Home organisation is not what many would consider as a fun activity, especially for busy adults. Yet the women behind the now popular Netflix series, ‘The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals’ may say otherwise. Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, the experts featured, showed us that organising your home isn’t difficult if you use the right techniques.
In the series, Clea and Joanna have made the idea of organising more approachable,eye-catching and exciting. Their methods and techniques can truly benefit anyone, no matter what their lifestyle may be like.
After watching every episode that the series has to offer, we’ve compiled some amazing tips and tricks that we found worth to be shared with our readers. Plus, these game-changing tips can be used to organise any space within your home or even office. So, keep reading for the series’ greatest tips.
# 1 Start with sorting bins, end with edit portions
One of the biggest mistakes that many people make is tearing apart a room or space such as the kitchen or pantry when they already know time is not on their side.
First and foremost, clear your days ahead of time or dedicate at least a few hours to the project at hand. Then, focus on one confined area like the pantry or even just a single drawer from your home such as your kitchen or bedroom. Instead of throwing everything out onto the floor, grab a few empty boxes and use them as sorting bins. This way, you’ll be able to group items according to what you need to have and don’t necessarily need. For example, have a sorting bin for:
- Items you like.
- Items you do not like.
- All items to be recycled.
- Things that you could donate rather than throw.
It does not matter what you’re organising, never skip the edit part. The edit part is where you get rid of all the items that you don’t necessarily need. Which is why The Home Edit suggests that you have a bin for the things you do not like or more importantly, do not use anymore.
# 2 Section out
A big part of The Home Edit’s method involves sectioning. If you’re organising a closet, let it be yours or your children’s, there are a few standard sections to look at which are, jeans, shorts, sleepwear, undergarments, dresses, shirts and t-shirts.
Start by arranging the clothes according to the sections and if you’ve exceeded the given space let’s say for your jeans for instance, then it’s time to make some tough choices on deciding which pair you would like to keep and get rid of. By doing so, it will help to maintain your organising system over time as you continue to acquire new pairs of clothes.
# 3 Have a ‘Backstock Zone’
If you’ve watched The Home Edit, you’ll notice that they are big on giving the items they’ve organised around the house a little room to breathe. Nothing’s arranged closely together, which makes it look even more beautiful. However, this may leave you rolling your eyes or with a headache just by thinking what you’re going to do with the remaining items.
We know, we get you! This is what the ‘backstock zone’ is for. Backstock zone is practically a place to store the ‘extras’ or various miscellaneous items. For example, have a backstock zone for your toiletries in your bathroom and perhaps one for food items that’s located closer to your pantry.
If you’ve recently gone grocery shopping and found that you’ve doubled up on the amount of cereal boxes in your pantry because they were on sale, have a separate container to arrange the extra items that you’ve bought. You don’t need all 10 cereal boxes within arm’s reach. So, store the remaining in the backstock container. Once you’re running low, you can always restock them.
# 4 Use acrylic containers
A favourite item that was used throughout the series were containers. In particular, the experts’ love for acrylic containers are endless because they thoroughly believe that if you see your items, you’ll most likely use them more often. So, if you’re organising your refrigerator, pantry, kitchen cabinets, makeup drawers or doing your fillings, try to opt for acrylic containers, rotate tables or folders. This way, no items are left unseen.
# 5 Create labelling systems
Clea and Joanna are diehard fans of labelling systems. Having a labelling system in everything you organise is the key to a well-organised space. This makes every room in a house look more pleasing.
Confined spaces like medicine cabinets, pantry or bathroom storage are often the ones that get cluttered easily. So, the best way to sort out these items is to have them in categories and place them in matching containers (preferably see-through containers if you’re a visual person) and label each of them accordingly. For instance, if you’re assembling your medicine cabinet that you share with your partner, then it’s best to have two separate containers to avoid consuming the wrong medication.
Lastly, label each container according to your labelling preference. In this case, the containers can be labelled based on your partner’s name as well as yours.
# 6 ROYGBIV- The Home Edit’s signature
Don’t you just dream of colour-coding everything that your hand touches and eyes lay upon?
‘ROYGBIV’ are the abbreviations of the colours of the rainbow. The unsung perks of organising everything according to the colours of the rainbow does not only make everything look attractive, but it actually holds you responsible! Colour-coding makes sure that you return every item to the appropriate spot. Thus, resulting in a well-organised space.
Rainbow bookshelves are the easiest way to beautify a space. Yes, it may look nice when the books are put in descending height order, but there’s a possibility that it wouldn’t stay that way for a long time. However, if books were arranged according to the colours of the rainbow, it would definitely bother you if you accidentally placed a green book between the yellow ones.
Therefore, you will end up putting the green book in its original spot.
Create a calmer & peaceful home.
As much as we would like to organise our home like The Home Edit team would pull off within a day or two, it simply might not be the same for some of us. If you’re able to sort out everything in a short period of time, then that’s simply splendid!
However, if you’re not able to do so, it’s okay. Start small like your utensil drawers, spice rack, photo album drawers or even from your child’s toys. Organising your home is simply an on-going process. So, start now and maintain it whenever it’s needed.
Sources: The Home Edit
