With the changing of seasons, the inevitable spring-cleaning bug tends to bite — sometimes hard. Here to help you organize those spaces in your home that need a little freshening up, Audrey Swanson is picking the minds of local professionals to share their tricks of the trade on home organization.
The bedroom should be a place strictly for relaxation, rest, and romance, yet so often it becomes a disastrous, messy, and stressful “drop zone,” as The Couture Closet owner and pro organizer Kathleen Jacobson calls it. We walk in after a long day of running around and throw our purses, keys, phones, shoes, jackets, and the rest of our daily necessities into piles on the nearest surface.
Because we start and end the day in this space, we want to create as stress-free of an environment as possible. Jacobson curated some must-have ideas for eliminating the chaos and clutter:
1. Sort it out. Collect the clutter in your bedroom – the laptop, books, chargers, pocket change, dust bunnies – and put them into categories, like Keep, Belongs Elsewhere, Store, and Toss. Find a home for all the keepers, such as decorative bins and baskets.
2. Dress your dresser accordingly. Leather caddies or silver trays make the perfect accessories to hold watches, rings, and loose change on top of the dresser. Within, use velvet-lined or acrylic trays for jewelry in the usually shallower top drawer, and for the rest, categorize like items by putting all t-shirts in one area, socks and underwear in another, and so on. These drawer organizers from The Container Store are idyllic for organizing and come in every size!
3. Take advantage of under the bed. Rolling bed storage bins are great for keeping off-season attire and purses hidden and out of the way. Linens and extra blankets can be stored here or in a chest at the bed’s foot, too, if you’re short a linen closet. Just be sure to label the bins so you can remember what’s down under!
4. Start each day fresh. When you wake up, be sure the first thing you do is make your bed and straighten up misplaced items. Tuck lip balms and lotions into nightstand drawers, and move books and magazines from the floor to a wicker basket. No one wants to roll into a messy room at the end of a hectic day.
5. Take time to keep the composure. All it takes is 30 minutes or less per week to corral all the accumulated junk that tends to take over. Jacobson suggests walking through your room, and entire home, every once in awhile as if you have guests arriving for the first time.
Audrey Swanson is a D Home and D Weddings intern.
