top of page
Search

Where Do I Start?

Writer's picture: McKenzie PerkinsMcKenzie Perkins

Where Do I Start?


So you just finished binge-watching The Home Edit and your ready to "rainbow order" your entire house. After getting off the couch and doing a quick glance of your house, you're instantly overwhelmed. Where do I start? How do I start?? What do I need to get started???
Lets take this one step at a time.

Step 1:

Making Goals


Are you wanting to organize the whole kitchen, or just the pantry. Do you want an aesthetically pleasing laundry room or do you just want it to be more functional? Maybe you're really brave and want to do your entire house! Once you decide what your goal/project is, it's time for step 2.

Step 2:

Declutter, Empty, Clean


The first step to organizing is cleaning, decluttering, and emptying your space. This step is important for a few reasons. First, it will be so much easier for you to organize when you're only working with necessities. The less stuff you have, the more aesthetic the space will turn out. It might be obvious, but cleaning is essential to the process by making your organizing more efficient. I recommend cleaning after you have decluttered or emptied the space because it gives you a great excuse to clean those spaces that are usually covered up. If you're redoing your pantry, take this opportunity to dust the shelves. If you're organizing you closet, now is a good time to do some laundry. To sum it up, you have to clean and declutter if you want to achieve "The Home Edit" minimalist aesthetic.

Step 3:

Accessing the situation


Looking at your empty space, it's time to decide what you need and which items do or don't belong in this space. When looking at your stuff outside of its old "home", you should see some obvious categories. Let's say you are organizing your kitchen cabinets, there will be several categories of things that you'll be able to easily group together. Utensils, dish wear, kitchen tools, pots, pans, baking supplies, tubberware, the list goes on. This is also a good time to double check for duplicates, too many of one thing and things that need to be replaced. There will be some items that are harder to put in a category. For example, should your Christmas dishes be stored with off-season dishes or with your Christmas decor in the garage? Those decisions are up to you and your space. If you've got a higher shelf in the kitchen to dedicate seasonal items to then that's great! Maybe you know it will be easier for you to remember where you put them if they're with the other Christmas things. Take some time to think about these things instead of impulsively shoving them into a spot they'll be left and forgotten.

Step 4:

Maximize Your Space


Step 3 was important because it will make step 4 a whole lot easier. Once you know your categories and what items are staying/leaving the kitchen, it's time to maximize your space. Let's stick with the kitchen example for this part. Take account for all of the cabinets, drawers, and under-the-sink space you are able to use. Knowing what makes the most sense for you, start to assign items to a shelf, drawer, etc. If you've got more room left, start sub-categorizing things (kids utensils and adult utensils, baking tools and cooking tools, breakfast appliances and grilling appliances). If you feel like you're running out of space, double up categories that make sense togethers (tubber ware and bakeware, trash bags and paper products, vitamins and protein powder). Once you've got an idea of what goes where, it's time to move on to the fun part.

Step 5:

Making It Pretty AND Functional


Now it's time to make your space feel like a magazine. At this point, you should have a good estimate of how many and what kind of organizers you need. During this step, a lot of clients with get so focused on making their space pretty that they forget to make it functional. Yes, it's very cute to have 10 pieces of clothing hung and spaced perfectly in your closet, but is it realistic to put the rest of your wardrobe in drawers? If you can't stand folding laundry, let's figure out a way to hang your clothes! You can't see yourself unboxing and restocking your groceries into containers every week? Bins will work great for you! Remember that most of the social media posts and Pinterest images of organized spaces are staged perfectly for pictures or have just been freshly organized. Once the space is lived in, it may not be so picture perfect. It's so important to make things functional as it will save you a lot of hassle later. There are so many options of organizers now a days that it's almost impossible to not find something that works perfectly for you.

Step 6:

Tetris


Step 6. You'll either love it or hate it. It's time to play Tetris.
So you've got all of your things categorized and have all the organizers you'll need. Now it's time to find a way to store everything in your space so it will be visible, functional, attainable and of course, pretty. This will take a lot of switching and swapping until you find the perfect match. Try reaching for something on a higher shelf and see if you can grab it ok (btw, heavy stuff should always stay low). Bend down to grab your toaster and ask yourself if that is reasonable to do every morning. Everyone will have different preferences so it really takes some trial and error to get it right. I've had clients wanting to store infrequently used things deep into high shelves. I've also had clients want to be able to see everything, no matter the frequency of use. As the space gets used in coming weeks, you will likely end up switching things around as well. That's ok! If you're over your sweets phase and more into salty switch the Oreos with the chips. It's ok for something to find a new place if its for the sake of functionality.

Step 7:

Label it!!!


Last but definitely not least, label it. Especially if you are living with anyone else! This will make it easier for everyone to be on the same page as where things should go. There is no excuse for putting something back in the wrong place when everything is clearly labels. I highly recommend chalk labels because the chalk can easily be wiped away with water and you can easily write something new for the inevitable changes over time. Bin clips are also great for fabric bins, they usually come with multiple pieces of paper that just slide into the clip. If you're really feeling fancy you can create your own labels using a Circuit to chose your own colors, fonts and more. For playrooms and kids rooms, I like to print out labels with pictures, laminate them and place them in a bin clip. Another quick and easy way is a label maker, you will have little to no choice of font, size or color but you'll have labels and that's all that matters. And of course you could always buy some blank label stickers, grab a marker and slap it onto the bin. It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you get it done. Your work won't last nearly as long without them.
Hopefully this gave you the confidence to get started on the space that has been bugging you. Follow these easy steps to success on any space you need organized. Remember that sometimes your space just won't look like your Pinterest board and that's ok! Functionality over aesthetic is what makes a space stay pretty, longer. For more tips and tricks be sure to follow my instagram: @inplaceorganization and check out my posts for some organization inspiration. Time to get things in place!

14 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


Post: Blog2_Post
  • Etsy
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • TikTok

©2022 by McKenzie Perks. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page