Organizing Closets and the Mudroom

There never seems to be enough closet space in a house. The longer you are in a house, the less room there is, because we all tend to accumulate stuff. So, the first thing that needs to be done to get organized is clean your closets out and decide what to keep, what to possibly sell, give away or just throw away.

Take it one closet at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. Once you clear out the closet, temporarily put things back in it. Go to the next, making an inventory of what you have. Then make a plan for rearranging things. Do you need to switch items to a different closet, either for space or ease of use? Sometimes we just start putting things in closets, not thinking about when we’ll need them later and we don’t take the time to move them to a better location. Now’s that time.

Then look at all the storage options available, to see what will work best for you. Do you want to use a built in shelf or moveable shelves? Or, do you want to use one of the units that you can put together that have bins, baskets and rods? Plastic storage boxes that stack easily are also useful in closets. Once you have them organized, you may even want to make a master list of what is in each closet.

The mudroom offers other challenges, as it’s an open area that sees a lot of traffic daily. It can become a dumping ground for all kinds of things. Unlike closets, it’s harder to hide the clutter. Decide what you want stored in the mudroom. Items like tools, boots, winter coats, sports equipment and outdoor toys often find a home in the mudroom so a boot pad and a good array of hooks on the wall will help to keep these pieces out of the walk way.

Set up a storage rack for the tools. Shovels can be hung on the wall, for easy access and also keeps them out of the way. Smaller garden tools could be kept in a basket with handles, for easy transport to the garden.

If you have space, think about creating a ‘locker’ for each family member where they can store things they want easy access to and let them know whatever doesn’t fit in the locker has to find a home elsewhere.