Big Ideas for Giving a Small Home an Organizational Boost
If your home or apartment lacks storage space, then it can be a real challenge to keep your living space clutter-free. If your home is small as well, things can devolve pretty fast. Small spaces often need big ideas when it comes to organization and storage. Here are some helpful tips to get you get the process started.
Maximize Space by Minimizing Possessions
The truth is, we all have too much stuff. When you live in a midsize or larger home, it’s easy to keep all the stuff you probably don’t need but can’t stand to give up. However, when you are low on space — both living and storage — you don’t have this luxury. Downsizing and decluttering must be your first priority. Get rid of duplicate items (two toasters, really?), throw away or donate anything you haven’t used in a year (minus some sentimental items), and never add more items to your home without first purging an equal amount.
It’s inevitable that there will be items that cannot fit in your home and that you cannot bear to part with. For those items, a local storage facility is a smart solution. Be sure to compare prices online for units in your area. The overall average price of a self-storage unit booked in Orlando, Florida, over the past 180 days is $86.92. It’s not just smart, it’s fairly inexpensive. Of course, you might need to budget for a moving truck or van from a company such as U-Haul if you have a lot of items you need to transport to that storage unit.
Walls Aren’t Just for Pictures
While we all think of our wall space as mostly decorative, as an owner of a small home you have to get creative. That means maximizing your wall space for storage. Shelving is an obvious way to achieve this, but you can find cheaper and even sleeker options with hanging baskets, hooks, and organizers with pockets.
Walls are also good for mounting lights. As Country Living notes, table lamps call for a table. Likewise, floor lamps require floor space. Sconces, hanging light fixtures, and other attachable solutions can save you precious space.
Commit to 30 Days of Organization
If life has taught us anything, it’s that big tasks are hard to do all at once. Organizing your small home is certainly a big task, so why not break it up into smaller, easier-to-manage daily tasks? For example, day one can be fridge day, day two can be desk day, day three can be bedroom closet day, and so on. When the month is over, you’ll have a much more organized home. And on top of that, you’ll have trained yourself to be a person who thinks about cleaning and organization on a daily basis. That’s priceless.
Consider Furniture That Hides Itself
We all know about Murphy beds — those beds that fold up and essentially hide themselves until they are needed. Modern furniture design has taken this idea and run with it, and there are now hundreds of options for compact folding furniture and other home decor. This includes table and chair sets that allow the chairs to fold under the table, pull-down side tables and desks, and collapsible coffee tables. Contrary to what you may think, these solutions aren’t gimmicky. In fact, many are downright stylish. Check here for some great ideas.
There are some great things about living in a smaller space. Minimalism can be freeing. It can also force you to be cleaner and more discerning about your material footprint. But it also comes with particular challenges. Often, you need to employ some big ideas to make a small space organized and maximized for storage space.
Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash
