Some questions on how people organise their houses

[newtonupontheheath]

I'm motivated to finally organise our house once Christmas is done. Everything is clean (new build) and pretty tidy but we don't have that much furniture other than what was essential when we moved in (beds, wardrobe etc) no shelves, drawers/sideboards etc just TV and sofa plus tonnes of toys

So my questions are:

When organising/building your home, did you pick furniture you liked/thought you needed or judge by how much stuff you have/had?

Do you store everything together in one place (all towels,bedding,spare loo roll) or where you'll need it (so in each bedroom/bathroom etc)

We do need to get rid of stuff, and I will be ruthless but I don't know where to start. I could keep everything and but shelves up to cope OR buy some furniture and chuck what doesn't fit.... Or somewhere in between?!

I've spent far too much time on Pinterest for my own good and need to be a bit more grounded!

We bought what we liked, obviously taking into account space. We're lucky to have lots of storage, so I have towels and bedding upstairs. Spare toiletries in a kitchen cupboard, cleaning and laundry materials in futility room cupboards. Loo rolls go in bathroom cupboard for my room and a hall cupboard downstairs. No spares upstairs because preteen DDs would get through a roll a day if they had access to it. They get 1 roll at a time despite having enough space. Excess, I only ever buy the huge packs on offer, are kept in the garage.

Books, again lucky with space and keep those in the study. CDs and DVDs kitchen cabinet, lounge side board type thingy. Kitchen, pans on a metal rack, everything other than coffee machine and toot inside cupboards.

Personally I don't like shelves, very dry and dusty here so I like to put things away and dust free. Plus OH keeps whacking his head on the only shelves he has, for his Scalextric collection.

I would do a couple of sketches, you don't need to be an artist, showing shelves or cabinets, book cases etc. for the rooms you have. if you still have packing cases you could use some to visualise a cabinet, see if it fits in with the sofa, fe.

HTH, I'm not a very organised person, I mostly wing it and hope for the best.

I like to buy furniture that looks good in the space and cull my crap stuff to fit.

We're in a similar boat. Just moved into our first house from overseas rentals. Having to buy some new storage and having to throw a LOT away.

I'd rather have beautiful things around me that looked tidy and be ruthless about what I don't need than by storage for the sake of it and fill it with what I don't really need.

Oh and I store most things in a central location so towels and sheets etc are in the linen cupboard. Ditto for loo paper but I do always have a spare in each bathroom.

I wouldn't buy any new furniture until you have had a good clear out! You may find that you can "re-purpose" other furniture/storage once you've got rid of stuff. So I'd have a ruthless clear out, then see what stuff you have, what can be stored in current storage and therefore what new storage you need. Then I'd try and find stuff that you like but also meets the appropriate need.

You could reward yourself with 30 minutes on pintrest for each hour spent sorting and chucking!

Thanks for replying.

Educating I totally agree with utilising existing storage however we don't currently have any storage furniture downstairs- just the TV and a sofa! I would like something just not sure how I decide what I need!

We are lucky to have two big built in cupboards (where current clutter has accumulated!) but I'd like to be able to use these for storing the pram and coats/shoes.

It's interesting to see how people do it...

Agree with a thorough declutter before buying any furniture.

The less stuff you have, including furniture, the easier it is to keep organised, tidy and clean.
For instance, we used to have tons of shelves on the walls for CDs and DVDs, loads of them, every time we moved, we had to find room for them, open shelves are a pain to dust and make a room look very cluttered.
Our solution was to get rid of the CDs altogether, copied everything to a hard drive for updating ipods etc. and for the DVDs we got something like this and boxed the cases in the loft in case we want to sell them at a later date.
So instead of shelves and shelves we have one small hard drive and one DVD case that take up less than one shelf on a small bookcase.

One thing I wish I had though was something with cupboards/drawers for keeping things out of children's sight, everything we have at present is open bookcases.

Have a really, really good declutter and then look again and see what you really need.