Want to give your home an organizing makeover? Here are three organizing tips each for the main rooms in your home.

1. Dining room:

The dining room table is for eating. Remove any paper piles or other items that don't belong there. It may help for you to dress the table with a pretty tablecloth and set it with pretty dishes and silverware. This way, you'll be less tempted to toss junk on top of it.

Remove clutter from dining room storage cabinets. Only keep one or two nice dinnerware sets, a set of silverware, pretty glasses and table linens. No non-dining items please!

If you never use your dining room, consider converting it into a room that you do use. One of my neighbors turned hers into a playroom for her daughter. A friend of mine declared her dining room, a home office.

Donate any appliances you no longer need. This will reduce any clutter on your countertops or in your kitchen cabinets.

Do you have an overload of plates, glasses, plastic food storage containers, silverware, etc.--way more than your family will ever need?. Weed out the excess. Sell it at your next rummage sale or on eBay. Store extra-large serving platters and other items you only use when you have company in an out-of-the-way closet, or your basement, until needed.

Organize your refrigerator--inside and out. Remove everything from the front surface, except for emergency phone numbers and possibly a family calendar. Organize the inside shelf by shelf, keeping similar items together. Toss any expired food or food you can no longer identify.

3. Living room and/or Family Room:

Organize your media collection in a media cabinet or on shelves. Organize by title or artist within categories like drama, comedies and children for your DVDs and VHS tapes or pop rock, country and jazz for your CDs and audio cassettes.

Corral your magazines and get them into a magazine rack or a basket. If your pile is enormous, weed it out. Cancel magazine subscriptions you no longer read.

Any toys strewn about can be placed in wicker baskets or plastic totes--preferably covered. Have the kids put their toys away each night before they go to bed.

4. Master Bedroom:

What's lurking under your bed? Never sleep on top of a pile of clutter. Remove anything, except for a rolling under-bed storage container or a leaf you're storing for one of your tables.

If the top of your dresser is looking messy, give any clutter the heave-ho. Corral perfumes and colognes on an elegant silver tray. Store jewelry in a jewelry box. Put any loose change in a pretty dish.

Tackle that closet. Donate or sell clothes that no longer fit, those you're keeping because you're waiting for them to come back in style and those that have missing buttons or loose hems that you never plan to repair. Only store clothes inside that you enjoy wearing because they make you feel good about yourself.

5. Kids Bedrooms:

Give each child his or her own portable file box--one that holds hanging file folders--for artwork, cards, pictures, mementos, etc.

Hang over-the-door shoe organizers for your kids to store toys, school supplies, hair accessories or any other small items. Hang a cap rack if your child collects lots of caps.

Be sure you have a toy chest, shelves or large plastic containers that are adequate to hold all of the toys. If there's an overload of toys, consider deciding which toys have to go (do this with your child) and donate them to an orphanage or charity. Or, sell them at your next rummage sale and let your kids keep the profits. This will help
encourage them to part with more stuff.

6. Bathroom:

Give every member of your household his or her own basket or plastic container for their personal bathroom items, like brushes, hair accessories and razors.

Put a hook on the back of the bathroom door to use as a holding place for bathrobes or clothes. In addition, if towels are constantly on the floor, add a towel rod or two to encourage family members to hang up their towels.

Store kids bath toys in a mildew-resistant bath toy holder. We have one that suction cups right to the shower wall.

7. Laundry room:

If you're always behind with your laundry, do a load a day. Even though it's just my husband, myself and our daughter, we generate enough clothes, towels and/or sheets to warrant a wash and dry every single night--and we're never behind on the wash.

Organize detergents, stain removers and other laundry products on a shelf or in a laundry room cabinet. If you don't have shelves in your laundry room, consider adding
a few--preferably right near your machines.

Put a small trash container in your laundry room for dryer lint, softener sheets and other laundry trash.

8. Home Office:

Clear the top of your desk. Any papers should be filed. Store office supplies in your desk drawers, in a home office closet, on a shelf, or in a plastic tote.

File home and personal-related paperwork into a filing cabinet. You do have a filing cabinet, don't you?

Clear the clutter in your computer area and be sure any disks or CDs are in a CD holder. Hang shelves for manuals, directories and thick catalogs.

Maria Gracia - Get Organized Now!
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