5 Things You Can Organize in One Hour or Less

Home organization projects are utterly boring. But if you do them together with someone you love, they can be fun. My favorite projects revolve around a unique organizing tip. An idea that saves me time and money, and keeps my home organized long-term. Here are my 5 best ideas for organizing your home in one hour or less.

Closets

To organize my closet I decided to build a shelf with a rod beneath it. At a home improvement store, my husband and I bought Closet Rod and Shelf Brackets ($1 each), as well as a wooden shelf and rod to match the width and depth of my closet. We installed the three brackets in ten minutes, using toggle hooks instead of screws for extra safety. Then we rested the shelf and rod in place and organized my closet. Folded garments I stacked by type. And hanging garments, which are easier to look through, I organized by color coordination. The whole closet makeover took fifty minutes, and my husband asked me to remake his closet next.

Kitchen Cabinets

My kitchen cabinets never seemed big enough, and yet there was plenty of space between them. One day my sister pointed out the shelf pin holes running in vertical lines between the shelves. We decided to add more shelves using these holes. At a home improvement store we bought Angel Shelf Supports and wooden shelves that matched the dimensions of my kitchen cabinets. Once at home, we moved the old shelves up and down to make room in the middle. Then we slipped the Angel Shelf Supports into the shelf pin holes and rested our new shelves on them. In less than an hour we organized all my kitchen cabinets to perfection.

Shoes

To organize the pile of shoes in my husband's closet, I whipped up a simple shoe rack. Using cheap 2x4 lumber I built a two-stair design. Then I placed a row of shoes with the heels on the lower step and the toes on the floor. Followed by a second row of shoes with the heels on the top stair and the toes just behind the first row of shoes. It's a simple shoe rack that my son and I built in 20 minutes. Here are the simple steps for building a wooden shoe rack.

Toys

My son was a toddler on a mission: Leave no toy unturned. To bring simple order to the chaos, I took my son to a craft store, and we bought huge decorative lidded baskets. Then we went to the paint section of the store and selected spray paints for painting each basket in a different color. We spent half an hour painting our six baskets. And after they dried we organized the toys by color coding. From then on, my son had an easy time organizing his bedroom every evening before bedtime. The whole organizing project took one hour from painting to toy coding.

School and Home Office Supplies

Even before I started working from home, the space next to my printer was stacked high with school supplies, printer paper, cartridges and much more. When my dog scattered everything one day, I went to the craft store for inspiration. I decided to buy identical decorative storage boxes, with a lid and a label holder at the front. After filling each box, I labeled it clearly. Then I stacked my 12 boxes in 4 columns. It took about an hour to organize our school and home office supplies, and in the end the arrangement looked like a beautiful chest of drawers.

I hope that with these simple organizing tips your home will become a more fun place to live in, where everything is in its place, now and always.

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