Declutter Your Home With A Simple Rule That Makes The Most Of Vertical Space

One of the most annoying tasks homeowners face is cleaning the endless accumulation of random items on surfaces around the house. However, finding a strategy for decluttering your home is often easier than you think. A lack of storage space to hold everyday items that get tossed on a counter, such as keys, shoes, papers, and bags, is clearly the cause of most of it. But how do you add more storage to your home, and where do you start? To combat clutter, start to notice horizontal surfaces around your home where stuff is always lying around, then add vertical storage to clear off those messy hotspots.

Once you have identified these trouble spots around the home, try not to waste any vertical space. It's best to first consider places like your entryway, where people tend to drop items out of convenience. One specific example is open floor-to-ceiling storage near the front door, like a vertical row of shelves that can hold anything from keys to books. This way, household members are forced to create better habits when they enter the home because you added this convenient solution. 

Besides adding vertical storage to your entryway, the kitchen is another room where flat, open spaces tend to hold all the clutter. To save space in your kitchen, one decluttering trick you can use is identifying spaces that are higher or lower than your field of vision to hold kitchen items. Some examples include hanging pots and pans, stemware racks for wine glasses, floating shelves for coffee mugs, and vertical storage in your cupboards below the counter. Kitchen cabinet storage organizers are also a great way to take advantage of vertical space and reduce clutter on top of counters, tables, and cabinets. You can find organizers that fit in your cupboards to store your dishes and pans vertically inside, thus saving room around the kitchen.

Another simple idea is to add door-mounted vertical storage organizers to the inside of your cabinets to help sort spices, jars, and random pantry items for easy access. Additionally, you can find many vertical under-the-sink organizers online (like this one on Amazon for as little as $17) to help organize your cleaning products and supplies. These storage solutions can also be added to the bathroom, especially under the sink, where clutter tends to get out of control.

More spaces around the home could also use vertical storage to help decrease the mess. One room people often forget about is their garage. The garage is a hotspot for clutter because it's usually seen less and, therefore, forgotten about. So, the first thing to think about is what kind of garage cabinet system you want to implement in your space. Remember, we want to use our vertical space effectively. Pick an empty wall to add some free-standing cabinets for your tools and equipment, or buy racks for shoes and boots to clean up in a mudroom where people tend to leave shoes around. Additionally, if you ride your bike as a main source of transportation, you can even hang it up on an empty wall to keep it out of the way.

Think about some other places around your house where clutter still accumulates, and vertical storage would come in handy. A few examples include the laundry room, storage sheds, crafting tables, and small bedside spaces. The key points to remember are to find accumulated clutter and avoid wasting any vertical space that can hold storage, utilizing sections of the wall that are higher and lower than your field of vision.