My Organized Minimalist House Tour Favorite organizing tips AHHA Moments

Okay, so a few things before we get started. No, our house does not always look like this. I've been chasing the kids around all morning saying, don't put that there, pick that up. I'm making a video today. Another thing, I'm not a naturally organized person. I know sometimes people get that false impression when I show these beautiful shots of our clean house, but no, I've really had to learn a lot about myself and organization so that I didn't despise it. And so I'm going to share that with you today because it actually has been kind of life-changing and I don't mean to exaggerate. Do you see the kids out there? I just, it's a puddle. I don't know if you can tell that. I just already know this is not going to end well, but they're on the trampoline. It's actually really nice out. It's these two I'm worried about because it's just a matter of time before one of them pushes the other in, but it's alright. So what I want to do today is take you around the various areas of our house and just show you my favorite organizing tips and how I've been able to figure out systems that actually work for our family. And so I think, actually, we'll start here in the entryway because I think this closet characterizes how I organize. So I am so grateful to Cass from Clutterbug and her four different organizing styles. To be honest, I always just missed it in the past. I thought that learning that and figuring out what your style is, is for people that enjoy organizing. And I didn't. And so I just said, I'm just going to get rid of as much stuff as possible so I don't have to organize. And that really was my tactic for a long time. Until I realized that, yeah, you still have some stuff left and you still have to organize it, right? And so by going through the process, figuring out what my Clutterbug style was, I learned that I am a ladybug. And before I figured this out, I was trying to get everybody to organize like me. And so in past videos, you might've heard me say, clear off your kitchen counters, use big, broad categories, get a bin, chuck everything in it, right? And that's because that is my organizing style. I've come to appreciate now the fact that we all organize a little bit differently. And some of you love organizing. Some of us do not. But by figuring out what my organizing style is, I actually feel very capable of organizing. And I realized that what I was doing was organizing, even though Tom didn't think it was. So I'll get to that in a second, but let me show you what we have going on here in our front closet. So again, as a ladybug, I like big, broad categories. And I'm also a cheapskate, like very frugal person. Thanks, Mom, for that. And so whenever possible, you're going to see throughout our house that I use Dollar Tree bins whenever physically possible. And so I'll talk a little bit more about that too as we go. But you're going to see along the top, my Dollar Store bins. And this one over here with the extra shoes, I did invest in a little bit nicer one for that, but not until I had tested out my organizing with a Dollar Tree one, and then I upgraded that. And then these baskets here, again, big, broad categories are from Ikea. And there's two things I want to tell you about this closet. One, another thing Cass from Clutterbug says is use big labels. I love my little label maker, but when it comes to my family actually maybe even having a chance at keeping this system in place, you have to use big labels. And so I got these chalkboard ones. I don't write on them with chalk. I use a whiteout pen. And then on the baskets, I have these little round tags. They're on Amazon. I'll link to them down below. But that has worked really well too. But just so you know, just because they're labeled does not mean my family puts everything back in place all the time. What it does mean though, is that when we go to tidy up the closet or pick it up, anybody can do it because they know where everything goes. So please understand this. This system does not keep this closet organized. We still have to take time to do it, but by having everything labeled, anyone in our house can organize this closet. And that is magical. And one other thing that I really like here in our entryway is our Ikea shoe bench. We probably have too many shoes. We have the wire racks in the bottom of the closet, that works really well too. And then this bench. What I like about both of them is because they have either the grates or the poles, dirt and stuff just falls through to the bottom. And so I never have to clean off shoe shelves or anything like that. So I really like that. This Ikea shoe bench, we have had for eight years, I think it has held up very well. It could use a little touch-up paint, but I am amazed. It gets abused. I really like it and it works well. All right, so that's, I think that's all for the entryway. So let's move on to this bathroom right here. I'm actually excited to show you in here cause I just redid part of it and I have a new hack that I really like, but you know, we can't get too far into this tour without talking about inventory. So the first life-changing thing I've talked about in regards to organizing was learning my organizing style, learning that big bins and tossing stuff in it is actually organizing. But of course the second thing is this idea of inventory and that if we don't significantly reduce our inventory first, organizing is never going to work. If we have too much stuff, organizing doesn't work. And that's why most of us have failed in the past, even if we're very organized people. I see this all the time. Those of you who love organizing, your systems fail because they get overloaded with stuff, right? It's not that you don't know how to organize, they don't like it. You just get too much stuff. So we always have to declutter first, reduce the inventory, and then it really does make organizing a whole lot more fun. All right, so