Cut the Clutter

by Dorling Kindersley

  inside—and brings plenty of mud and moisture with it. Place to contain all the “out-the-door” essentials for each person.

  entrance mats on both sides of the door to trap tracked-in dirt and rainwater before it hits your clean house.

  “Handbags, car keys, and

  ▪ Clear clutter regularly. Family comings and goings tend to deposit mail, paperwork, newspapers, magazines, library return videos—or homework

  books, broken items, and extra clothing at the door. Schedule regular STOP clutter sessions in the entryway.

  and lunchboxes—can all live

  ▪ Climb the walls. Make the most of wall space for storage.

  in personal Launch Pads.”

  Hang a key rack near the door for easy access. Pegs and hooks hold rain gear, jackets, and summer hats.

  ▪ Use the door. Hang or attach a shoe organizer on the back

  ▪ First principle: corral, corral, corral. So you’ve cleared a of the door. Roomy pockets hold mittens and scarves, sunglasses shelf on that bookcase? Give each family member a different-and suntan oil, pet leashes, and garden gloves and shoes where colored plastic dishpan for their Launch Pad, and nobody’s field they’re accessible but not in the way.

  trip permission slip will walk to school with the wrong sibling—

  ▪ Contain it. Provide a mix of open and closed storage to or disappear behind the shelf.

  house entryway contents: cubbies or shelf units for baskets or

  ▪ Second principle: make putting away easy. Child dishpans used as family Launch Pads ( see right). Add a low comes home from school, tosses homework and lunch menus storage bench for seating when changing shoes or donning in her dishpan. Dad comes home and tosses paycheck, keys, galoshes. Label containers to help family members remember billfold, receipts, and pocket change into his. There things stay, to use them.

  safe and segregated, until they are needed next morning.

  ▪ Third principle: think creatively. A Launch Pad need

  ◀ Transition zone. The entryway brings the outside in—along not be a space on shelf or table. In one family, each child has with boots, umbrellas, and overcoats. Plan storage for outerwear a backpack that lives on the back of its owner’s dining chair.

  and foul weather gear near the front door for an organized home.

  Lunches, papers, and gym clothes go directly to the packs.

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  CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME

  Decluttering

  a

  bathroom

  The scene: a master bathroom in any

  suburban location. It’s home to grooming

  rituals and heir to all sorts of oddments

  and obsessions. To cut the clutter here can

  be a journey into the heart of darkness.

  Bathrooms are dedicated areas set aside for grooming, health, and hygiene, but have an unacknowledged purpose, too—as a repository for inner hopes, dreams, and insecurities. Follow these tips to loosen the ties that bind you to bathroom clutter:

  ▪ If you don’t use it, lose it. In any bathroom cabinet, you’ll find products that Simply Don’t Work. The “rotary hair straightener” built around a power screwdriver—that pulled your hair straight out from the roots. The brush-on nail treatment, guaranteed to grow long, strong nails in just seven days, that peeled like sun-damaged skin. Wonder products are sold on the basis of hope; if there’s no hope for those in your cabinet, take their message to the landfill.

  ▪ If you won’t lose it, use it! Pricey salons know when we’re ripe for a sale; tantalized by the lovely new look in the mirror, we can be suckers for expensive cosmetics. Once home, these products migrate to the recesses of the medicine chest, but memories of the high price tag keeps us from decluttering them. Fine—you may keep the luxury shower gel—but on one condition: that you use it.

  ▪ Knock down the number. Every bathroom-dweller has a secret grooming product obsession; they buy multiples of their fetish item. When faced with more than three of anything in the bathroom, invoke the Law of Numbers: keep two favorites, declutter the rest.

  ▪ Time to toss it. Let cosmetics languish too long, and bacterial growth can pose a danger to health. Call on safety concerns to toss those that are past safe storage intervals.

  before decluttering ▲

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  STOP clutter in the bathroom

  In an average bathroom, expect to devote two to three STOP clutter sessions to the task. Start at the bathroom sink area, and then move to nearby cabinets or drawers.

