Home Organizational Favorites
Do you ever feel like you're drowning in clutter and chaos in your home? You're not alone, I am/was 100% the same way. I knew that I needed to find a few solutions for things around our house or I just might loose it. With busy schedules and never-ending to-do lists, it is easy for us to let different spaces in our house become disorganized and overwhelming. I wanted to share some of our top home organization favorites that are guaranteed to bring organization to your things because they did that for us! I found some clever storage solutions to share with you guys as well as some of the organization favorites that I see raved about that really just don’t work for us in our home. Whether you’re looking to organize one space in one room, or all of the spaces in all of the rooms, there is definitely something for everyone in this blog post!
A few of the things we use
Lazy Susans - I think I probably have about 10 of these total in my house and I use them for a lot of different things. We have a few in the pantry for things like oils and extra sauces, we use one in the fridge for condiments, one in the spice cabinet for extra spices… A few in the bathroom, I have one that acts as our medicine cabinet and then two that hold like hair products, lotions and other things like that. Lastly, when people are coming to stay with us they usually bring sunscreen and then when it comes time to leave they have shopped and sunscreen is the first thing that they decide to leave here so in the guest suite bathroom I have one that holds all of that sunscreen! Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, we never have to buy sunscreen haha we just have so much of it that it needed its own container!
Jewelry holders - this seems pretty straightforward, I have a jewelry organizer that holds all my earrings rings and some of my bracelets, which is a clear acrylic organizer. And then I also have a tall stand that holds my necklaces and the other half of my bracelets. Both come in handy! The only downside that I can think of for these two items is, if you don’t have a space to put them, they can take up a lot of room, but at the same time when you have a lot of jewelry, you need it to be contained to one area so it’s, sort of a win-win because they are cute and functional.
Simple Bins - We have these simple bins in so many areas of our house. They are in the fridge, pantry, bathrooms, my office, in the dog cabinet, under the sink… They are so versatile and so easy to clean! Plus the clear acrylic makes it the easiest to see what is inside!
Pantry items - as I mentioned before in our pantry, we have a ton of organizational items. I utilize Lazy Susan‘s, risers for cans, bins for things like chips and crackers, and individual packed items! I also have clear wire bins that I got from target that I grouped together dinner items like pesto packets, rice, and small boxes that I like to keep together in one area. I also have the white basket/bins from target that hold lunch items, breads, and tortillas! There is a huge variety of organizers that I have in the snack section because I am a very visual person and like to see what I have otherwise I will forget that it’s in there and it won’t get eaten and these are just a collection of things that bought over the years from either Amazon or HomeGoods or target just depending on where I was when I needed it! With every pantry being different sizes and measurements it is hard to say that one bin will work better over another because pantries aren’t a one size fits all type of thing these are just what we use!
Five items that I don’t think you need
Shampoo bottles - I got decorative shampoo and conditioner. bottles for our guest suite bathroom, right when we moved into our house and since then our style has changed, so if you are looking for decorative shampoo and conditioner bottles I would suggest getting some that are clear so you can see what’s in them and how much product is left. It sucks when your guests come out and say that they need shampoo or conditioner! But at the same time, I think our bathroom would look just as fine without the decorative shampoo and conditioner bottles in the shower!
The large bins that we use for hair tools.. when I first bought these larger bins, I had in my mind that I was going to use them for towels or hair tools and I ended up using them for hair tools… But in my mind there’s got to be something better I wish I would’ve thought twice about the fact that they stack rather than pull out. It’s a pain in the butt to have to pull the whole container out to get to what I need if I have the two bins stacked on top of each other.
The spice jars.. I think this is another thing that I bought when it was trendy and just bought the first ones that I saw. The jars that I got work just fine fine but the labels aren’t really our style anymore and well yes it looks nice. It is more difficult to maintain/clean out/keep them looking nice! I will say the one thing I do like about the ones we got was they have the part that controls how much comes out at once which is nice! Again, you don’t need them, they are nice to look at, but just know they have some upkeep if you want to have them! We do still use ours and we won’t be getting rid of them, but I might have thought twice about what I wanted them to look like in the long run before purchasing the ones we got.
Lipstick holders… this is another thing that I definitely own and have and use for lipstick, but I feel like they take up a lot of unstackable space! There’s no way to store them efficiently, they have to be sitting on top of something that doesn’t need to open for easy access. In my mind there has to be another solution for storing lipsticks! Let me know if you have any ideas!
The bottles for coffee syrups.. Honestly, I will say that they are pretty and I like the way that they look but they are too small and you end up still keeping the original bottle that the syrup came in because it doesn’t all fit. Again, it’s some thing that is a lot of hassle for really no reward. Another thing, they are/can be just gross to deal with.. I would skip these and either not use them at all or find a better solution altogether! We don’t use ours at all anymore.
Jars with wooden lids. This is probably the item that I most regret buying organizational wise… What a waste. I originally bought them to have sprinkles stored in them, but since buying them, I no longer use them for that purpose. I still have them but now I use them for other things like my TBR jar of book that I want to read in my office… I’ve used them on our hot cocoa bar in the winter and I’ve thought about putting my seed beads in them as well but as for sprinkles, I don’t think they are a good solution.
Honestly that was so much information and I feel like especially in my case my house is such a reflection of how I am doing mentally so when there are things everywhere and nothing has a place feel out of order/organized in my mind as well. This might sound silly but when my house is organized, I feel more organized! I definitely think that incorporating some of these home organization storage solutions into our home made it so we can have more ease in our daily routines. I also think that this list is sort of ever-changing as I find new organizational solutions for our home and realize which ones don’t work as well for us, and I will share those with you in the future as I find them. What are your favorite storage organizational hacks that you use in your house? Do you use any of these ones that I mentioned? As always I am here for questions… You can leave those below or email me at hello@emmatarynjones.com and I will respond to you ASAP!