I have are about 14″ deep – you’ll also see some that are 10″ so the right one for you will depend on your needs and your space.
Our current master bathroom has significantly less storage (no drawers! no cabinets!) than our last one, so I had to get creative with how to store my makeup and toiletries.
The 3-Drawer Storage Bin saved the day once again!
I love how everything has a spot and I can easily pull out an entire drawer (my makeup usually) and put it on the counter to have easy access to everything. You’ll notice I have some smaller bins inside the drawers…those help everything stay neat and easy to see & put away.
*White narrow baskets on the bottom are part of this set I linked to in the junk drawer section.
*Small bamboo box in the middle drawer is from an IKEA set and can be found here.
PHEW!! We made it!
Here’s a simple infographic to see the items I talked about in this post and find links (numbered below the collage) to purchase anything that might be helpful in your home.
If you think this post was handy, I’d love if you’d pin one of these images on Pinterest to spread the organizing love :)
