Get in the Zone

Situate your space and your stuff on paper before lugging it around on the concrete. Map out your garage and divide it by zones: indoor-outdoor transition, household overflow, large/long/long term, everyday yard gear; and hobbies. Let the map be your guide as you sort and assign your stuff.

Admit it’s an Entryway

Saddled with groceries, you stop in the garage and juggle keys, coffee, cell phone and more. For your kids, your spouse, and – let’s be honest – a handful of friends, this is the primary entry to your home. Ease the transition with surfaces for setting and hooks for hanging. Consider lockers or storage benches for backpacks, shoes and boots, and a rug or scraper to cut the dirt or snow tracked inside. If your garage is an extension of your kitchen, designate a spot for supplies like soda pop or paper towels.

Use the space you’ve created in your garage to host a tag sale, donating anything of value that doesn’t sell. Proceeds can fund a favorite charity or a future family vacation. Enlist your kids to spread the word with neighbors who might like to hold their own sales on the same day.

Find Your Station

Sports enthusiast? Garden grower? Grease monkey? If space allows, station a hobby center directly opposite the large garage door: Include a well-lit work surface so you can see what’s at hand. Keep it clear by storing small tools and supplies on the slatted walls that allow you to clip and endlessly rearrange an assortment of hooks, racks and baskets – whether you need to gather golf gloves, pressure gauges or pruning shears.

Above the Rest

The minute anything but your tires hits the garage floor; it’s the beginning of the end for your organization aspirations. You can mount heaps of things to the walls to spare your floor from pileups and make cleanup easy. Tug on wall systems to make sure they’re stable; If it’s not tight, it’s not right.

Layer by Hazard and Height

Store children’s items close to the ground, with things you’ll need to share at mid-level. Stow “adult” items – chemicals, breakables, or sharp tools – overhead and behind lockable cabinet doors if necessary.

Take Sides

Hook or hang awkward seasonal tools – snow shovels, leaf rakes, folding chairs – on the walls nearest the garage door to lessen the likelihood that you’ll ding your cars by dragging things along the length of your stalls.

Lighten Up

No one wants to spend time in a dim garage with hidden hazards. Shed a little (or a lot of) light on the issue. Install long-lasting, energy-efficient bulbs overhead and clip or hook mobile task lights in places where you’re most likely to need them. Multiply the effect by coating your ceiling with light, reflective paint.

Mobilize Your Masses

You’ll only get so far sorting everyone’s stuff by yourself. Dedicate a day of family garage-keeping complete with pre-planning and recreation. Purchase organizers and cleanup supplies ahead of time. Define the project’s time and punctuate with snacks. Park curbside so you can move all garage contents to the driveway to conquer clutter by category. Assign an older child to burn a “garage grooves” soundtrack with pace-setting family favorites. Appoint a project photographer to capture before, after and candid shots.

Ever wish you could spend less time doing laundry? With a few strategic updates to the layout of your laundry room, you can make every step from sorting to folding and hanging faster and easier. By designating space for each activity and all the supplies you need to store, you can transform your laundry room into a tidy, attractive area that makes keeping up with this ongoing task feel more enjoyable and less like a chore.

1. Sort Your Supplies

The first step to organizing your laundry room is deciding what belongs there. Organize laundry cleaners such as detergents, stain removers, and fabric softeners and place them on open shelves near the washing machine for quick access. Household cleaners and supplies can be stored in cabinets behind closed doors, maintaining a clean and organized appearance. If you have the available storage space, you might also keep an ironing board, extra towels or linens in your laundry room.

2. Expand Your Space

It’s amazing how much more room you can find when you take advantage of vertical space. Adding a custom organization system with cabinets, shelves, hampers, and baskets can dramatically increase your storage capacity, letting you store supplies within arm’s reach while keeping them tidy behind closed doors.

3. Tame the Laundry Pile

Prep dirty laundry for washing by using deep pull-out laundry hampers to organize darks, lights, and delicates as they come into the laundry room. When one of the hampers gets full, just remove the basket and tip it into the washing machine.

4. Make Your Ironing Board Disappear

Instead of a bulky, full-size ironing board, try a space-saving fold-out board that’s easy to stow off the floor and out of sight when not in use. And it’s not just for the laundry room. This compact board offers convenient ironing in your bedroom when you add it to an ORG Home closet organizer. You can also use a hook to hang your full-sized board flush against a wall when it’s folded.

5. Create a Place to Hang Out

Once clothes come out of the wash, built-in hanging rods make it simple to air-dry delicates. Consider adding a slide-out valet rod to hold freshly dried or ironed clothes on their way back to your closet

6. Claim Your Workspace

Scrubbing stains or folding clothes on the surface of your dryer can be awkward and cramped. Instead, treat yourself to an open countertop where you have plenty of room to work.

Yes, laundry is never-ending, but an organized and efficient laundry room can work wonders when it comes to making this chore more enjoyable!

Whether you’re hosting a dinner party or just preparing your daily meals, a built-in butler’s pantry can transform simple storage into a space that streamlines your tasks, shows off your style, and lets you entertain graciously. Here are a few pro tips to consider when planning your home pantry.

Frame your favorites.