let me show you under the cabinet here. We just redid this. I mean, we painted, Corbin painted the inside for me and I put some new contact paper down and got, I traded out my dollar store bins for white ones, which looks nice. But the other thing I did in here was I didn't love how my curling irons and hairdryer, they were just laying down in a basket and they would sometimes get tangled and I'd have to dig through them. So I wanted to figure out a way for them to stand up. And so we had this basket, I'd gotten it for the camper, but we didn't really use it in there. And so I was like, hmm, they could stand up in there. So I just took a cutting board, a dollar cutting board, and used packing tape to divide the bin and put it in the middle. And then I was able to stand up all my curling irons in there and it works awesome. So I have been very pleased with that. And otherwise, again, lots of dollar store bins. But going back to the inventory thing, like in the kid's toothbrush drawer, I love that because there just isn't a lot of stuff that that drawer needs to hold. I can put in these little bins, everyone has their own, and it's just very easy to keep it clean and organized. They can do that, right? Because there's not a lot of stuff in there. So that has worked really well. All right, so from here we can actually head into the laundry room. I love the presents that are left in here for me this time of year. Corbin's really muddy jeans, so that's awesome. But we'll deal with that later. All right, laundry rooms. I had this epiphany when we were on vacation. I had to do laundry at one of the campgrounds we were at and I had the laundry basket. I'm going to the laundry room and I got there and I'm like, I don't even mind having to do laundry. And I looked around and I was like, oh, I think it's because it was just a very nice, clean, clutter-free space. I knew all the lids were up on the washing machine, so I knew they were all empty. So I literally could just take my laundry in there, fill up the washer, do the laundry and move on. And so that has stuck with me and I've thought about how if we can make our laundry spaces, I know not all of us have a dedicated room, if we can keep them simple and a little bit organized, I really think it makes doing laundry not so bad and easy to keep up with our laundry system, whatever it is. And so again, in here, big, broad categories. We keep Tom's undergarments in here, so I have bins for those. I have a bin for our cleaning supplies. And then we also keep the kids' socks in here. So they each have a bin as well. In here, I did spend a little bit more on the containers because I wanted them to be just right for what it was that we're doing. But once more, does that mean everybody puts everything away? No, but when we need to tidy up, pick up, it's very easy to see where everything goes. Oh, and I can't forget to mention that this video is part of our Mega March motivation, which means there's a whole playlist of other organized house tours down below. It's so fun because everyone's house is different, right? And we all have different organizing problems, so you can get tons of great ideas by following the link down below. Alright, let's head into the two easiest rooms in our house to keep organized. Alright, so if we come out here, we have our dining room. I said this before when I was decluttering, there's nothing in it, right? And I love that. I mean, it's by design. Well, it's a small room too, I couldn't fit a whole lot more. But we don't have any sideboards or, what are those called? Buffets, any kind of cabinet. I mean, there's literally no organization in this room. Does the table attract clutter? Absolutely. It's a flat surface and it doesn't move, right? So yes, it attracts clutter. So we do have to be intentional about keeping it cleaned off, but I don't ever have to organize it and I really like that. And then if we spin around here, we can look at this living room. Again, the only place in here that we have any kind of organization is our coffee table. And so we have one basket that we put small games, like card games in. Again, I spent a little more on that basket because it's sitting out. I wouldn't have had to, right? I mean, but I had it and it sits out, so that's a prettier basket. And then we always keep a few games stacked up. The games change seasonally, I guess. Right now we have some education games out, we're really trying to work on reading and it's been good, it's been good. But we just always keep a few games on there and then any extras go in the closet in the boys room upstairs. So this coffee table is kind of like the container or the limit for what we store in this room and it works great. You don't need tons and tons of games, tons and tons of whatever to facilitate family time, right? I mean, really, if you took away all of our games besides Rummy Cube, we would probably be just fine. And again, this is a room where I intentionally, I don't have any bookshelves, I don't have hutches, anything like that that stores extra stuff, because I know that anything that holds stuff will hold stuff and it'll just acquire more and more stuff. So I really like that this room is highly simplified, still very functional, but very easy to keep clean and organized. So then from here we can head into the kitchen. I have a few tips that I really like in here. So if you've been with us for a little while, you'll remember the time I cleared off the top of the fridge. It drove me bonkers that Tom would just pile stuff on top of the fridge. He's 6'2", I'm 5'2", he can reach it, I cannot, right? So it became his domain, right? That's not uncommon. And so, I don't know, it was two summers ago, I decided it needed to be organized. But by organized, really what I did was I put that blue tray up there. It works so well. I don't have to look at his junk up there. It contains everything. This works well for tops of dressers. Even if you have a hot spot on your kitchen