![]() If you’ve had the time to look over my last post, A Tiny Space Part 1: Declutter, you’ll have already cleaned out any unnecessary items from your space, and are probably left with baskets or piles of your necessary clutter. Well, it’s time to tackle your leftover mess. The question now becomes, how?? Chances are, you have plenty of things to put away, but not much room to put them. ![]() Start with your clothes. Sweaters able to be hung, hoodies, jackets, and any other long sleeved items should be put on hangers and stored in your closet. Any dress shirts, short or long sleeved, should also be hung in the closet. I suggest organizing your clothing by item in order to make it easier to find exactly what you want, without having to pull every piece of clothing out. Lesser worn items should be put in those hard to reach corners of the closet, while the remaining items should be grouped together, (jackets, hoodies, sweaters, etc.). Don’t forget to flip your hangers backwards to help you root out clothes to donate, come next year! ![]() If your closet doesn’t already have it, I suggest installing a long shelf that runs along the top of your closet, above the bar from which your clothes hang. Additionally, shelves that run underneath of your hanging clothes are easy to put in and make for a world of difference when it comes to storage. In the overhead shelf, I like to store items that I need, but do not necessarily use on a weekly or even monthly basis in clearly labeled bins and baskets. This could be holiday decorations, spare blankets, or other miscellaneous objects. The shelves below your hanging clothes could be used for folded tee shirts, folded scarves, storage bins, or taller shoes like boots and heels. Other shoes can be stored in a behind the door hanging storage system such as this. ![]() Now that your closet is neat and tidy and your shoes have a home, it’s time to find a place for the rest of your belongings. For your pants, underwear, socks, tank tops, pajamas, and tee shirts if they didn’t fit in your closet, you are going to need to fold them, roll them, and tuck them into neat rows in your drawers. This task is daunting, but it’s something that only has to be done once if you do it right. Once you have your items rolled and neat in your drawer, you’ll be able to see everything you have at once. No more digging through everything to find one particular item. While a dresser does a fantastic job of this, a bed with under-bed storage is an ideal partner. If your bed doesn’t have built in drawers, no worries! You can easily purchase slim bins that work just as well. ![]() The objects you have left in your possession should be easy to deal with. Decorations should be placed around your space strategically, not clumped together and overwhelming to the eye. If you have too many décor items for your space, it may be appropriate to either let some go or store them for another time. Any remaining drawers or under-bed space should be used for odds and end items with no real home. Lastly, remember to take advantage of the areal space of your room! Hang items like plants for décor if you have no room elsewhere. You can also install shelves above the windows for additional storage, or hanging storage nets from the ceiling. A headboard with shelves and storage pockets, a dual purpose picture frame and jewelry organizer, a storage hassock, and an abundance of decorative wall mirrors are all items that I use in my own home to stash away clutter and make the room feel larger than it is. And that's just about it! The key to this project is consistency. Have the work ethic to finish the job, and be consistent thereafter! If you keep up with your organization, this type of organizational overhaul will never be necessary again. With the right amount of hard work and determination, you'll have your friends in awe at your surprisingly spacious tiny space.
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![]() At one point or another, we have all had to deal with a closet for a room, though the circumstances are different for everyone. Some may have had a tiny bedroom from the start, shared a room with an overpowering sibling, struggled to cram all your belongings into a tiny dorm room, or maybe your new apartment just isn’t as “spacious” as it seemed when the landlord was showing it to you. Whatever the case, the struggle to keep things somewhat organized in your teeny tiny space is real. If you’re not already buried by your things and too far gone, hold on for just a little bit longer as I tell you how to save your room and your sanity in one fell swoop. I have lived in a postage stamp of a room my entire life. This being said, I have had to make the choice of either succumbing to the clutter, or taking a stand against it. At 2o years old, I finally chose to address the mess, and have lived to tell the tale. So roll up your sleeves, crack you knuckles (but not really because that’s no good,) and get ready to tackle the pile of crap in the middle of your floor, dresser, desk, or consuming the chair in your room. 1.) First things first, admit you have a ton of unnecessary stuff. It is time to part with the unnecessary clutter, so that you can focus on the “necessary” clutter. Linked here is a gorgeous list of things to say goodbye to from the lovely Monogrammed Magnolia. I live by this list and am sure to use it about once a year. Although it can be heart wrenching at times, I have never regretted this yearly purge of items. If you still need a bit more convincing, I find that the book "Spark Joy" is an amazing place to start. 2.) Now that you have multiple trash bags of items cleared out of the way, it’s time to declutter even further by eliminating those hard to decide on items. To help walk you through this process, I’ve created a list of essential questions; - Have I used or worn this item in the past 3-6 months? ![]() 3.) After you’ve separated your trash, keep, and donate piles, move them to their respected places. In other words, separate your keep items into the rooms that they go in. For now, it’s okay to put them in bins or laundry baskets. Then move onto your trash items. Grab the trash bags and move them to the end of your driveway immediately. This will help you to resist the urge to dig through your bags and take things back out. If you’re afraid that the end of the driveway might not be far enough away, put the bags in your car and drive them to a local dumpster. Before you leave, throw your donate items into the car as well. You can get two jobs done in one by throwing your garbage into an industrial dumpster, and then drive to the local donate bins to drop off those bags as well. 4.) Once you have finished this intense decluttering, there is a strong chance that there are still have a few unnecessary items that you just can’t bear to part with, or that you are coming up with every excuse in the book to keep. If this is the case, put these items in storage containers and pack them away. Put the date on the lid of the box, and put it wherever you keep your storage items. Put a date on your calendar for one year from the day. If you really need something from that box in the next year, you can take it out and leave it out. When the one year date comes along, toss the box in the trash without opening it. You haven’t used those items in a year, and you don’t need memories making you keep them any longer.
