Organization for Small Spaces

I decided to take on the “small spaces” angle of organizing because city living requires it.  For having a home in DC we actually are blessed with pretty expansive quarters– 3 (count them, THREE!) bedrooms all to ourselves, although I don’t think the middle room legally counts as a bedroom because it lacks a closet (and it will soon be taken over by Peabody!)  I tend to think we live large because our home is more than 12 feet wide and we have a backyard, but I was reminded that size is relative when friends of ours visited from out West and kept using diminutive words like “cute” and ”little” as we showed them around the place.  The main thing that has me embracing the small-space philosophy is that we have no storage!  There is no basement, no attic, no garage, no pantry.  The bedroom closets are small.  The bathrooms have pedestal sinks and only medicine cabinets for stowing items.  The kitchen has minimal cupboard space, one drawer, and also serves as the location for the washer and dryer.  Other than the bedroom closets, there is only one other closet in the whole house, located under the stairs.

I like to think of this as an opportunity to live with less baggage and be organized rather than see it as a disadvantage.

As a result, I try to follow a few rules I have made up for myself.  I do not always succeed.  Again, these might be helpful for the storage-challenged and pointless for the walk-in-closet crowd.

Rule #1: If you live in a small space, you do not shop at Costco. This is not a diss of Costco.  Ask any of my friends, I have a love affair with Costco.  I grew up eating my way around its sample stations, hoping the old lady in the hair net didn’t notice I had already taken three passes at the spring rolls.  This is simply my way of saying, “You do not buy almost anything in bulk”.  It goes against my frugal grain to say that because you can usually get a better deal buying in bulk, but the cost is that you end up sleeping with 50 pounds of rice stashed under your bed.  And if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget where you hid things until they start to smell.   I could re-phrase it I guess by saying, ”Do not buy two when one will do”.  This is particularly true of cleaning supplies, cosmetics/hygiene supplies, any items that multiply like rabbits when you’re not looking.

Rule #2: In a small space, everything must have A place. I say “A” place because I’ve found it’s best if everything of the same kind is stored in only ONE location, not multiple.  Plus, items should not travel around and take up new homes in different corners of the house every other week.  Paper towels should not own several pieces of real-estate– some under the sink, some above the refrigerator, spares in the basement.  If they need all that space, chances are you have violated rule #1.  The good news is, if your house is small, it’s not that big of a deal to access the one location paper towels are kept when you need them!  I keep one roll for use in my cleaning supplies bucket and all the other rolls for storage go in the furnace closet on the shelf above the water heater, and only that shelf.  (BTW, there is one item this rule does not apply to, and that is toilet paper.  No one likes to be stranded without a couple back-ups in each bathroom!)

Rule #3: One man’s obsessive-compulsive disorder is another man’s life-saver. When I initially set up house, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought matching containers for the exact number of spices I actually use in my kitchen and labeled them.  Then I put them on easy-to-see-and-reach graduated levels in my cupboard in alphabetical order.  (Those ready-made spice racks are fine but they come stocked with things like “celery salt” and other spices I never use, and no room for ones I do use like cardamom, so I find them counter-productive.)  Now whenever I buy a spice, I immediately re-fill the labeled container and throw out the mis-matched jars from the store.  I am obsessive about things fitting in their designated spots, but in the end it helps me stay sane and be more productive.  The beauty is, when I want to make a recipe, I immediately know if I have black beans and how many cans by just a quick glance.  When things are really in place, I can know while out at the store that I always have x number of cans without having to check at home before-hand.  This has saved many lives.

Rule #4: Having lots of cleaning supplies does not make you a “clean” person. This is a variation of rule #1, but an important one.  Through trial-and-error I have decided exactly which cleaning supplies I need without replicating different brands for the same use.  I love multi-use cleaners like 409 De-greaser and Antibacterial concoctions.  I made sure all my frequent-use cleaners that I need to clean kitchen and bathrooms fit neatly in a white bucket that I can use for mopping floors and which fits under my sink.  On my cleaning day I take that bucket from room to room and have everything I need to get the job done.  And I don’t keep back-up bottles of Windex etc.  It takes me months to go through a bottle of most stuff and chances are I will be at the grocery store sometime before the very last bit is used up.  Less frequently used items are stored by category in the back of the under-sink cabinet– things like carpet stain remover, Goo-Gone, wood floor cleaner, etc.  Necessary, yes, but not bucket-worthy.

Rule#5: Uniformity is beautiful.  Nothing shaped my bedroom closet up like buying matching hangers for all my clothes. I love this kind because they are not bulky and even slippery clothes stay put.  Within my closet items are organized by type (blouse, skirt, dress, coat, etc) and then by color.  This is not hard to do– do it once and then just put items back where you got them from.  Take an inventory of how many skirts you have and buy that many (and a couple extra) skirt hangers.  Stop folding your skirts over the wire hangers you got from the dry-cleaners!!  It looks messy, wrinkles your clothes, and they constantly fall off.  One of my dreams is to eventually own all the same kind of underwear and socks so that they fit uniformly into the drawer.  Right now I have to content myself with the little underwear organizer I bought to bring some semblance of clone-hood to my underclothes.  The uniformity rule applies to dishes, silverware, glasses, pots and pans, Tupperware (I fail miserably here!), bins for flour and sugar, etc.  They will stack better and look more organized if they all match.

Rule #6: Just because you cannot afford expensive built-ins does not mean you cannot be organized. Figure out the items in your house that have no permanent location or are constantly falling out of cabinets and go get the right tools to make them a home!  Key here is: don’t walk into the store, become impressed with all the organizational tools they sell and buy a bunch of tools that just become more clutter in your house.  Determine your specific need and buy with that in mind.  I have to store my ironing board on the back of a door so I bought a tool for that, cookie trays are organized in my cupboard this way, plastic bags like this,  for shoes I have a canvas shoe holder that hangs on the inner side of my closet door.  Nothing fancy.  Storage tools can be limiting.  Good!  Buy a new pair of shoes that won’t fit in your rack, an old pair must go!  I have a fear of dark bottoms of closets inhabited by wild hoards of mis-matched shoes.

Rule #7: In a small space, it only takes a small amount of clutter to make huge mess. This is why I have my microwave and toaster in the furnace closet, my magnetic knife rack in the closet under the stairs, and overall an abhorrence of anything living on my counter-tops or other surfaces.  The good thing about small spaces is that none of these items is much further than an arm’s reach away, even though they are stowed rather unusually.  Which leads to…

Rule #8: Creativity is a survival skill in the small space jungle. You must be smart about the pieces of furniture you buy when you live in a small space.  Purely decorative pieces are frivolous, which is not the same as saying your house must be all-use and no beauty.  When you are considering what pieces of furniture you need for a room, just make sure they double as both (except for maybe the sofa and chairs).  I generally avoid open-rack or open-shelf pieces because they make all the things you are storing visible, which defeats the purpose.  Most people already know this, but you can buy risers to prop your bed up on so that there is more storage beneath, covered by a bedskirt (where I keep my bins of extra bedding/linens).  I intentionally bought the largest high-boy dressers I could find because the dainty ones wouldn’t house all the clothes that don’t fit in our closets, and and I try to go tall not wide with furniture since the rooms just don’t have the space.  I avoid things like end tables, butcher blocks, “computer desks” that support only a computer and a mug of pencils, trinket shelves– you get the idea.

Overall though, the best rule is PURGE (covered pretty well by Mom and Meghan).  Happy Winter Cleaning!