A living room has many functions. For most, it’s a space where you can relax, eat, entertain, and even exercise. Since the living room has so many purposes, it makes sense for it to become a catch-all room, and it can easily get overcrowded with clutter. Instead of allowing the clutter to continue, it’s time to get organized. Below, you’ll find some tips on how to effectively organize your living room.
And here’s the best part: These tips can help you organize everything in an hour or less!
1. Get Your Boxes and Bags Ready
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Since you only have an hour to clean, it’s best to set yourself up for success ahead of time. You can do this by gathering your tools beforehand.
Here’s what you need:
- One bag for garbage
- One box for donations
- One box to carry things to another room
As you clean, you’ll toss items into each of your containers. Anything that doesn’t belong in the living room should go into one of them. Now it’s time to hit the ground running!
2. Clear the Invaders
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Invaders are items that don’t belong in your living room. They are contributing to the disaster that is taking over the interior. Anything that doesn’t belong should be quickly exterminated! To get rid of the invaders, grab a container or basket, and walk around the room. Find the out-of-place items, toss them into the appropriate box, and return them when you’re done the cleaning.
For example, If you have any books on the floor, but don’t have a bookshelf in your living room, toss them in the box. Once you’re done organizing, bring the box to your bedroom or home office and stack your books neatly on the shelf. There might be some invaders that do belong in the living room but ended up on the floor. In my house, for instance, couch pillows always seem to end up on the living room floor. If you have the same problem, start your cleaning project by picking up the pillows and organizing them on the couch.
Finally, you’ll bring the order to the room again!
3. Work on “Facing” Your Living Room
source: homezonefurniture.com
Straightening things up may seem like an obvious thing to do. But oftentimes, we get so distracted by the mess that we don’t know how to do it. A simple way to straighten things up is by “facing” everything. If you’re wondering what this word means, it’s retail terminology. Essentially, it’s a fancy word for making things look good. In stores, retailers work to display their products all the same way. So as they’re straightening up, they’ll pull all of the shirts to the front of the rack. They also make sure that all the shirt labels are showing in front. When you’re facing your living room, you can do the same. Line the pillows up on the sofa. Blankets can stack on top of one another on the footstool. You get the idea. By simply arranging everything in a pleasing way, you can start to transform your living room.
4. Add a Clutter-Catcher
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If your living room is so far gone that it’s hard to see an end in sight, call in the troops! In this case, your troop is a clutter-catcher. A clutter-catcher can be a basket, a bin, or any type of container you want. You don’t have to go out and buy anything; a plastic trash barrel or wicker basket will work fine. You’ll use this to hold anything that doesn’t have a permanent home.
For example, You might keep a few magazines in your clutter-catcher for now. It’s unlikely that you’ll keep them around forever, but it’s nice to have a place to put them until you decide to throw them out. Use your catcher regularly, but don’t let it overflow. Each week, you should take a few minutes to clean it out.
5. Wrangle Your Cords and Cables
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Most of us have way too many cords running through our living rooms. Between TV and video game cords, laptop and phone chargers, and other electronic cables, it’s easy for the living room to start looking like a big bowl of cable spaghetti. If you want your room to look neat and organized, you have to get that mess under control.
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Here’s a trick:
You can use twist ties (like the ones you’d find on a bread bag) to wrap cords together. So any cables that live permanently in your living room, such as the ones on your TV and Amazon Echo, can be tied together. This will prevent them from returning to their natural, uncoiled state.
For the cords that migrate from room-to-room, such as your laptop and phone chargers, you should place a basket on your coffee or end table. That way, you’ll always know where they are, and you won’t have to worry about them getting tangled up with other cords. Now that you have some tricks in your bag, are you ready to organize your living room? It may seem daunting, but getting organized is actually very easy. Once you have a system down, it shouldn’t be any trouble at all. And if it does get messy again, you’ll know exactly what to do!
Author :
Ryan Sundling is a Group Marketing Manager at Cardinal Group Management. He has over 10 years of experience in the conventional housing industry and works with 5151 Downtown Littleton on a daily basis to help them with their marketing efforts.
