Organizing

Everyone has heard of “fast fashion,” a term used to capture the quick nature of current fashion trends. It also expresses the wasteful elements that come with it, like harm to the environment, and as a result, our well-being. But this rapid turnover of product doesn’t stop at clothing production—the exact reason why two NYC-based artists are pushing awareness for “fast furniture” through their latest, eye-catching art installation.

Eliminate the need to search for where things are and where things go.

Whether you’re sprucing up for company or just trying to maintain a tidy home on the reg, there are several things that can hinder your efforts. Kitchens are a notoriously tough room; no matter how often you scrub, sweep, and organize, if you do any of these six things, it will still look messy. This one may be obvious, but too much stuff on your countertops is a total no-no.

Have you ever noticed there's never a bathroom line at Disney World? The magic behind those disappearing bathroom queues is one simple detail.

Your freezer is a magical place. It’s a place for pints of ice cream (to devour while binge-watching whatever is new on Netflix); for giant ice cubes (to make adult cocktails); and, most importantly, for nourishing meals (to sustain you when you think your only option is takeout). Obviously, you don’t have to be a wizard in order to take care of this magical place. But you—and your freezer!—will be better off if you know to avoid these common organizing mistakes.

Channel the energy behind the change in seasons to feel more in sync with your home.

It's easy to think you need to spend a lot of money to get a well-organized pantry—but you'd be wrong.

There are so many kinds of clutter: excess items you think you might need someday, clutter you’re so used to having around that you don’t even notice it anymore, piles of paper you have to go through, and things you feel guilty getting rid of because someone gave them to you or you spent good money on them. But there’s one kind of clutter you should never feel bad hanging on to.

When Kristina moved into her new home, the lackluster office was of little use to the owners—besides being a place to toss mail, or hang art that didn’t fit with the rest of the home. Kristina decided that, if she was going to use a room as a dumping ground, it was going to look as fabulous as the rest of her home. Instead of a hodgepodge of furniture and decor, it’s now a highly functional mudroom, ready to organize all Kristina’s incoming and outgoing things.

As we close out our Small Spaces & Simple Living month here on Re-Nest, we’re rounding up a list of tips and ideas provided by YOU via this post. Everyone has a bit of a different take on coping with small spaces: it’s all about purging your stuff. No, it’s all about organizing your stuff. Wait, it’s all about storing your stuff!

With the rise in open space floorplans, having a neat and tidy kitchen has become increasingly important. If not kept in check, kitchen clutter can soon take over the entire space. And a cluttered kitchen is a sure fire path to frequent take-out ordering. Here are tips for keeping your kitchen clutter-free and ready for meal prep.• Keep the countertops clear – Coffee maker, toaster, mixer, blender … so many little appliances, so little space.

Yuko’s new workspace in Japan was cluttered and disorganized when she moved in. Her unpacked items desperately needed a place to go. Lucky for Yuko, a little paint and a lot of organization really transformed this space!We first saw this space a few weeks ago in Inspiring Studios & Workspaces. Apartment Therapy readers responded so well to Yuko’s space that I decided to do some investigating. Yuko was kind enough to provide us with a “before” image of this space.

There are many ways to inherit collections. Sometimes loved ones pass and leave behind keepsakes or parents downsize during a move. Collections can be highly personal and carry a sentimental value that outweighs any monetary value. There is no proper way to handle inherited collectibles. Each situation will vary, but often the most difficult decision is the most basic one: do you keep it?

Today’s One Minute Tip comes from Fay Wolf, with three simple ways to rethink vertical space. • The Star: Fay Wolf is a singer-songwriter, actor and professional organizer. She’s acted on shows like 2 Broke Girls and Bones, and her songs have been heard on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars. Fay’s Los Angeles-based company New Order has been organizing lives since 2006, helping creative people deal with both inner and outer clutter.

I had a growing pile of paper work on my desk, and shoe boxes full of more paper work on the floor. I needed a quick and affordable closed storage system that hid all the clutter, but still fit in our small office. If this sounds familiar, perhaps this IKEA FULLEN “fauxdenza” hack is for you. We’ve blogged about the “fauxdenza” phenomenon before.

I love a fridge makeover as much as the next person, but I die a little inside each time I see a mega-propped-out “after”. I mean, yes, it’s beautiful and yes, it took a lot of work to make it look that good, but show me how it looks in a week. How do those cute little scrapbook labels look after you’ve dripped salsa all over them? How is storing butter in a mason jar working out? The point is, don’t worry about making it pretty.