An open pantry is an ideal place to show off your favorite dishes, beverages, and cooking tools. Use the colors, forms, and textures of your supplies to become part of your décor, and consider a white or neutral color to make whatever you’re showcasing “pop.”

Serve it up.

A built-in wine and stemware rack keeps supplies close at hand so you’re always ready to raise a toast. Add an open countertop where you can invite guests in to chat (and admire your pantry) as you prepare their beverages.

Divide and conquer.

Instead of storing decorative trays and cutting boards in a drawer, use vertical dividers to keep them upright, organized, and easy to see every time you walk by.

Clear the counters.

Keep your specialty tools close at hand without cutting into your prep space. Deep pull-out drawers can hold small appliances like blenders and mixers when not in use, so your countertops stay open and uncluttered.

Pick your favorite.

Consider pull-out wire baskets for storing produce. Their full-extension glides make it easy to grab a snack or restock, and the see-through design shows off the seasonal colors.

Keep it clean.

Tuck mops, brooms, and other cleaning supplies into a tall cabinet within your pantry. They’ll be hidden from sight but easy to reach when you need a quick clean-up.

A home pantry can be so much more than a place to store your food. Beautifully designed storage solutions can make your home elegant, efficient—and always ready to entertain!

Take Baby Steps

When it’s time to de-clutter and clean, approach the child’s room like any other. Take baby steps and do one thing at a time. First, skim away trash. Then, hamper dirty laundry. Move on to big stuff and fill in with parts and pieces. You don’t have to be the cleaning fairy, magically whisking it all away. With your child in the room, walk through the baby steps out loud to demystify the process and invite junior to get involved.

Lower the Bar

Try a walk around the room on your knees (or better yet, enlist your 12-year old). From this perspective, you’ll soon find out what’s hard to reach. Make it easy for your kids to pick up after playtime or hang up a sweater by lowering hooks, bars and shelves. Stepstools can help, but for safety and ease, lower is better. Consider doubling up on clothing bars-one low and within your child’s reach, the other higher for special clothes requiring your help.

A well-organized space saves you time, money and stress. It can also provide the perfect opportunity to teach about giving and sharing. As you organize, invite your child to think about which toys are favorites—and which could be given away to become the favorites of a little boy or girl who has less.

Keep it Safe

Children (and sleep-deprived adults) are prone to bumping into things and grabbing onto anything nearby for balance or support. Stabilize structures that toddlers may topple. Remove their temptation to reach higher than they should by keeping off-limit items child-locked or out of sight. Choose ouch-free organizers with rounded edges.

Eliminate Monster Hiding Places

Do monsters lurk beneath the beds? You can scare them away permanently by packing their habitat with baskets or bins containing seldom-used toys, or off-season outfits. If your floors are hardwood or laminate, consider storage on casters for easy sliding. No more room for monsters-or clutter.

Label and Teach

Show your kids where things are supposed to go with picture and word labels. Books. Blocks. Pants. Pajamas. While you build good habits, you can help kids make meaningful connections between words, illustrations and actual objects.

Express Without Mess

Designate shelves, tack boards or other special areas for artistic display-giving your child an outlet for personal expression and a sense of responsibility for the room. As they get older, your child may use these spaces to display trophies, aced report cards, or other items of inspiration.

Gather and Show

Tired of your child emptying out the dumpster-sized toy chest? Try providing smaller boxes, bins and baskets in easy-to-access places. In these, you can round up smaller toys, parts and pieces. Choose clear or coated wire containers to store a variety of unrelated toys-allowing tots to see what’s inside before overturning.

Avoid Sticky Situations

Despite your best-laid plans, jelly, crayon or gum will inevitably enter the picture. Choose surfaces that wipe clean and resist stains.

There may be room for that special someone in your heart. But how about in your closet? Sharing a space with your partner can be a challenge, but if you follow a few simple steps, you’ll find there’s more to love for both of you.

See what each of you brings to the relationship.

Take an honest look at each of your wardrobes and how much space you need to accommodate them. Consider how much space each of you needs for shoes, folded clothes, and hanging garments such as shirts, slacks, suits and dresses. This is an ideal time to pare things down. Keep what you love and donate the rest.

Divide and conquer.

Once you’ve decided how much space each of you needs, split the closet into two sections. A central tower of drawers or a hutch creates an attractive focal point and provides a dividing line that clearly marks off space for each of you.

Make room for your favorites.

Plan space in the middle of your closet for the clothes you wear most often, using double hanging rods to accommodate all of your everyday clothes without crowding. Add pull-out belt or tie racks or a valet rod to hold clothes while you plan your outfits.

Keep track of the little things.

Next to your everyday clothes, include drawers that act as a built-in dresser in your closet to hold undergarments, socks, and folded items. You can also add a jewelry tray to keep watches and precious jewelry organized.

Help out with the chores.

A fold-down ironing board makes last-minute touchups quick and convenient, and see-through wire baskets help you find items quickly. A pull-out hamper keeps worn clothes out of the way until you’re ready to carry it down to the laundry room.

Don’t forget the shoes!

Slanted shelves keep your entire collection on view so you can match them to your outfit. Using adjustable shoe shelves allows you to leave more space for any tall boots in your collection.

A master closet is more than just a place to hang your clothes. Taking time to organize the place where you and your partner start and end each day can bring harmony to your home and your relationship.