counters, just by putting a little tray there where all the random stuff gets tossed, at least it's contained and that still feels better to our brain than just random stuff sitting out. And so I really like having that blue tray up there. Tom grumbled about it, but it doesn't actually make that big of a difference. And speaking of Tom, I mentioned that he and I really did not see eye to eye on organizing for a long time. And now that I know our clutter bug styles, I understand why. Because I'm a macro organizer. Like I said, big bins, broad categories, toss it all in. And keep it out of sight though too, that's also a lady bug. I want it out of sight. So behind cabinet doors. On the other hand, Tom is, he likes stuff out of sight, but he's a micro organizer. So he likes little categories. So when I'm just getting these bins, tossing stuff in, he's like, that's not organizing. You're just throwing stuff in bins. And I'm like, well, I don't know. And so now that I understand how he organizes, I get why he said that's not organizing. And so this has been something where we've had to decide whose space is it? Who does the bulk of the work in that space? So the front hall closet, we could divide all the hats and mittens by individual or whatever. But I'm usually the one that's in charge of it and ends up straightening it up or helping the kids straighten it up. So my organizing system prevails in there. So I want to show you inside our cabinets, this is a huge area where I've had to decrease inventory. So then it really doesn't require much organization. So our cabinets don't really have much for organization in them, but I do want to show you a couple spots where I have organized. So under the sink, again, big, broad categories, big labels on them, and just toss everything in. And then here in the island, we have our center drawer here. Again, Dollar Tree containers, just create some division. I don't even label these because I don't really care what even ends up in them. I just want it to be a little bit divided up. And then we also have our lovely junk drawer. Here's what's cool about this that I learned the other day, was that a while back when I did the top of the fridge, I also organized the junk drawer. And I was like, I'm just going to go crazy. I'm going to put labels in these little Dollar Tree baskets in there. Because I just, I don't know, I take Cass at her word when she says, you should label things, you should label things. I've never been a labeler, just never. So I was like, okay, I'm going to label things. I labeled the little baskets, didn't really think anything of it. Until about a month ago, the drawer was just getting cluttered, disorganized. And Corbin, our eight-year-old, said, hey, can I organize the junk drawer? Well, we were trying to get ready to go on vacation. So I was like, hey, if that keeps you occupied, you go to town on the junk drawer. So he started pulling everything out. And I had forgotten about that I labeled the bins. And then he got done and he's like, Mom, come look at the junk drawer. And I looked at it, I was like, you have everything back in the spot. I'm like, how did you know where to put everything? He's like, I just read the labels. A, I was very excited because we've been working on reading and the fact that he could read the labels was a huge win. And then that he put everything back in there, I was like, this is so cool. Okay, but before we leave the kitchen, two other quick tips I want to show you real quick when it comes to organizing. So we were able to create this island in our kitchen. So we put in drawers for our pots and pans, which I love. It works great. But in past houses, we didn't always have that luxury. So what I did was I made my own drawers by taking a sturdy bin and then I would just put the pots and pans or whatever in there and then put it in the bottom of the cabinet so that I could slide it out a little bit to grab what I needed and nothing could fall behind. And this also works really well. I want to show you my corner cabinet. If you have one of those wonky corner cabinets... This is our weird corner cabinet next to the dishwasher. So you can see down on the bottom, I have those two baskets, one for extra coffee and then one just has our immersion blender, some spoon rest, the extra filters for our Brita pitcher. And then some other stuff I don't use too occasionally. And then our toaster, we use that pretty frequently, but it's easy to grab. I don't put stuff back there that we use all the time, but extra stuff, seasonal stuff, I'll tuck back there. And having it in a bin works very well. All right, let's head into this bathroom over here. There are a few places, like I've said, where I invest in good bins or containers for organizing, and this bathroom is one of them. So this cabinet is from Ikea, we often get asked about that, and our vanity is from Ikea as well. So it's not huge, right, but it holds everything that we need. So because it's not very big, I couldn't really find the right size bins at the dollar store, so I did invest in acrylic bins for this cabinet. I really like it because you can see everything that's in there, everything stands up neatly and they fit in there perfectly. But then again, as far as the actual drawers in our vanity, inventory, we keep the inventory very low in dollar store containers and it works great. And then, I mean, I also have these open shelves in here. Oh yeah, our toilet paper holder broke and so we don't have a spot to put it. Anyways, I also have these open shelves in here, but I just use them for decoration. I don't really keep anything on there except some extra toilet paper in this basket. So really this bathroom doesn't have a ton of space in it, but I like that because like I said before, stuff that will hold stuff, holds stuff, and we just end up accumulating extra. So everything we need in here fits in here and so that's great. All right, so let's head over to our bedroom. Another room that just