AT HOME | Trends
Calm the Chaos BY ORGANIZING YOUR HOME
by Shelley Galbreath
“Your home is living space, not storage space.” –Francine Jay a.k.a Miss Minimalist
Visualize
When organizing your home, it is immensely helpful to have inspiration and a vision of what you hope to achieve. The Internet is a wonderful place to look for an image that will both motivate and guide. Magazine articles and photos, as well as organizational books like The Home Edit, by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, are also great resources.
What if we could just live and relax in our homes instead of constantly picking up clutter and getting lost in the chaos of stuff? Decluttering and organizing the home is the best way to move out of daily chaos and into calm control, simplifying home life. Not sure where to start? Here’s a step-by-step schedule to get the house decluttered and organized, room-by-room, and task-bytask.
Plan
Visit any organizational website and the first step listed is to have a plan of attack. Haphazard picking up and moving things from room to room is not the solution. Instead, take the time to walk through each room in the house opening cupboards and drawers, pantries and closets, and survey the area. Make a list of the areas to be tackled first.
Prioritize
Once you’ve made your list, don’t be overwhelmed. Consider which areas are the ‘worst,’... and pick one to tackle first. The junk drawer/junk counter is a wonderful place to begin, as is the closet or the pantry.
84
LAKElife Magazine August 2022
Remove
This step can be the most challenging. Before organizing, though, everything must be removed from the area. This way, the area can be swept, cleaned, painted, etc. before sorted items are returned to the space.
