Ideas for 3 spaces that could deliver more ‘you’ time
I spend my days as an organizer helping clients optimize their storage and use their living space in efficient and sensible ways. Although every house is different – small or large, new or old, modern or traditional, one level or four levels – I find myself envisioning additions that would make every house function best for its owners. In other words, what is missing – even from newly built houses with all the bells and whistles – that could help people with storage and flow. Here are a few ideas:
EXCHANGE ROOM
One issue I notice in almost every home is boxes or bags lined up in a front hall, dining room or bedroom that are waiting to be taken somewhere – to school, to the office, to the post office, to a thrift shop, to return to a store. This is modern life. In decades past, packages weren’t arriving daily, people weren’t working from home and from an office, parents weren’t asked to bring items to school each month, and kids didn’t participate in as many extracurricular activities. Everything that needs to be remembered for an event, returned to a store or sent back to an online retailer is put somewhere in the house where it will be seen and remembered, which often means it’s somewhere you really don’t want it to be.
Wouldn’t it be easier – and tidier – if all of those items were kept in a space designed to accommodate them – an “exchange” room? It wouldn’t require a lot of space but could have shelves or cubbies designated for incoming and outgoing items, and space for packing and mailing supplies as well as spare bags and boxes. Sort of a mailroom for your house.
SPACE FOR RECYCLING
As long as we’re talking about items going in and out, let’s discuss all those bottles of sparkling water, wine, soda and juice you bring into your house each week. Not to mention the food containers and never-ending catalogues and junk mail. It’s good news that more items are packaged in environmentally friendly ways, but most homes don’t have the space to keep up with the flow. Either the indoor recycling bin has to be emptied daily, or items pile up next to the bin.
Neither option is optimal, and neither encourages recycling. A household with more than two people needs more than one standard 13-gallon recycling bin. Optimally, there would be space for at least three bins somewhere near the kitchen or a large cabinet that could hold several rectangular bins that could be easily slid in and out.
CLEANING CLOSET
Cleaning supplies take up almost a full aisle at the grocery store, and people buy more cleaning products today than in decades past. Yet no one can find a convenient place to store all of those supplies, not to mention their vacuum cleaner and upright dusters, brooms and mops. Shouldn’t there be a designated space for all of these essential items, such as a utility closet?
After all, there’s never enough space beneath the sink, the laundry room has its own supplies, and who wants to go down to the basement every time you need the vacuum cleaner? These are regularly used items – or should be. Giving them a centrally located place in the home makes sense.