25 Home Organizing Hacks You Need to Try Today
These clever tricks will introduce order to the most cluttered spots in your home.
Lazy Fix for a Disorganized Fridge
Digging to the back of your fridge to find a certain ingredient is a pain. Instead, use a Lazy Susan to bring that food to you! Simply place a Lazy Susan on a shelf in your fridge and stock it with condiments and other small containers. Nothing could be easier than spinning your ingredients around to find just what you need.
No Lazy Susan? No problem! Here’s how to make your own using a few ordinary household items:
Organize Your Fridge with a Six-Pack
Do all of your small bottles in the refrigerator door like to tip over after opening or closing the door? Fortunately, the answer to tidying those wayward bottles is just a recycling bin away.
Here’s how to organize your fridge if you want your food to last.
Tension Rod Storage Hack
To keep your cleaning supplies upright, hang them from a short tension rod inside your cabinet. Another clever idea is to slide a paper towel roll through the tension rod for easy access. This tension rod organization hack is also a great place to hang dish-drying towels and rubber cleaning gloves.
Make sure you avoid these common kitchen organizing mistakes.
Pretty and Practical
You can easily organize your dry goods by storing them inside jars and canisters. Not only can you create uniformity in your pantry storage this way, but you can also see at a glance where your lentils, rice, or oats are stashed. Arranging these jars on display on open shelves can also give your kitchen a rustic, homestead-chic look.
Find out how to organize your pantry like a pro.
DIY Coffee Pod Organizer
Coffee pods can be a disaster to keep organized. But this simple home improvement project uses t-molding as an ideal organization system for your coffee pods (Keurig, Nespresso or any other type of coffee pod).
Easy Drawer Organizer
My kitchen drawers used to be an absolute wreck; pans and dishes crammed in however they’d fit. And nearly every time I needed something, it was always at the bottom of the drawer. My solution was to cut a piece of 1/8-in. pegboard to the size of the drawer bottom and attach dowels using screws from underneath. Now my pans are organized and easy to access. The 10 minutes it took to build was easily made up for with how much frustration it has saved me. – Tom Smith
Garage Ceiling Track Storage
Get those big plastic storage bins up off the garage floor and onto the ceiling! Screw 2x2s to the ceiling framing with 3-1/2-in. screws spaced every 2 ft. Use the bins as a guide for spacing the 2x2s. The lips on the bins should just brush against the 2x2s when you’re sliding the bins into place. Then centre and screw 1x4s to the 2x2s with 2-in. screws. The garage ceiling is a perfect place to store light and medium weight seasonal items like holiday decorations and camping gear.
Make sure you never store this in your garage.
All-in-One Ball Storage
I built this sports storage rack to hold a lot of equipment. We toss large balls into a round hole at the top, and bungee cords span the front to keep them from falling out. Two baskets on the bottom half of the rack hold baseballs, hockey pucks and more. And the storage hooks on the side of the rack hold our baseball bats and hockey sticks. —Tim Hausman
Discover more small space storage hacks.
Kitchen Storage: Better in a Basket
You come home from the grocery store with an armful of fresh fruit, but lo and behold—there’s no spare fridge or counter space available. A stylish solution for this storage problem is to hang a single or tiered wire basket from the ceiling. You can store your apples, bananas, and oranges as well as potatoes, onions, and garlic here. Plus, a hanging basket adds visual interest to your kitchen.
Find out which fresh foods you should never store together.
Make a Shoe Rack with Modern Style
DIY a trendy, modern ladder shelf for your entryway with just $35 worth of supplies and only two tools! You can use the shelf for other things, but it makes a great shoe rack You can follow our guide that shows measurements that can be customized to fit your space.
Clothing Storage Solutions: DIY Tiered Hangers
Short on closet space? Use a lightweight piece of chain to stagger hanging clothing in tall closets to maximize space. Just loop the first link of the chain over the first hanger, and hang subsequent hangers on every other links after. Hang up to six shirts for the rod space of one.
Here are 30 things you can organize in 30 minutes (or less).
Toe-Kick Drawers
Another concealed storage spot that’s often overlooked is the area beneath the base cabinets. It’s surprisingly easy to install shallow toe-kick drawers that are ideal for storing items like bakeware, pet bowls, or cleaning supplies. It’s best to build the drawers in your workshop and then install them under the cabinets.
Wine Box Shoe Storage
Why pay for a fancy compartment-style shoe storage container when you can just pick one up for free at almost any store that sells wine? Designed to protect fragile glass bottles, a wine box is perfect for storing footwear because it comes equipped with cardboard dividers—a place for each shoe! In addition, the exterior cardboard is very sturdy, again to keep wine bottles from breaking, but also great for protecting your kicks in storage!
You could get fancy, too, and paint or cover the exterior of the wine box with decorative wrapping paper if you plan to keep it in your closet or entryway.
Check out the most inspiring home organizing shows on Netflix right now.
