Organizing Your Home: Easy Hacks for Families

Let’s be honest: when you have kids you accumulate an abundance of stuff. From products to soothe and comfort them as babies to itty bitty figures and the countless houses that go with them when they’re a little older, it can get really tough to tackle clutter. While I’m sort of a clutter queen, sometimes I go on these epic decluttering sprees that leave me feeling much more sane and in charge of my surroundings—even if neither of those things are actually true.

In the spirit of helping a mother out and making you feel more sane and in charge, I’m sharing 5 super simple organization tricks that my sister and I swear by.

Organizing Your Home Hack #1: Baskets

In my house, there are baskets everywhere. We have shelves filled with them. They’re in our cabinets and under side tables. They’re next to my girls’ desks and all over our basement. The reason? They’re an incredibly easy way to both contain like items and hide things that look messy.

Toys are sorted into different categories and the baskets are put into our shelves. Things that my daughters need to put away are in the baskets next to their desks. Smaller baskets hold like food items to make it easier to grab and go. And I love the look of nice, cozy blankets stored in a basket instead of haphazardly strewn over chairs. Baskets can also be a great way to store puzzles and card games, which brings me to our next hack…

Organizing Your Home Hack #2: Storing Board Games

I won’t lie to you. Our board game situation was the bane of my existence for a while. I cringed any time one of the girls asked to play a game because I knew that getting a board game out was going to require some serious Tetris skills and would more likely than not end with me getting hit in the head with flying game pieces.

That is until I made the (brilliant) decision to store all of our board games sideways instead of lying them flat and on top of one another. This way, when someone wants to play a game, all you have to do is slide it out of its slot. There’s no delicate balancing act or cursing or crawling on the floor looking for tiny pieces.

Pro tip: you might want to secure boxes with a rubber band if you store them this way to make sure the tops don’t slide off.

Organizing Your Home Hack #3: Kids Dress Up

I don’t know about you, but I’m a saver. If I think my kids will get use out of it, it stays. That means we have a ragtag collection of old Halloween costumes, party props and dress up clothes exploding all over the place. While I’ve yet to tackle our mess, I absolutely love how my sister organized my niece’s dress up.

With nothing more than a hanging rod and a shelf, not only does her dress up look nice, but it’s organized in a way that’s manageable for my niece and makes choosing things must less overwhelming than digging through an enormous mound (which is our current situation). The baskets up top keep all of the loose accessories together and out of view.

Organizing Your Home Hack #4: Shoeboxes for Storage

This one is similar to baskets, but it’s a free, eco-friendly version for spots that don’t need to look pretty. You can, however, make them pretty if you need to with a coat of paint or some scrapbook paper.

My kids’ dressers always drive me crazy. They’re constantly digging and pulling things out of there so that it becomes impossible to find anything really quickly. To combat that, I’ve started using shoeboxes to keep smaller items together. I fill open shoeboxes with underwear, socks, tights, and bathing suits to make them easier to find. I can’t even tell you how much time this one little tip saves me.

I also use shoeboxes for crayons, markers, colored pencils and stickers. It’s so much easier than trying to keep them in the boxes they typically come in. My girls generally destroy those pretty quickly.

Organizing Your Home Hack #5: Wine Crates for Storage

Sometimes it’s nice to switch things up a bit. My sister scored these wine crates for free at a local liquor store. Like baskets and shoeboxes, they are a great way to contain things but they add a different kind of visual interest. While baskets can almost melt into the background and go unnoticed, wine crates are a little unexpected and add a cool touch. They’re also nice and sturdy, which comes in handy if little people are going to be sorting through them.

If you have any hacks for organizing your home that you swear by, I’d love to hear them. I’m all for anything that makes life easier!

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