13 Ways to Organize Your Home

This time of year is not only the ideal time to do a big day (or two) of spring cleaning, it’s also one of the most ideal times to look at each room of the house in a different way, especially if it feels like there’s a little mess in every room. Interestingly, those messes usually take hold because we don’t have any method of staying organized and this is key to keeping the house tidy.

“Often we create messes because we don’t know exactly where to put something or the item itself doesn’t have a home,” says Piper Gore, owner of PS de Resistance, a home organizing company in New York City. “Even a pile of loose papers that need to be looked at some point should have a specific place—and only one place—that it’s kept in the home. The good news is that once you and your family know where things go, you’ll save time, find things faster, and spend less time organizing as you will already be doing it as you go along.”

Read on as we guide you around your house, room by room, with some helpful organization tips—and great products—that will forever change the way you stack your towels, keep every last Lego tidy, and transform your kitchen into a place you actually want to cook in.

All hail a tidy kitchen

No matter how large (or compact) your kitchen is, it’s easier than you think to keep it organized, says Natalie Schrier, owner of Cut the Clutter, an organizing company in New York City. And, since this is the one room that can easily get disorganized—fast—Schrier shares three of her favorite tips for what is often the hub of the house:

Double your shelf space. “To do this, shop around for freestanding shelves that will fit in your existing kitchen cabinets,” Schrier says. Swing by the Container Store to shop a variety of shelf options and sizes.

Rethink your spice rack. “A tiered spice rack paired with printed labels on bottle tops makes it easy to find seasonings in a snap. To make things even easier, hang your measuring spoons on the door inside the cabinet in which your spices are stored,” Schrier says.

Stand frying pans upright. “This will save space and make it easier to retrieve what you need—you won’t have to unstack anymore,” she says. The Iris Chrome Cookware Organizer ($19.99) at the Container Store is a great option to keep pans vertical.

Kids rooms can be streamlined

If it feels like your kids’ rooms are bursting at the seams—your kids are in a major growth spurt and some clothes fit and some don’t, toys are strewn every which way, and Legos are perpetually under foot—it’s time to sort, dump, or store. Here are four tips to get this room under control:

Corral hand-me-downs. “It can be hard to keep kids’ clothes under control since they outgrow them so quickly,” says Lisa Zaslow, owner of the NYC-based Gotham Organizers. “My best tip: Keep a spare shopping bag in the closet to stash too-small clothes and shoes as soon as you realize they don’t fit,” she says. “When it’s full, donate, sell, or give those items away. If you’re saving items for a younger child to grow into, use a zippered clothing storage bin and label it with the size.”

Divide—to conquer—drawers. “When it comes to underwear and socks, it’s almost impossible to have kids keep those drawers organized,” says Jennifer Nevins, founder of Savor, a Tribeca-based company that designs and manufactures organizational boxes. “Dividers make it easy to keep like with like and makes it easier to see what you have and stay organized.”

Have the right organizational tools. To get your kids’ room looking streamlined, use a label maker to indicate what’s in which storage box, put a cheery laundry hamper in your child’s room to ensure socks don’t end up on the floor, and never underestimate the space below the bed, a perfect place to tuck under-bed storage bags or boxes.

Do a regular toy review. “One thing we see people struggle with is the fact that toys usually end up all over the house,” says Ben Soreff, owner of House to Home Organizing in Norwalk, CT. “Step one is gathering all the toys and games for review. Some may be broken or missing pieces and should be recycled. Others have been aged out of and should be donated (preschools make great toy donation spots) and some may be keepsakes that should no longer be considered toys and live with the keepsakes.”