What is a good way to keep a very small bachelor apartment clean and organized?

Question

I live in in a small bachelor and I have a hard time keeping the clutter down etc. I'm a real packrat.

Answer 1

There are a lot of ways...

Mainly, if you bring in something new, get rid of something old and if there is something in your apartment you havent used in over a year, get rid of it, you don't need it.

Don't keep things because they're sentimental. ANYTHING you don't use needs to go. That chair from grandma isn't grandma and you don't need it to remember her.

Make the most of your furniture, use a storage trunk as a coffee table and put things like spare bed linens, books, etc in it. Same with end tables.

Bookshelves should be as tall as possible. IKEA has some really inexpensive and very tall ones. Get underbed boxes. The container store and other stores carry them and they're not expensive. You can put off season clothes in them and they slide right under the bed. Or, if you can afford it, get a captain's bed or other kind of storage bed. It has drawers underneath like a dresser you sleep on. Gothiccabinetcraft.com has a few in different price ranges.

There are loads of ideas for consolidating space and cutting clutter at RealSimple.com. You'll probably have to register for a free account but it'll be worth it. I subscribe to the magazine

Answer 2

really think about what you want to keep make two piles one for charity or garage sale and one pile that you just wont part with
that should help
if you decide to keep everything then may i suggest getting the rubber made storage containers the stack-able kind and organizing your stuff in those containers and stacking the containers in a corner, GOOD LUCK

Answer 3

I bought two paper shredders.
I keep one just inside the door, to shred junk mail i dont even want to bother with
I keep the other, near my desk to shred junk mail that i want to look at.
I have two garbage cans in the kitchen, one in each bathroom, and others throughout the house.
I also try to wash dishes as soon as I use them
I put clothes hampers by the washer, and in the bedroom.
these things help, but its still a struggle

Answer 4

Routines! Try www.flylady.net. They're awesome at helping you learn how to do routines and keep your house clean and organized.

Answer 5

i lived in a tiny space before and i found the easiest way to contain all my stuff was to buy bins and armoire type cabinets to hold the stuff. also purge things you havent used in 6 months. if you collect CD's and DVD's do what i did i took all the discs out of their cases and got the big disc books to store them in. i took the cases and put them in a box in my parents house. that way i could have them without taking up the space. i hope this helps.

Answer 6

You have answered your own question, friend, when you say you are a packrat. Figure out why, let go of your hangups, and figure out what you really do love/need/want and get rid of everything else.

You can keep a lot more if you just agree to keep some out, and some tucked away. Not everything needs to be ultra handy or on display at one time.

Sorting is a real drag and can be emotionally draining but it is worth it. The best way if you have big messes in small spaces is to work from one small area to another, filling boxes of stuff that you don't want anymore at all...then sort through it according to its fate. It may be trash, sell, donate, recycle, return to another person, etc.

Then work your way around the space looking for excessive amounts of things. Pack up things that are:

Consumable, way too much out at a time, such as an economy sized bottle of hand soap when you wouldn't even finish off a small pump dispenser in a month. Get the small pump bottle, and stash the big bottle out of the way, somewhere with all your other overflow items, refill as needed. OR a huge box of envelopes, when you only use 10 or 15 a month. OR 6 boxes of cereal. You can dump things together if you have several of the same thing going...classic example is ketchup. Get rid of original packaging if it is bulky.

You can also pack up things that don't run out but you have too many. Things like CD's, books, DVD, seasons of clothes, or half your wardrobe if there is still a lot of fall and winter stuff out. Make sure that whatever you split off to rotate in and out, works well as an independent collection so you don't have to pick through boxes looking for something you want. Leave a nice variety in each selection.

If your space is really really tiny, you need to declutter more and stash less. But my point is that things you have decided to stash for another day, do NOT have to be in circulation, and this makes everyday cleaning easier, as well as giving you more options where to store things.

The other thing to remember in a small space like yours is that furniture should do double duty whenever possible. Get seating that doubles as storage. Couch that doubles as a bed. Bed that doubles as a dresser. There are lots of double duty items. Why do you need a footstool if you can kick off your shoes and climb on a sturdy chair? You see my point.

OK, after you have your go's out the door, and your stash items boxed up and labelled, you need to find a central place to store them. Do you have even a small closet? A shelf? A corner in a room, that you can hide with a screen? If not, you may have to set them aside, sorted by where they are used, and tuck them away, behind, up high, down low, hardest to reach just before you stock your storage places with the things that are most handy.

Which brings me to the last idea. Planning the space and the items you use everyday. These should be stored in ultra handy places nearest to the place where they are used. On top of a stack, in front of the cabinets, at eye level, on counters and other surfaces. So the last phase is putting things away in a place that makes sense.

My biggest point so far has been: make everything you own earn its keep in your space. It is worth having because....(insert good reason here). What has it done for you lately?

Re: paper, find out what is necessary and keep only that. For things that are sentimental, you can probably eliminate half of the problem, just getting rid of envelopes and keeping the letter or card. Childhood stuff, you can keep a few from each year and toss the rest, and it helps if the item is flat. Don't save the science fair solar system made of styrofoam, save the report or poster you made to go with it. You can take pictures of things you are getting rid of if that helps make the parting any easier.

Another thing you can do is assign everything a home. If you don't have a place to put something away, then it cannot be put away, can it? Whether you are a hider (behind a cabinet door, in a drawer) or a displayer (on the counter, out in the open), give your stuff a definite place to live.

Don't overshop. Just because something is on sale, doesn't mean you need to own it. You would be surprised how many people feel this way. There will always be a sale going on. Sales are for you to get a good deal when you NEED something, even if it is common stuff like toilet paper. If you miss this week's sale on Charmin, you can get Northern on sale next week, after your supply is a little lower and you have room to buy more. Otherwise, do you realize that shopping sales, is basically doing the store's bidding, trying to get something out the door so they can hook you with the next thing they get in the store.

Some attitude adjusters:

Think of excessive clutter as a form of greed...someone else would probably benefit from any one of the things you cannot appreciate, having so many.

Think of clutter as a thief...in every way it is exactly that. It robs you of time, money, energy, and peace. When you think about how much negative effort you invest in clutter it will boggle your mind and you will want to clear it out. Time looking for things. Time earning money to buy things. Money to replace things you lost or broke. Peace because you have to look at mess all the time...even safety sometimes if you are tripping over things. You don't deserve to live like this.

Just keep plugging away at it, and commit to living clutter free. It involves a whole shift toward the simpler ways of doing things and you will be happy you did it.

Answer 7

Get the book, "Clutter's Last Stand from the Library" and read it, inhale, and re-read it.

Dejunk and follow the principles.

Answer 8

get rid of old stuff. or just do small daily pick ups, to avoid one big huge mess week by week.