  Finish with the shower/bathtub area. Assemble your tools: timer, Put Away box, Storage box, Sell/Donate box and a black plastic garbage bag. Set the timer for 15 minutes.

  1 Sort Starting at the bathroom sink, sort items that belong into like piles. Place items that belong

  elsewhere in the Put Away box, and tuck any items for storage in the Storage box. Surplus items that are still useful go to Sell/Donate.

  2 Toss Toss any trash, broken, or valueless items into the garbage bag. This being a bathroom, you’ll

  find lots of the following: dried strings of dental floss, crumpled tissues, grimy makeup applicators, dried-out bars of soap. Let dust be your guide: any bottle with a dusty coating goes straight to the trash! Ditto for broken items: combs with missing teeth, fraying toothbrushes, the perfume mister that’s missing the spray bulb. Out!

  3Organize

  Once the sink is cleared, organize the survivors

  in the cleared space. Shallow baskets, cosmetics

  organizer trays or bathroom totes bring order to

  countertops. Then move on to the rest of the room.

  4Put away

  When the timer bell rings, stop the session and

  put away the items in the Put Away box. Store

  the timer and boxes for the next STOP clutter session.

  Toss the garbage bag in the trash.

  after decluttering ▲

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  CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME

  The rules of

  bathroom

  storage

  Spartan or spacious, all bathrooms have one thing in common: there’s never enough storage space. Plumbing fixtures take center stage, leaving precious little room for lotions and potions. Factor in turf wars between family members competing for the same sink-and-mirror space, and you’ve got an organizational challenge.

  Bathrooms, like other activity-intensive rooms such as kitchens, Savings or safety?

  need a refined, systematic plan for storage. It’s not enough just Cutting bathroom clutter

  to stuff it all in there somewhere. Organize them according to the rules of bathroom storage, to make best use of that scarce domestic real estate.

  For many families, bathroom storage areas are a magpie’s nest of scent bottles, sample packets, and

  throwaway cosmetics—but given the high prices for

  health and beauty products, it’s hard to know when to 1”A” is for every day.

  Active, accessible, and meant for daily use—that’s

  the definition of “A” storage areas. In a bathroom, the keep, when to toss perfumes, cosmetics, or grooming

  “A” areas get the toothbrush and the hairdryer, the shampoo products. Keep more than money in mind when cutting

  bottle and the razor.

  bathroom clutter: using outdated or stale products can

  “A” storage areas should be user-friendly. They should be harmful to your health. To help cut ties to the

  welcome the groping hand with no hidden hazards, even before cosmetics pile-up, take to heart these issues of health the poor, blind shower-taker has inserted his or her contact and safety—and get decluttering!

  lenses or found his or her glasses. The vanity countertops, the

  ▪

  top drawer, a chrome mesh bucket, or hanging organizer in Perfume loses its potency after 3 years.

  ▪

  the shower area
are all “A” storage areas.

  Liquids can support bacterial growth. Liquid and cream foundations are fine to use for between 6 and

  12 months, then throw them away.

  ▪ Using stale eye-makeup or mascara can cause 2”B” is for occasional.

  Items that are used weekly to monthly should be given homes in the “B” storage areas. The box of nifty, pore-serious eye infections. Once opened, never keep mascara unclogging strips, the collection of hair scrunchies for exercise-for longer than 3 months. Liquid eyeliner lasts for about class ponytails, nail care equipment, and the battery-operated 6 months; powder eyeshadow is usually fine for between beard trimmer are all consigned to “B” areas.

  14 months and 2 years.

  ▪

  “B” areas aren’t so easy to reach. You’ll stretch or bend to Wax-based products such as lipstick and lip balm reach the middle drawer, the under-sink spaces, and the toilet-harden and crumble if kept too long. Throw them away top storage cupboard. “B” also stands for “box;” candidates after a year.

  for “B” storage can often be accommodated in labeled boxes underneath or behind their more popular “A” companions.

