Ways to Organize/make Better a Small House with Lots of People

Closet organizers are great: they make the small space look orderly.

Have you painted recently? New paint can make things look terrific. The old style painted cabinet look is back in as well. Would painting the kitchen cabinets make it look new?

we are four - in a 800 sq foot mobile home - to say we are cramped is an understatement!
like you my kitchen is in such a state it is awful - I did paint it though, I had huge red apple wallpaper my mil chose, bless her heart, it had to go! I found at home depot mosaic glass tiles, a sheet of them for $5 a sheet, I put them around as a splashback and it matches the blue paint I did the walls in, then I painted the cabinets, they were white so not too much of a problem. I dyed my curtains to match.
as for your dark cabinets, you can get primers that will cover dark stuff and not show through - I was looking at them at home depot just the other day = to be honest though if they are in good shape I would work around them, and lighten the walles to off set the darkness a little.
I have one closet between me and my husband, it is small no more than 4 feet wide, and the same or my 2 kids, they share a closet a little smaller.
I have to store winter or summer clothes, I cannot physically fit all seasons in there, so I got plastic tote boxes from wall mart and space bags and stored the opposite seasons clothes. you need a shed - you cannot survive without one!
use space bags for your comforters and pillows you are not using, those things are great for small houses, they are not a gimmick, they work really well to reduce the size of bulky items like that, buy them off the tv or online, they are too expensive otherwise.
otherwise I do reduce my clutter often, I either pile it in a tote box and put it in the shed or take it to goodwill.
guests will have to deal, we cannot have guests, there is nowhere to put them! we only have 2 bedrooms, that's what hotels are for lol.
I put my papers in a filing cabinet, a small one in my bedroom, not very organized but I know where everything is.

underbed storage - if your beds are too low to get a box under, raise them with risers from walmart, they are $10 and you put one under each leg, there is a whole lot of storage under a bed

i use file cabinets for end tables and they are cheap with lots of storage. you can hang cooking utensils on the wall or cieling. I use a hope chest for a coffee table it is also storage. put blankets between your mattress and box springs. use wall shelfs buy all of your pitchers for the kitchen that stack in each other. get rid of anything that doesnt stack.I use an alunimun foil holder. file cabinets for book cases. get rid of anything you dont need. use an ice bin for lids to plastic bowls. jeans and shirts can go on the same hangers. roll your clothes. military style.

underbed storage is great. buy a towel rack for the bathroom and freeup closet space. i have also seen towels put in wicker baskets hung on the wall. like wash rags and hand towels. over the door racks make alot of space. but most of all get rid of anything not needed outgrown clothes and such. broken toys you get the point. lazy susans help instead of landscaping buid a walk in closet and you can put sheves on top and bookcases or chest of drawers in the bottom.

hang ladders on the outside of your house and extension cords. if you have a garage put up 2x4s and run stuff across the boards my grandad did this. totes and such. for screws and nails and such screw baby jar lids to the bottom of a board. put items in it and use the top of the boards for storage also. this would work with bobby pins and such also. get creative. get a wood shelf to run over your sink in the kitchen behind the sink. cup screws for coffee cups. if you have ice chest use for storage while not in use. I also stacked my box food sideways side down you get more in the small space.

i use a wall hanger for my bills. also for my envelopes it has 2 slots in it. use your imagination. the biggest fix for me was a bigger house i can actually keep it clean now i have a space for everything.

First, your guest are lucky they don't sleep down the street...it is very nice of you to put them up especially if you don't have the room.

I use a 2-hole punch and Prong Fasteners by ACCO (aluminum clips) to organize my papers. You can make the stacks as big as you would like. I will explain further in detail if you need me to.

I stopped using binders because the space they take. The fastener clips work fine.

If you are planning to sell and the house needs paint, then when you are ready to do so you can. It will definitely brighten the house. I find that my daughter does not fit in her clothes beyond the season, I usually just get rid of them when the season changes.

When I was younger and we lived in a small home, I was given a toy box and what I could fit was what I could have. Anything else, the first question was where will you put it.

If you want to paint the cabinets, double check with the hardware store. Explain what you have now or take a picture and see what can be done to change them.

How I feel about company anymore, is I can't be embarrassed for (in my case) a tidy home. It is clean in that restrooms & kitchen are clean, but maybe the laundry is not all done and perhaps not all put away. I used to really go out of my way to spend my entire day cleaning after working all day and keeping up a kid and a business and now I do what I can...if they don't like it, they can stay somewhere else. So if your kitchen is old and your company wants to eat someplace else, they can. If you have done all you can, then it is what it is.

When you are ready to sell this home you are in, you may need to get a small storage if you can't part with everything. Overcrowding makes a home look smaller than it is. The hangers inside the closets should have about an inch between them.

Best of luck.

hello. we lived in a 1000 square foot house. it had about no storage.
i went and removed wood shelves to put in the white wire system from lowes. it actually turned out that there was less storage on the shelves because the wire i picked didn't have a solid bar for hangers. there were spaces to hang hangers between. the standing wire drawers for 50 were awesome and allowed us to store undies, etc...

i would be too embarassed to admit how much i spent on organizers, plastic drawers, and things from the container store. Finally, I decluttered and purged everything i didn't know i would be using. i put a bunch of stuff into the garage. that worked better for us.

closet organizers do help, as long as you use them, i also bought my kids a shoe rack for toys and put it on the back of their doors. you can put one on the back of your bathroom door and it clears alot of room, u can put make up, tooth brushes, hair care products and curling irons, hair dryers etc. i also have tampons, qtips, toothbrushes toothpaste, hair brushes etc there. its a great catch all.