I love hanging on to old photos, heartfelt cards, and fun prints and postcards from my various travels, but it’s hard to figure out how to display them without buying a dozen different frames, or haphazardly attaching them to my wall with washi tape. But that doesn’t have to be the case — thanks to magnets. With a handful of supplies and 30-minutes or less of your time, you can dress your walls up and display all your favorite prints with this easy photo display tutorial.

We all need a little more organization in our lives. One thing I wasn’t expecting was how hard it was to find a letter organizer that matched the rest of our decor and could be mounted in the tiny two-foot wall space of our entryway. And when you can’t find a solution, you DIY it! This one can be customized with different colored acrylic or painting/staining the wood.

It took two days to create this walk-in wonderland.

In last week’s video roundup we wrote about spring cleaning, but we may have put the cart before the horse a bit: after all, it’s hard to clean effectively when your house is full of clutter. So this week we’re focusing on something we’re calling a ‘spring cleanout’ — getting rid of some of the unnecessary stuff that’s been burdening you so you (and your home) can feel light and free in the coming season.

Project by: Becky Location: Victoria, BC, Canada I can only admit this because I have now dealt with the skeleton in my closet, but I am was (fingers crossed) a huge clothes piler. As a large-scale, whole-house renovation left us needing to stretch the last dollars a little farther, my husband and I decided to tackle much of the finishing details ourselves. One item on our list was fitting out our master bedroom closet. It is not a huge closet, but at 5’X7′, it is a walk-in closet.

IKEA’s announcement last week that they were discontinuing the ubiquitous Expedit storage unit was, ultimately, much ado about nothing as its replacement, called Kallax, is nearly identical. But the public outcry by many fans was a reminder of how beloved this versatile and functional piece is. The Expedit transcends nationality, budget and decor styles as you can see in this gallery of children’s rooms.

The start of a new year often injects us with energy and motivation to organize and clean. (And, in my case, the feeling is usually gone by February!) Closets are a traditional target, but what if you don’t have a closet? Kids usually get the smallest bedrooms in the house, often lacking a closet, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a functional, organized faux-closet. Above are 15 examples to explore.

I count myself pretty lucky that my flat has a built-in Landing Strip, in the form of a covered radiator with mirror in the entry, and hooks for coats further along the hall. I know not everyone is this fortunate (I lived for years in a flat where the keys-mail-coat situation happened right in the kitchen, using up valuable counter space), so I’m definitely grateful for my current situation. The only problem with having a ready and waiting landing strip is that you do tend to abuse it.

Whether you’re about to move or just trying to simplify your life, ridding yourself of clutter can be an uphill battle. Tackling a whole pile of stuff (or even just one messy room) can be pretty intimidating. And once you’re actually holding something in your hand, it can be hard to pull the trigger. “But I used to really like this!” “But maybe I will use this… someday.

There’s nothing we like better than seeing something creatively repurposed into something else—particularly if that ‘something else’ is storage-related.

Between the gobs of toothpaste, magnetic fishing poles, and the mountain of tiny laundry, if you share a bathroom with children, you know it’s not always the cleanest room in the house. Try as I might to remind my four kids to put everything away—and as valiant as my efforts are to pick up after them—the kids’ bathroom in my house was rarely in good form.

Apartment Therapy Weekend Projects is a guided program designed to help you get the happy, healthy home you’ve always wanted, one weekend at a time. Sign up now for email updates so you never miss a lesson. As Apartment Therapy’s cleaning editor, my number one job is to help our readers take care of their spaces. It has been so fun connecting with all of you during our group projects (like the January Cure) and on Instagram (I’m always here for questions!).

Just like finding the right eating method or exercise regimen, finding the right decluttering motto can be the key to keeping your home clutter-free. Many find an admonition by William Morris helpful when deciding what to keep and get rid of: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” But this popular decluttering criterion could actually become a pitfall if you’re not careful.

This simple white storage bench, designed by the Swedish powerhouse, IKEA, has found a new home and a totally new look in a Victorian in London. IKEA’s PLATSA storage bench—not currently available in the U.S. so the STUVA might be the best alternative—fits perfectly into this living room nook, with just a little bit of wiggle room. It looked just fine in the white space, but the room now has a completely different look—and, therefore, so does the PLATSA.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Sometimes all you need to declutter is a fresh perspective. Once your things are yours, letting go of them can feel like a loss. A loss of money or preparedness or potential. And those are very real feelings.

Your personality can help you focus your efforts on a certain thing or category of items, so you can dig in and really start to make an impact in your space.