Under-Joist Shelf
The unused space between overhead joists in a basement or garage is a brilliant place to install a heavy-duty wire shelf. The wire shelving is see-through, so you can easily tell what’s up there. Store outdoor sports equipment, tackle boxes, coolers and other less-frequently used items out of the way yet still easily accessible.
Here are more smart DIY storage ideas to make your garage work harder.
DIY Belt Caddy
Where do you store your belts? How about on this inexpensive and easy-to-make belt holder? All you need is a wooden hanger and some cup hooks. If some of your belts have unusually thick buckles, just widen the cup hook slightly with a needle-nose pliers. This is a great way to hang small handbags, too.
Plastic Bag Holder
An empty rectangular tissue box makes a convenient holder for small garbage bags, plastic grocery bags and small rags. Simply thumbtack it to the inside of a cabinet door.
Discover 20 secrets professional organizers don’t want you to know.
Hot Glue Gun Uses: Magnets in the Medicine Cabinet
Reader David Farrand has a great solution for organizing small metal items such as tweezers, nail clippers and more in the bathroom: hang them on magnets inside a cabinet. If your cabinet does not have a metal surface, attach the magnets with hot glue—one magnet for each metal tool.
Check out these quick home repairs you can do in 10 minutes (or less).
Garage Door Extension Cord Storage
Ever wish you had one more garage wall to hang stuff on? Well, you do. Your garage door is a perfect place for extension cord storage. (Yes, they’ll stay put when the door opens and closes.) Install screw eyes diagonally about 8 in. apart and thread bungee cords (with the ends cut off) through them for perfect extension cord storage.
Here are 10 things people with organized garages have in common.
Behind the Door Storage: Charger and Cord Pockets
Do you get tired of rummaging through drawers and boxes trying to find the right cords and chargers for all of your electronic gadgets? One solution is to use a clear vinyl over-the-door shoe organizer. Make labels for each pocket and put every item in its own spot. Now you can find everything you need without getting frustrated.
Find out how to organize your nightstand (and why you should).
Bread Tabs for Labelling Cords
Not sure which cord goes with which electronic device plugged into your power strip? Save yourself the hassle of following the cord from the plugin to the device for each item you need to move by labelling them.
Plastic bread tabs are perfect for labelling cords that are plugged into a power strip because they’re sturdy, have enough room to write on and can easily clip around the plugin end of a cord. Plus, they often come in different colours. You can also use bread tabs to label identical toothbrushes in the bathroom, silverware at a party and even wine glasses at happy hour. So save those tabs when you buy a loaf of bread!
Interesting in turning more trash into treasure? Check out 50 things to repurpose all around the house.
PVC Curling Iron Holsters
Hate the messy look of curling irons lying on the vanity or the toilet tank? Here’s a tip for you. Use hook-and-loop tape to attach 5-in. lengths of 2-in. PVC pipe to the vanity door to hold the curling irons. Do the same thing with 3-in. pieces of 1-1/2-in.-diameter pipe to hold the cords. Just measure your curling irons to see how long your “holsters” need to be. Let your curling irons cool before you stow them away.
Discover more dollar store solutions for common household dilemmas.
Skinny Laundry Room Cart
A lot of laundry rooms have a narrow wasted space either next to or between the washing machine and dryer, and it’s usually a hideout for socks and lint. To take advantage of this space, build a simple plywood laundry room cart on fixed casters to hold detergents and other laundry supplies.
Discover more laundry hacks you’ll wish you’d known sooner.
Expand the Counter with a Kitchen Cart
A rolling kitchen cart is the next best thing to adding cabinets and countertop space. The top provides extra work space when you’re preparing that big Thanksgiving dinner. And the shelves below hold items that would otherwise consume countertop space. If you plan to use a cart for food preparation, choose one with a tough top like butcher block, stainless steel or plastic laminate. Some cart tops are glossy finished wood—beautiful, but not very durable. Carts come in a variety of wood finishes, so there’s a good chance you can match your existing cabinets. Or you can go for an eclectic look with a shiny metal or painted cart.
Find out 20 home organizing mistakes you’re probably making (and how to avoid them).
Under-Cabinet Knife Storage Racks
Pull-down racks give you instant access to kitchen essentials without the clutter of spice racks or knife holders. When the cooking is done, the rack swings up against the underside of the cabinet. The acrylic knife rack like the one shown here, or buy a pair of hinges only and make your own wooden rack to hold knives, spices or other small items that take up counter space.
Check out more clever kitchen organizing ideas.
Off-the-Counter Microwave
Tuck the microwave under your cabinets to get it off the counter. Microwave ovens are the biggest space hogs on most countertops. With a few models, manufacturers offer optional mounting kits that let you mount the microwave under cabinets. To raise your old microwave, consider the sturdy brackets shown here. But first measure its height and the height of the space above the countertop; with a larger microwave, you might find that the space under it will be too small to be useful.
Next, discover 40 home organizing hacks to declutter every room.
