5 tips for spring cleaning and organizing your home

News 12's Elizabeth Hashagen and Elisa DiStefano got some tips from professional organizer Michele Goldsmith from Live. Love. Organize.

News 12 Staff

Apr 19, 2021, 10:40 AM

Updated 1,264 days ago

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Spring is here! It is time to create a beautiful and organized home.
News 12's Elizabeth Hashagen and Elisa DiStefano got some tips from professional organizer Michele Goldsmith from Live. Love. Organize.
Here are her spring cleaning tips:
1. Concentrate on one space at a time. If you try to tackle multiple rooms at once, you will get easily overwhelmed. Prioritize each space by what frustrates you most, and what would give you the most satisfaction to have organized. It could be something large like your master closet, pantry, garage or something as small as the junk drawer in your kitchen.
2. What supplies do you need to help organize that space? If it’s a closet, look at shoe boxes, hangers, and handbag hooks. If it’s a pantry, think about bins, jars, and cereal containers. If it’s a playroom, consider toy bins and containers for art supplies. If you try to really focus on a single project at a time, it will be much more doable.
3. Take everything out. Yes, everything. It’s the only way to properly edit your items and the only way you will be able to logically put them back in an organized fashion. If you’re doing a pantry, make sure to check expiration dates as you're taking the food out. Once you have everything in front of you, it’s easier to see what you want to keep and what you want to purge.
4. Sort everything you are keeping into categories. For instance, if you are working on your home office, categorize piles of paper into things like business, taxes, mail, pending projects, etc. Setting up systems that match your specific needs, will help for easy maintenance going forward. Everything should have a place, a home!
5. Organize all of your pre-sorted categories back into the space (on the shelf, in the drawer, hung in the closet, etc.) utilizing the product you purchased in advance. Think, functionality and logic must come first, and the style comes as a close second. For instance, if you are working on a pantry, make sure you logically think through each shelf to determine where snacks go versus where cans go, and then take the time to make sure everything is lined up and styled accordingly.