I purchased my first home a couple of years ago. Like most split-levels from the 1970s, it was built economically, but not luxuriously. The closets throughout the house—which were untouched when I bought it— had flimsy dark-stained doors on tracks that didn’t quite line up reliably. They each had disgusting carpet, and particle board shelves supported by DIY brackets that didn’t cut it.

Tidy people have their secrets (like, uh, a whole storage unit), but there's one good home habit they can't hide.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. It doesn’t matter if you cook every day or once in a blue moon. You might have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kitchen, or one with more cabinets than you know what to do with.

I wish that we could all hit pause on our daily responsibilities, welcome the prim and utterly delightful Marie Kondo into the most intimate recesses of our homes, and KonMari all the clutter out of our lives. But Kondo’s method of “tidying up,” popularized (and demonized) once again by her show on Netflix, might not always be accessible to everyone—no matter how inspired they are to speak to their belongings and make mountains of their clothing.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Work smarter, not harder. Cleaning and organizing a home is already such a labored process, there’s no reason to make it tougher on yourself—and that’s exactly what you’re doing when you clean out of order.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. For those of you who have been doing the Cure with us all month, I hope you’re enjoying it so far, and after a few weeks of small efforts, you’re feeling really good about the state of your space.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Checklists and chore charts are great ways of staying on top of your everyday housekeeping.

Nothing is worse than coming home to a messy apartment after a long day, but finding the time to clean in the morning can be equally daunting. That’s why we put together a list of micro decluttering tasks that can easily be incorporated into your morning routine. Read ahead for seven super small ways to organize your space in the AM, so you can start the day off productively (and come home to a tidier place when it’s over). If you’re anything like me (i.e.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. You already know your paper problem areas. Maybe it’s the kitchen counter, dining room table, entryway console, or the front of the fridge—or maybe it’s all of the above.

Here's what Kondo has to say about her childhood home.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Positive reinforcement is one hell of a high. In our younger days, we might have been motivated to do almost anything for the promise of a gold star or a cookie.

I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2014, shortly after it was released in the United States. I had never read a self-help-style book, but I had always struggled with clutter and felt like I was being pulled in two directions: I wanted to live in hotel room-like minimalism, but I also loathed getting rid of things.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have big ideas for their home.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Decluttering is effective at giving your home room to breathe. But equally important is giving that breath some life. Once the counters are clear and the floors have been scrubbed, your happy home should have some warmth and personality underneath.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. We’re all strangers here on the internet. But because you’re an Apartment Therapy reader and doing the Cure with us, I know at least one thing about you: You are someone who truly cares about improving their home.

Wondering about the current KonMari craze? Here's our primer for all things Kondo.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. We’re at the end of week two of the Cure! How are you doing? We say it all the time, but I’ll go ahead and say it again: This whole Cure thing is about progress, not perfection.

Don’t worry bookworms.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. There are a few different kinds of clutter. There’s the familiar “useless” type of clutter that immediately springs to mind: clothes we don’t wear, tools we can’t use, papers we don’t need.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. When online recipes make a distinction between “prep time” and “cook time,” it’s an admission that the time it takes to complete something isn’t just about the active moments.

The January Cure is all about refreshing and organizing your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. It’s not too late to sign up, and you can visit the Cure page to catch up with the assignments so far. Decluttering is an industry. There are books, websites, and even television shows dedicated to helping people like you and me pare down and live with less.

January is a month for new beginnings. After all, the calendar starts with a clean slate—so why can’t you? Because we’re about all things home here at Apartment Therapy, we know the best way we can help on the path to a better you is by giving you advice, tools and encouragement to create a calm and clean space. That’s why we dedicate the start of each year to the January Cure.

If you’re like me, then you first heard of Marie Kondo from “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.” Emily Gilmore adopts the famous KonMari method and ends up in jeans and a t-shirt due to getting rid of almost everything she owns because it does not bring her joy. This is a very loose understanding of Kondo’s signature method to decluttering your home, and one that is explored deeply in her new Netflix show, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.

The January Cure is Apartment Therapy’s way of helping you reset your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. Sign up now if you want to join! Getting your home into shape doesn’t happen all at once. Even this crash course of the January Cure is more of a journey than a race—each day we’ll get just a bit closer to a more comfortable home.

The January Cure is Apartment Therapy’s way of helping you reset your home for 2019. We tackle one assignment each weekday throughout the entire month. Sign up now if you want to join! It’s officially 2019! And as shocking as the date on the calendar may be, I bet you’re a bit more thrown off by the current state of your home. The end of a year is all about celebration and community and taking time for things you love. But the beginning of the year?

