Multi-purpose furniture are ideal for small spaces, or if you don’t like to have a lot of furniture in your room.  When you can store a multitude of items in one piece, it can alleviate clutter in your room and make organizing a lot easier.  One of the most popular multi-purpose furniture pieces today is the Armoire.  Armoires are used to store and organize clothing and crafting supplies. They are also used as TV entertainment centers, or as a  small office that you fold away at the end of the day.

Another multi-purpose item that is perfect for both teens and adults is the Nightstand Valet (pictured above).  This valet stand comes with 2 shelves, a pull out drawer, a hanger for suit coat or shirts, bottom shelf for shoes, top shelf for personal accessories, side bar for trousers and the other side comes with hook for additional hanging storage.  It is the epitome of multi-purpose. 

CD organizer

Cosmetics organizer

Your teenager or pre-teen can get organized the night before school by choosing their outfit, including their shoes, packing their backpack and selecting the books and other items they may need for school the next day, and all can be stored in the Nightstand Valet.  On the left you’ll see some additional organization products that can help your children keep their rooms organized from Home Storage Warehouse.

 Visit Home Storage Warehouse to learn more about the Nightstand Valet and other organizing products to help kids keep their rooms organized and clutter-free!

Find more organization product ideas and back to school tips for your kids here.

Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) and President of the NAPO Baltimore Chapter, she helps homeowners to clear their household and paper clutter and organize their home or home office.  Jacquie also offers home organizing workshops to the general public and brief time management classes to businesses. Jacquie is the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  If you want to take control of your clutter, visit CastAway the Clutter to get Jacquie’s free organizing goals worksheet when you sign up for her organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

Organization products, like toy bins, pop-up storage bins, pop-up hampers, over-the-door organizers and hanging shoe pockets are just a few of the many organizing products available to help keep your children’s rooms organized and free of clutter.  Summertime is a good time to get those organization products in place in time for back to school.  Once your kids get busy with homework and afterschool activities it’s going to be even harder for them to keep their rooms clean and organized, so every little bit helps. 

Most children can do basic room upkeep chores on their own.  However, it’s best to continue to build confidence in them by showing them how to do routine tasks, like, picking up toys and putting them away, putting away their clean laundry, light dusting and even vacuuming. 

At the very least, all children should have easy access to a laundry hamper as soon as they are able to dress themselves.  Begin by explaining the rules and consequences, if you decide to have consequences.  One example of a consequence would be to not wash anything that’s not placed inside the hamper!  After a couple of weeks of this, they will soon realize that there is very little left to wear, except maybe a handful of their least favorite clothing! 

Purchase a fun or decorative hamper for their room or bathroom that they actually won’t mind using. Here are some fun kids’ hampers for both young children and teens at Home Storage Warehouse.

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More back to school organizing tips
More Organization Products for Keeping Your Children’s Closets Clutter-Free

Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) and President of the NAPO Baltimore Chapter, she helps homeowners to clear their household and paper clutter and organize their home or home office.  Jacquie also offers home organizing workshops to the general public and brief time management classes to businesses. Jacquie is the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  If you want to take control of your clutter, visit CastAway the Clutter to get Jacquie’s free organizing goals worksheet when you sign up for her organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

It’s Memorial Day weekend and time to get out the barbecue tools and equipment for summertime grilling on the outdoor deck or patio.  How are your tools and equipment doing?  Sometimes when we pack away a seasonal item, we don’t always pay attention to its condition until it’s time to use it again the next season.  If your barbecue tools are looking a bit worse for wear, it may be time to pick up a new set.  Also, with Father’s Day right around the corner, a set a barbecue tools might just be the perfect gift idea and can be his own personal (”hands-off”) barbecue tool set! 

Take a look at the barbecue grill accessory sets that are housed in a storage bag or heavy duty case.  These sets keep your barbecue tools clean and organized and you never have to worry about a missing tool.  Typical barbecue grilling sets include a BBQ spatula, BBQ tongs, BBQ basting brush, BBQ fork and BBQ knife.  Some sets include a BBQ brush and  scraper and even BBQ skewers!

Check out these barbecue grilling tools and accessory sets from Home Storage Warehouse.

5 Piece Barbecue Tool Set

Barbecue Set with Basket

Stainless Barbecue Set

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to get a free organizing goals worksheet when you sign up for her organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

There are many organization solutions in the marketplace today that can help keep closet clutter under control without spending a fortune on high-end custom closets.  Outfitting your child’s closet with a custom solution may not always be the best idea when they still  have a lot of growing to do.  It might make more sense to use less expensive organization products that can be changed and adjusted as the child grows.

Here are a few ideas that can be incorporated into your child’s existing closet, assuming you do not already have built-in shelving installed:

Hanging organizer shelves for clothing
Storage cubes to corral small toys
Hanging shoe organizer to keep shoes off the floor
Shoe stands, also to keep shoes off the floor
Quality hangers to take better care of clothing

Closet hanging shelf organizer

Magic toy pop-up cube

Closet hanging shoe organizer shelves

Stackable shoe shelf organizer

Childrens' wood hangers

Folding canvas bins

Rolling bins or carts to hold folded clothing or toys can also be helpful.  Find more closet organizers at Home Storage Warehouse.

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to get a free organizing goals worksheet when you sign up for her organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

Does your children’s clothing spend most of the time on the closet floor or hung on the clothing rod?  If your child is too small to reach the rod, you may find that you’re spending way too much time picking up clothes and trying to keep the closet organized.  Many closets consist of a single rod and shelf, but there are many affordable closet organizing solutions to help with eliminating closet clutter. To begin with, store their most frequently worn, or favorite garments at their level so that they can be responsible for putting away their clean laundry and choosing their outfits for the day. 