When we lived in a small house (1100 square feet - 2 bedrooms - 4 people) we did spring for the California Closets. Yes, they were kind of expensive. Did they help? YES! Considerably in our case. We had some odd spaces that were maximized for storage by adding the units. They were great to work with, and really tried to work within our budget. Then, when we were ready to sell, I really believe that having those added closet organizers helped us sell quickly. So, for $2700 we had 3 closets totally organized, and a big selling point for a small home. If that is out of your budget (I know - it's expensive) then it still doesn't hurt to get a free quote and see what kind of design they come up with, then you could borrow ideas from them to do your own from Lowes (or where ever).

I know you said you are pregnant, but my midwife said it was OK to paint when I was pregnant as long as it was latex paint. Ask your doc and see what they say. I painted rooms during my second and third pregnancies - kept windows open and lots of fans and my kids are fine :)

GOod luck!

That contractor has a stake in your not buying a $20 bucket of primer, $30 bucket of paint, and $2 worth of sandpaper. Because he can charge you $500 - $5000 to redo / replace your cabinets.

That's actually my next project. I'm sanding, painting, and "facing" my kitchen cabinets.

For dark cabinets... they just need to be sanded, PRIMED, and then painted. Or even skip the sanding if there isn't a ton of stuff on them and just WASH them, let dry and prime first. Easy peasy.

(Trick: for the doors... unscrew the hinges and paint them flat. While they're drying paint the boxes behind them. Then, when the doors are done, just screw them back in.)

(To face them, instead of buying custom doors... which I'd have to because they're ancient... I'm just using beadboard for the center, and molding for the edges on top of the old doors.)

For small space ideas DO check out www.ikea.com (yay, bedrest activity), and you can also order some small space decorating books from amazon or the library.

paint, paint, paint! This is probably the easiest and cheapest way to transform any room. You can search on-line for ALL kinds of cool effects that are actually not too difficult to do. Paint your kitchen cabinets white (the room will look larger), the walls a light blue (or green or whatever, just a light color), you can even paint laminate countertops to spruce them up (you just need food-safe paint and sealant).

As for the clutter - PURGE your closets!!! Toys the kids haven't played with in a year? Clothes you haven't worn in 5? Get rid of it!!

Go through your house room by room and divide everything into 3 piles: Keep, Sell, and Trash. Then hold a yard sale to get rid of the 'sell' stuff - whatever doesn't sell, donate. The other two are pretty self-explanitory.

First of all, your guests do not care about how old your kitchen is. What they do want is to be welcomed with a smile. Good food/drinks also help. We live in a small older home and not a single friend has cared that our kitchen is not up to date. They do like the good food we cook however.

As far as organizing in a small space, I'm an expert. First you need to get rid of what you don't need and love. Really, we do not need so many things to be happy. The second is to make every item you buy have multiple purposes. For example, a foot stool with storage. End tables with doors and drawers under beds. The other main thing is to keep any furniture small scale, no oversized couches, beds, etc.

Yes, I have lots of bold artwork that lightens up an older small home.

Closet organizers help, but the real solution is to get rid of things so closets are not crammed.

First off I would paint cabinets and put new hardware on them if needed and that makes a huge difference. If you have cable or satellite TV watch the shows on selling a home by getting it ready and free of clutter. They have many great ideas. I got 'wonder hangers', you can buy them at Bed, Bath and Beyond or other places, and they come in plastic ( cheaper ) or platinum ( better ) and you can hang many more clothes in the closet space with those. Buy containers with lids of all sizes. Fill them with whatever you want, what you don't use much, out of season things, etc. Stack them if you have a place to do that and that save so much space too. Get shoe sized containers for the closet and put shoes in them and put on shelves if you have shelves higher up and if not get some installed. I think the Lowes closets are too expensive for what you get compared to what you can do yourself. Artwork makes a ton of difference. Don't over do it but you should have complimentary colors on the wall and bring out other pieces of furniture with that. Little items put on tables or lamps too make such a difference and don't have to cost that much. Even a used one helps so much. It should be fun fixing it how you feel is 'you' and lighter and less clutter. It can be done. We lived for several years in a 3 bedroom, one bath, living room/dining room home with 8 kids. I can tell you about no space and bodies all over but it can be done. Use containers with lids that are long and flat too and put those under beds full of toys, clothes, whatever you need to stash away. It will pull out easily though. Get rid of anything you don't use or need. Too many toys? Give some away.

try craigslist for art, decor, and furniture, even organization stuff (shelves, closet organization, etc). you can get tons of great stuff. also we invested in a lot of hooks for inside closets, we stuck them everywhere, laundry "closet", garage, closets, pantry....just one of my favorite tricks. in general, also - less is more. whatever you can sell or give away is probably for the best. 99% of the "stuff" we have we don't really need, ya know? also i don't know how much work you want to put in, but a coat of paint does wonders for a room. anything other than white! can add class and style to an otherwise boring and ugly room.

I hear that PAINT can totally change a room and it's fairly cheap.

Do you want to organize all your stuff or make your house look prettier?
Organizing - get shelves, tall ones. There's wall space wasting where you could be storing things. Also, a lot of smaller shelves will fit inside a closet. Plastic stackable bins are great for the kid's toys. The organizers a lowes look expensive. A garage sale shelf or dresser for toys (and put in the closet) will help free up some space for ya.

Pretty house -- try the paint. Artwork? Don't buy it. Some artwork that your kids do can be hung on the wall for cheap with cheap frames that everyone's always selling at garage sales/goodwill or you can get for cheap at Walmart.

Good luck.