really doesn't have any organization in it. It is a bright, sunny day here in Minnesota. It's so nice. Okay, so the only thing we have in here to hold stuff is our Ikea wardrobe. Ikea just knows, I mean, our house is very small, 1,500 square feet. They know how to fit everything in, right? So under our bed, we try to just keep clear. Again, I kind of just made this rule in my head, don't stick anything under the bed, because I know how stuff can just go there to be completely forgotten about. So we only have the Ikea wardrobe. For the hanging section, that's where Tom and I hang our dress clothes. And then in this other side here that has shelves built in. So in here on this shelf side, we just have some extra camera stuff, a few craft supplies. I know I don't do a lot of crafting, so that's how much we keep. One extra sheet set, and then just some extra food storage. We don't really keep a whole lot in here. The rest of our clothes are in the bathroom and laundry room. So this is it in here, and I love it. Again, it's just so easy to keep it tidy and picked up. And so that is the season we're in right now. I just need things very streamlined. Would maybe down the road, would I like to have a beautiful bedroom with decorations and different stuff? I don't know, maybe, right? But for this season that we're in right now, how you see our house functions really well. I still like for it to be cute and feel cozy, but it has to function well. And again, the biggest thing that's created that isn't the organization, it's actually the decreasing the inventory. But again, the organization does help. All right, so the last thing I want to show you is up in the kids' bedroom, we added cube shelves to the boys' room, which I've said I do not like cube shelves. I don't like the big ones, and I don't like them for organizing lots of stuff because they just, in my opinion, they hold too much. But we think for kids and clothes, even for adults and clothes, they work very well. Okay, so if you can fit down here with me, cube shelves for the boys' clothes, which I know there was some, there was lots of concerns about their room configuration. They love it. They love having the space under their bunks to play. They like the bunks, they don't hit their heads anyway, so quick update. They do like how their room turned out. So we put these cube shelves under here. These canvas bins can be a little bit tough to label. So I just, again, I use these tags on here. But here's what I want you to know. When the boys come up and put their clothes away, they don't put them in the right bins most often. They're all just a mishmash of stuff in here. But why I go through the effort of putting the labels is that seasonally, when I switch things out, we use these bins as containers to know how much of each clothing. So these are the little bit smaller bins, not as big as the Ikea ones. And I know that if these are full, they have too much clothing in that category. So we sort everything out into the bins and if they're full or even close to full, there's too much. And so then we pare it down. Or if a bin's empty, I'm like, oh, there's no t-shirts in there. Then I know that's what they need is a couple t-shirts. So these are our containers. And instead of always worrying about numbers and how many of each thing, I just know for each of them that this is plenty of clothes for a whole season. And I love that it's not a ton of clothing, even if they pulled all these out and dumped them all out. It only takes a minute to pick it all back up again. So this works very well. And while I don't love cube shelves for other kinds of organizing, I do think for clothing that they work great. And I also forgot, I do want to show you where we keep our paper clutter downstairs. So I'll go show you that real quick. When paper comes into our house, we sort it and it comes into here. So again, the Time Will Tell basket, I'll link to the full video on all of this. This is a game changer. And so many of you had said the same thing. So if paper clutter is a problem in your house, this could be the solution. And then also my weekly planning basket is down here. So this is where we have folders for bills to pay or anything that needs to get done. And then this can just get pulled, completely pulled out, go sit at the kitchen table and go through it, ideally once a week. And so this is, I mean, this is all we have for paper clutter right now. That's awesome, right? And again, something I never would have ever thought I was capable of. And so do know that it is possible. Also behind me are the girls' desks. I'm not going to show the real life version right now because they're a mess. But them having that space has worked out really well. And I like that their desks are down here, kind of where everyone is all the time and not in their bedroom. Because I mean, usually in bedrooms, they just get stacked up with stuff. And so that has worked really well. We do like those a lot. And it does, like I said, keeps their bedroom really clean. I mean, mainly the only thing they have for storage in their room are their Ikea storage beds, the drawers that pull out, so that holds their clothes, and then any other stuff that they want to put in the other drawer. So that's all they have in there. And really, I still find it very comical that I'm giving an organized home tour because I really never thought I would be an organized person. So it's fun. It's cool to see how by decreasing inventory and just putting very simple organization systems in place, how that really does help to keep our house pretty organized. At least, like I said, does it always look like this? No, but it's actually really quick and easy to get it back to this place. So if you haven't done so already, I hope you subscribe so we can spend more time together. I would love to help you declutter and simplify. A thumbs up is the best compliment that you can give us, and I'll definitely look forward to seeing you again soon.