By incorporating some additional storage options inside the closet, you can also teach your child to be responsible for keeping their closet neat and organized.  Set up an easy organizational system so that they can select their outfits each day, with very little help from you.  One way to do this is to install a hanging pocket shelf organizer. Hanging shelves, which usually include at least 5 pockets for each weekday, are a great way for them to feel grown up because they get to pick out their pre-selected outfit for the day, without help from you. 

Dealing with children who are a little unorganized can be a challenge and sometimes quite stressful.  Teaching your children to be more organized is much easier when you start early.  By assigning them small organizing tasks from a young age, it helps to teach them responsibility and the basic skills of organization.

Begin by setting up systems in their rooms and finding a place for everything.  If they keep toys in their room, there should be an area specifically set-up to store those items.  When it begins to get overcrowded it’s time to do some purging.  Although it’s difficult for very young children to part with their toys, it’s an important part of maintaining order.  Explain to them that they cannot have new toys if there’s no place to put them.  It may also help if you donate items to charitable organizations and an opportunity to explain that less fortunate children would love to be able to play with their old or outgrown toys.

Make organizing fun by using brightly colored containers as storage.   Also, use bright coordinating colors for labeling or use cut-out pictures found on the internet or in magazines.

Primary toy bin organizer

Pastel toy bin organizer

Hanging toy organizer

 

Desktop File Letter Stand

 

Desktop File Organizer

Desk File Tray

For tax related papers that you may be receiving now, consider filing them in a desk top file organizer or letter stand, like the ones shown here.  Paper trays may also work. At the end of the day, the key is to be able to find your papers when you need them!

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

The typical bathroom cabinet is cluttered and disorganized due to the abundant amount of items typically used in the bathroom.  Toiletries, make-up, hair appliances, linens, medicine and other personal items are often used on a daily basis, yet the average bathroom has very little efficient storage options.  The average bathroom cabinet is deep and tall, but due to large protruding plumbing fixtures, there is usually no shelving installed inside to help maximize the available space.  

One way to solve this problem is to purchase organizers for use inside deep cabinets.  Stackable bins and containers are one option, or you can use a roll-out drawer. Roll-out drawers come in a variety of widths to fit most undersink cabinets and are available in either one or two levels.   The two tiered roll-out drawers can really maximize the space underneath the average bathroom cabinet and are also very easy to install.  Plus, roll-out drawers can also be used under kitchen sink cabinets to store cleaning supplies and in any other deep cabinet or shelf that may be difficult to access.

For the budget-conscious consumer, roll-out drawers can be an affordable alternative to custom built-in organizational installations. Home Storage Warehouse has a couple of options to choose from.  

Roll out 2 tier organizer

Roll out cabinet drawer

Roll out undersink drawer

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

It’s nearing the end of Get Organized Month (SM). Have you started any of your decluttering and organizing projects yet?  Feeling overwhelmed?  Break the task down into smaller chunks and work on one chunk at a time. 

Let’s assume you need to go through several weeks of mail that you’ve been procrastinating.  Normally, when the mail hasn’t been sorted in a while, it may be found in many different areas of the home.  So before you start, spend some time going through your home searching for piles of unopened mail.  When you’re sure you have it all, schedule some time to begin processing it.  Here are a few easy mail sorting and organizing tips:

1. Have the necessary tools on hand before you begin.  Examples of what you mind need include: A shredder (or a container to store paper to shred later), letter opener, files, file box or filing cabinet, recycle or trash bin, pen, sticky notes, paper clips and a stapler and staple remover. 

2. Sort the mail by type.  You can usually tell from the outside of the envelope what type of mail it is, e.g. bill, statement, catalog, junk mail, magazine subscription, etc.

3. Open the easy action items first, e.g. place your magazines either in a magazine basket or give it to the person in the household who holds the magazine subscription.  Discard the junk mail and trash.

4. Open the bills and make decisions.  Pay now or later?  Set up reminder systems in your day planner or PDA for bills that need to be paid later.  Discard trash and file statements.

5. Schedule time to do the mail daily or every other day.  If you have a particularly crazy schedule, you can do it once a week, but no less than that!

Here are some paper and mail organizing products and tools that you may find helpful from Home Storage Warehouse.

Desktop organizer

Newspaper and Magazine Rack

File/Letter Desk Organizer

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie also writes a column at the Baltimore Examiner, called Organized Families and is the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Click here to learn more. Contact Jacquie by clicking here. Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips and learn more about her presentations at www.castawaytheclutter.com

Typically, most holiday parties are done in buffet style due to the large quantity of guests being served.  Being able to bake, cook and display buffet style also gives the host more time to actually spend enjoying her party and guests, and less time in the kitchen. 

To maximize the space on the dining or buffet table and also provide visual interest, use servers or caddies that are stacked vertically.  By using the vertical space, you will use less horizontal space, allowing you to get more food on the table, while eliminating a cluttered or cramped look.  You can find caddy serveware that hold sauces or dips, and plate caddies that elegantly display guest plates using wrought iron or metal holders. 

Getting everything organized for a holiday party, including decluttering surfaces and spaces, tidying, cleaning and decorating, can be stressful enough without the worries of how you’re going to get everything on the table.   Elegant iron serveware can make the simplest food appear fancy!

Plate caddy server

3 tray iron caddy

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie also writes a column at the Baltimore Examiner, called Organized Families.  Contact Jacquie by clicking here. Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips and learn more about her presentations at www.castawaytheclutter.com