When organizing a living room, kitchen, or bedroom, you’ll likely come across tidying trends that may seem easy to maintain. Not all ideas are worth pursuing entirely, though. Here’s what experts urge you to do when cleaning your home.
Organizational jobs to avoid – according to professionals
Storage and sorting cubes by color may have organizational habits for years, but their time may be limited. Here’s what the pros avoid when creating a seamless space.
1. Get rid of the folding method
(Image credit: Nordic House Axel wooden rail)
Declutter Hub’s Ingrid Jansen and Leslie Spellman say: (Opens in a new tab). When considering closet organization ideas, experts urge you to steer clear of folding and opt for hanging all clothes, as long as you have rails.
Don’t worry about standards. If you have the space to hang your gym clothes and allow your things to be more visible and accessible, go for it.
2. Avoid plastic wallets
(Image credit: Future/Spike Powell)
You’d be forgiven for using plastic wallets when organizing a home office. This “essential” has had a place in offices for decades, and although it looks small, it’s impressive. However, Ingrid and Leslie warn that they are all influential mistake Reasons.
They say “if you want to file your papers, don’t separate every paper in a three sided plastic wallet”. (They) put up a barrier to getting the job done and mean that the paperwork will be left incomplete. For systems to make sense, they need to be simple.
3. Revisit the casting
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Casting is the pinnacle of all pantry ideas; However, while this act may seem aesthetic, experts warn that it can be difficult to maintain.
“Think of the effort it takes to keep up with the system,” Ingrid Woleslie says. To maintain a system like this, you need to be very organized. And all the overflow containers you need when they don’t fit a food package resulting in food waste and/or system overflow.
4. Choose the cube alternatives
(Image credit: Alex James)
‘There’s been a long trend of putting items away in big cubes,’ says Kirsten Fisher, CPO at the Imagine Home Organization, ‘however, this was never a system I’d recommend. (Opens in a new tab). “This is because most of the elements are out of sight and out of mind.”
The expert explains that items placed in a large cube get lost and buried under more stuff – never to be seen again. Instead, she recommends using clear containers where you can keep track of what you have. “Containers should be sized appropriately for individual categories so that you don’t put so much in one place that it becomes difficult to find and put away.”
5. Interrupt color coordination
(Image credit: Future/Brent Darby)
While sorting by color always makes sense in your closet, Kirsten warns that it’s less effective outside of the bedroom. “Sort by color in other areas like the pantry or bookshelf might look nice but it’s not very practical,” she says. “When was the last time you looked for a snack because it was wrapped in purple?”
So, when it comes to organizing a kitchen, living room, or entryway, it’s best to avoid a color-coordinated scheme—to preserve a space that won’t look disorganized if a colorful element is left out of place.