Sometimes all you need to declutter your space is a new frame of mind. Sounds easier said than done? Not so fast. Take a look at some of the best lessons we learned this year about how to live with less. You need to purge, but you might need that gigantic waffle maker at some point. Stop playing that game; you’ll never get the job done. Find out how washi tape can help: A Brilliant, Regret-Free Way You Can Use Tape to Declutter Your Kitchen. A marathon cleaning sesh only leads to fatigue.

For those of us with limited kitchen space (or a penchant for minimalism), designer and blogger Melissa Coleman of The Faux Martha has a genius tip: When it’s time to put away holiday decorations, pack your specialty cooking supplies with them. The premise: Why take up valuable real estate in your home with cookware and gadgets that only get used twice a year, at best?

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is usually a quiet one, so it’s the perfect time to go through your things and declutter. Between donating old pantry items and gently worn clothes, recycling gift boxes and catalogs, and tossing out old wine and leftovers, there’s plenty to clear out so you can make your home ready for the new year—and it’ll be conducive to helping you keep your resolutions.

Few things inspire more joy than a collection of beautifully wrapped presents under a Christmas tree! The problem with gift wrap, though, is that it’s often not recyclable. Even though the base of most gift wraps is indeed paper, many have overlays like metallic foil or glitter, have tape stuck to them, are saturated with problematic inks or dye, or are so thin that the fibers aren’t useful for recycling.

A new year is about to start, and with that comes a new set of wardrobe needs with items that tend to be much bulkier and take up far more shelf space. If you’re hurting for storage, take a look around your closet and get rid of these items that you totally do not need anymore. If you haven’t worn that ketchup bottle getup since you bought it 10 years ago for your office Halloween party, it’s probably time to say goodbye.

It's like walking into a little, glamorous jewel box every morning.

We declutter mostly for ourselves. We yearn for the empty space and the room to breathe. So we approach our cupboards, closets, drawers, and garages asking ourselves whatever version of the essential question—do I need this?—that gives us the most clarity. That’s how we decide what to get rid of and what to keep most of the time. But there’s another way to think about it, and there are others to declutter for.

Fun fact: You don’t have to cringe every time you reach for the dishwasher detergent and get a glimpse of what’s going on under your kitchen sink. Just because that’s what happens for most people doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be for everyone. It’s not how it is for me. I’ve actually got one simple little trick to keep things nice under there. Here’s my secret to keeping the least sexy part of the kitchen looking spiffy.

Spend enough time looking at kitchen designs, and things start to look familiar. You start to see the same trends and products—KitchenAid stand mixers, pot rails from IKEA, and bright-pink rugs, for example—over and again. Sometimes things become popular because of a dedicated marketing team with a lot of ad dollars, but sometimes it happens on its own because a product is just that useful.

By taking a bit of time to go through everything in your bathroom today, you'll be able to shed things that you won't (or by this point, shouldn't) use.

It seems really unfair that we have seasonal wardrobes—tank tops in the summer, jackets and jeans in the winter—but we can’t have seasonal closets. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I need double the space just to stash my thick sweaters. I want to detach my normal closet from my apartment and tack on one twice its size. Until LEGO gets into the architecture business, I think we’re all stuck with the closets we have.

Keeping your home free of clutter is a worthy, if lofty goal. As much as we vow to keep the one-in-one-out policy and only keep what makes us happy or is the best version of itself, there are a few things that we do need to hoard in multiples—and sometimes there’s no way around the fact that they’re just plain clutter-y. That’s where smart organization solutions come into play.

When I told my husband that I was going to write an article about what to get rid of in the dining room, he said without out a breath of hesitation, “How about the dining room?” It’s a bit of “A Subject” at our house because I inherited my grandparents’ entire dining room (the only thing I didn’t keep is the chandelier), and we’ve been shipping it from home to home for a decade.

The kitchen is the de facto command center in most homes. This is where families gather for breakfast and dinner—and homework and work work, too— every day, and it’s the spot to catch your kids or your spouse if there’s something you need to communicate about your day. So no wonder companies and bloggers make a big deal about putting a command center in the kitchen. It sounds so good: a designated spot, bulletin board and all, for controlling your household.

Shower rings aren’t just for your bathroom anymore—the affordable hooks can also be used inside your bedroom as a clever organizing hack for your accessories. If you have a basket of scarves, then you know that the struggle is real when it comes to organizing them. When they’re thrown into a drawer or jumbled on a shelf, it’s hard to remember what you own.