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  Hang lighted makeup mirrors in bedrooms belonging to teenage girls. Assigning each daughter her own makeup center 3”C” is for seldom.

  Storage areas that are designated “C”s are those that require excessive bending, stretching, or standing on reduces early-morning squabbling and frees up space in the tiptoe—and home to those items that are seldom used. They’re bathroom. Cosmetics benefit, too, because they stay fresh where you stash the gold-flecked makeup for fancy nights out, longer away from heat and steam.

  the foot-massage machine, and the upper-lip mustache wax Similarly, set up a health and first aid center in an accessible cooker. If you use an item less than once a month but more area away from the bathroom. Storing prescription medicines, than twice a year, it belongs in the lowly “C” category, so put over-the-counter remedies, and vitamins elsewhere also protects it where the sun doesn’t shine.

  them against the bathroom’s harmful heat and moisture.

  Consider relocating heating pads, hot water bottles, feminine Personal care centers

  hygiene products, and the first aid kit in a cool, dry storage One creative solution to bathroom gridlock is to create “centers”

  location outside the bathroom. Laundry, too, can be outsourced for personal care items that will make it easier to outsource in collection areas outside the bathroom. Dirty laundry can be bathroom storage. Assign each member of the family a different-collected in the laundry activity center ( see pages 140–141), or colored plastic organizer or basket to hold cosmetics and in individual hampers in family bedrooms.

  toiletries. Each person’s “center” should hold it all—their toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner, shower

  ▼ Shower tote. Sharing bathrooms comes more easily if the gel or soap, and any other essential or often-used products—

  room’s users don’t have to work around one another’s gear. Handled and be stored in that person’s bedroom when not in use.

  plastic baskets make it easy to tote personal-care products.

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  CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME

  Bathroom

  cleaning

  challenges

  Considering what we put them through each day, sinks, showers, tubs, and toilets deserve special cleaning attention. Thankfully, modern plumbing fixtures are designed to make the job of bathroom cleaning as easy as possible. Keep your bathroom fixtures bright with these cleaning tips.

  Sink

  mold, and mildew. Put the job off and deposits harden and From toothpaste dribbles to overspray from hair products, the ossify, and mildew and mold take up residence in dark corners.

  lowly sink endures a daily barrage of dirt and grime. Keep it Harness time and cleaning power to make short work of sparkling back at you with regular cleaning.

  cleaning the shower and tub.

  ▪ Spray and stand. Before cleaning the rest of the bathroom,

  “Put the job off and deposits

  spray the tub area with a generous layer of all-purpose bathroom cleaner, and allow the product to stand while you harden and ossify, and

  clean elsewhere. The standing time helps the cleanser to mildew and mold take up

  dissolve oils and soap scum, so you’ll need less elbow grease to remove it.

  residence in dark corners.”

  ▪ Get scrubbing. Use abrasive scrubbing pads to remove bathtub rings or deposits on shower floors.Tile brushes scrub

  ▪ Right for the job. Use all-purpose bathroom cleaner to tile grout and reach into cracks and corners, while the handle remove light soil and film. For more hardened deposits, abrasive protects knuckles from accidental contact with the tub. A or soft-scrub cleaners may be used: they will be easy to rinse cleaning toothbrush does a quick job of removing build-up from ceramic (vitreous china) surface. Cleaners formulated with deposits around tub fixtures or faucet.

  bleach will remove toothpaste dribbles and sanitize surfaces,

  ▪ Rinse clean. A detachable showerhead allows you to rinse too. Keep bathroom cleaning green by using homemade

  off cleaner quickly and cleanly. If you don’t have one, stock cleaners ( see page 54). They’ll make your bathroom sparkle your cleaning tote with a removable rubber showerhead that and shine without harsh chemicals—or a harsh price tag.

  attaches to the bathtub tap. Commonly used for shampooing

  ▪ On the edge. Clean the rim and fixtures with a disinfecting hair or bathing pets, they’re inexpensive and make it easier to spray glass cleaner or all-purpose bathroom cleaner. Buff fixtures rinse tub and shower walls after you clean.

  shiny and dry with a fresh cleaning cloth.