For your clothes, put them on a hanger in your closet, with the hanger facing backwards. In one year if any hangers are still flipped backwards, toss out the item. For items in drawers, put a sticker on them, and toss any items with stickers in one year. With your decluttering out of the way, it’s time to store the remaining items! Keep an eye out for my next post on how to do just that. Whether you’re crammed into a small dorm room, still living out of your childhood bedroom organization during your college years is a struggle. It seems to always come down to picking the least painful sacrifice; Do you give up your hard earned and already very limited cash in the name of organizational tools? Do you say no to organization and sprawl your belongings every which way to see what you have? Or do you give up entirely and end up on A&E’s Hoarders? The answer is, NONE of these things! Nothing should have to be given up to create an organized space! No matter how small or chaotic the area, a handful of things that you likely already own can turn a nightmarish mess into the envy of your friends and family. Here are five ways to utilize everyday objects as organizational treasure pieces. 1. Hang your tights and leggings from clothes pins: ![]() Instead of cramming all of your leggings into a drawer and unleashing an avalanche every time you’re in search of “that one pair,” try using a couple clothes pins and some hefty rope, string, or ribbon! Spread the rope somewhere convenient like between two command strip hooks, on the back of a door, or anywhere you’d want to keep your tights. If you’re anything like me and have way too many pairs of tights, you might need to double up your string or use a thicker rope to keep it from snapping. Once you’ve got your string set up, attach each pair of leggings to a clothes pin and pin them in place on your rope! And Voilà! You’ve got yourself an easy to see and organized place to keep your go-to comfy pants. If you're lucky, your roommate(s) will copy your project! Still have some questions? Check out a detailed description of the project here. 2. Use an empty Tic-Tac container for small items: Every wonder how bobby-pins always seem to go missing, and later turn up in the most ridiculous places? Between the collection of pins I can find at any given time in my book bag, purses, wallet, and general floor, I could open my own bobby-pin shop if I so desired. Try using an empty Tic-Tac container to capture them and keep them easy to access. Tic-Tac containers can also be used for collecting and sorting small office supplies like tacks and paper clips. Even better, use them to keep spare wires organized and tangle free! Simply stick a label on it and you’re good to go! 3. Turn empty cereal boxes into storage containers: ![]() It’s a known fact that magazine holders are God’s gift to the organization-obsessed. They can be used just about anywhere, standing up, on their side, stacked, anything you can imagine, they can do it. But these beautiful creations can get costly! And additionally, I’ve started getting weird looks from the cashiers at Target when I check out with twenty of them. To save your pocket and your pride, try using cereal boxed instead. Yes, you heard me, cut that empty Frosted Flakes box into the appropriate shape, maybe stick some of your washi tape or wrapping paper on it and call it a day. For more storage, stack them together and turn them on their side to make little shelves, or cut them down and stick them together to make drawer organizers. In this case, scissors and a little decorating goes a long way. But seriously, what if I was just really into magazines?! Who are you to judge me, you darn Target employees! Here are some detailed descriptions to make the projects you see in these pictures! 4. Make empty cans your clutter-collectors: ![]() It is so tempting to throw your empty soup, coffee, and other metal cans into the recycling and feel happy with yourself for helping the earth. Why not take it a step further and save a recycling company some time by reusing those metal cans yourself? With some glue, paint, washi tape, or any other decorations of your choice, you can turn them into stylish and functional pieces of home décor. Stick various sizes together and give it a sleek gold finish to organize your desk clutter, stick them sideways for east access, or place them all around your room to collect and conceal clutter. Just be sure wash those cans and sand down any sharp or rough edges before you start decorating! To make the gorgeous gold organizer below, see a detailed description here. 5. Use clothes hangers and shower rings: Gather a few extra hangers if you have them, and pick up some from the dollar store if you don’t, in addition to a few packs of shower curtain rings. Loop the rings onto the hanger, and use it to organize all those odds and end things that you didn’t know what to do with before. Tank tops, necklaces, ties, scarves, hats, the list goes on and on. The bottom line is, if you can hang it, it works for this! The phrase, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” comes to mind here. Before you toss away these common household items, you might think about putting them away for a rainy day project. In the end, your home and your wallet will thank you!
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