Getting Started with Organising and Tidying your Home

If your house is a mess and you are going to start tidying it, the first question is where to start. One of the most common areas recommended to start in is the kitchen. Here we are going to start with a different room or area.

If you look around your home, you are going to see clothes, and lots of them. Clothes in wardrobes, closets and drawers, clothes waiting to be washed in your laundry basket and clothes maybe waiting to be put away in the bedroom. There may be clothes in the washer or dryer. If there are any clothes in the dryer, they will only be creased, but any left in the washer will quite possibly smell damp and will need at the very least washing again. If your home has a laundry area or room, there can be clothes there, waiting to be dealt with.

So, to start sorting out your home, first begin with the laundry area, or possibly, if your house lacks a separate room, the appropriate area of another room, which may well be the kitchen. The cleaner and tidier the laundry room is, the more likely it is to be used to get on top of the laundry in the rest of the house, which is an important step in keeping the house clean and tidy. Once the laundry is tidy, clothes are more likely to be ironed, folded and placed where they belong in cupboards.

First, the laundry room floor. Is the floor clear of mess, or are there various items scattered across it? Pick up any clothes and put them into laundry hampers, baskets or bags. Laundry should be separated out by type and colour. Whites should always be separated from the rest, then strong colours (the most likely to run in the wash, and therefore the most likely to cause colour damage to paler colours and whites) separated from light colours. The last items are usually towels and bedding. Make sure that only items that can be washed are in the piles to be washed.

Take a look at the top of the washer and dryer. Hopefully, they should now be clear of clothes, so clean the tops of them. Remove and clean the filters and lint catchers from both appliances (filters and lint catchers should be cleaned regularly anyway, to help the machines function better and, in the case of the lint catcher of the dryer, to prevent fires), clean out the detergent tray of the washer (wash powder and softener residue can build up in these) and clean the fronts of them both. Some sort of bag to empty the lint into is a good idea, and, depending on the machine, a bowl may be required when cleaning the washing machine filters to catch any water.

Now take a look at where you keep the various laundry consumables such as laundry detergent and fabric softeners. Check to see if there are any empty containers. If there are, place them in the bag used earlier for the lint. Check how much you have of the remaining items; if any are getting low, add them to your shopping list. Storing the supplies above the washer if possible makes them easily reachable when needed. The dryer can be covered with dryer sheets to reduce static cling.

>There may be shelves already above the machines. This can be a good place to hang a bag to put rubbish in. Hang one there by the handles, and remove and replace it when it gets full.

Now onto the floor. First see if it needs a sweep or vacuum, if it is carpeted. If so, do this and remove the dirt. If the floor is a shiny surface of some type, such as lino or tiles, give it a mop as well, after using the vacuum.

Your laundry room should now be clean. Take a break, then start on any surplus washing that was collected during the previous efforts. Work your way through it, washing, ironing and putting it away as appropriate. Once you have got on top of the dirty laundry, continuing to keep on top of it will be easy. The amount of washing that will need doing will depend on the size of your household, so do enough washing on a regular basis to keep on top of it and sort the clothes and washing away as it is completed.