  Fiberglass showers and glass doors

  Shower and tub

  These surfaces need special treatment. Clean them with a non-Soap scum, bath oil, hair products, and body soil combine forces abrasive cleaner such as an all-purpose bathroom cleaner, pine to assault the shining surface of the shower and tub, while tub oil, or baking soda. Avoid abrasive cleansers or scrubbing pads rims, fixtures, and faucets provide hiding places for moisture, because they may scratch or dull the finish.

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  Cloudy glass shower doors may be cleaned with full-strength white vinegar or a commercial lime and scale remover. Use good ventilation and protect skin and clothing when using these products.

  Toilet

  Cleaning the toilet isn’t most people’s idea of a good time, but where would we be without it? I’ll tell you: back in the outhouse.

  Try these ideas to keep it clean and inviting:

  ▪ Take your time. Place granulated or liquid toilet bowl cleaner into the bowl, and let the cleaner go to work. Standing time is necessary to dissolve deposits and kill germs, so don’t cut the time short.

  ▪ Brush up. A good bowl brush is a must. If yours is flattened or mashed, replace it; you need those bristles bristling to do a good job. Curved bowl brushes reach up-and-under the toilet rim to scour away hidden deposits.

  ▪ Scrub up. If the toilet develops a stubborn ring that regular cleaning won’t cure, bring on the pumice stone! This natural stone is porous and crumbles. Rub the stone directly on the ring to remove the deposit.

  ▪ Disinfect. Use a disinfecting spray cleaner or all-purpose bathroom cleaner to spray toilet rims, seat and lid, tank and bowl exterior. Be sure to check the label for the recommended standing time; antibacterial cleaning products require a certain amount of wet exposure in order to kill germs. Wipe clean and dry with fresh cleaning cloths.

  ▪ Drips and dribbles. These are a predictable hazard in a home containing boys—of any age—and can cause odor

  problems and floor damage if urine is allowed to stand at the base of the toilet. Use disinfecting cleaner and the clean
ing toothbrush to rout out stray dribbles—or assign the job to the manly offenders.

  ▶ Fresh and frugal. Bathroom cleaning products need time to soften dried-on soil ( top). Allow them to stand for a few minutes before scrubbing to avoid over-applying.

  ▶ Dump the disposables. Disposable bathroom cleaning products are costlier than reusable cloths ( bottom). Take a pass on throwaway cleaners to save money—and the environment.

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  CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME

  Decluttering the

  linen

  closet

  What is the state of your linen closet?

  Is it crammed with clutter or neat and

  tidy? While it’s tempting to use linen

  storage areas as a stash-all for homeless

  items, resist the temptation!

  Tossing broken appliances, seasonal decor items, or everyday clutter among the sheets and towels in the linen closet can introduce unwelcome dirt, insects, and odors into the family’s linens. An organized linen closet extends the life of expensive bedding and towels. Properly folded and stored, linens are protected and ready for use—and far less likely to be appropriated for misadventures, such as washing the car or wiping down a muddy pet. Most of all, an organized linen closet is a delight for the eye—and for the nose! Honor your family’s linens with a proper place to live.

  Attention panic clutter

  Cluttered linen closets can be found in the tidiest homes. Why?

  They’re the natural place to store panic clutter. “Panic clutter”

  is born when the doorbell rings unexpectedly. Fearing drop-in guests, family members sweep up out-of-place items and look wildly for a door, any door that will shut them away from view.

  Enter the linen closet—the storage area most accessible and most amenable to depositing panic clutter.

  As a result, expect that STOP clutter sessions in the linen closet will require about twice the normal time for the “put-away” step. You’ll also find many more storage items than you would expect. Swept up into the linen closet, lost items find snug hiding spots among the jumbled towels.