Harry Houdini knew a thing or two about keeping small spaces organized. But, keeping your home decluttered is no illusion. Through sleight of hand and a few well placed tricks you can improve your space and have an organized home that will feel like magic!
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Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and I’m here with four weird tricks to help you get organized, and they’re weird because all of them have to do with doors. I have run into so many situations in my organizing career that have to do with doors getting in the way, not being utilized well enough, so I want to show you a great example for my new house. The builder put the door in where the swing of the door was swinging outward. And it was coming right into the bathroom. So, I don’t know if you can see here. This is my bathroom sink, and I’ve got drawers here that I need to access. So, this door was hitting right up against the sink every day, and then what was weird was behind here there’s a wall – and you can see where I have my necklaces hanging on this wall right now – that wall was on the other side so that it so easily could swing in and just hit that wall and not get in the way of anything. So I did have them come and reverse the swing of this door.
Now it pushes into the closet, into that short wall, and it gets in the way of nothing. It freed up my entire bathroom sink and drawer space. And it made all the difference in the world. So is there a door in your house that could benefit from reversing the swing? Think about that.
Another thing to think about with doors is do you even need them at all? I’ve worked on many closets where we’ve actually just taken the door off. I had a closet in my old house that was our destination station where we had removed the door completely. I worked on this project for Women’s Day in 2013 where we removed the door. It was actually opening into the closet like mine, only they didn’t have a short wall there. It was opening right into a bunch of clothing, and it was just in the way. So we took it off. We put a curtain there so they can close it off if they need to. Otherwise, it is gone. So, it’s no longer an impediment to their organizing.
Another thing about doors is that they need to be treated like a wall. Think about it. It’s the same as a wall, except it just moves on hinges. So you’ve got that space for storing something, whether you just put hooks on there or you buy over-door products that are very abundant, like shoe bags where you can hold anything from Barbies to actual shoes or craft supplies. You can hang a lot of stuff on the back of a door with pantry racks and all the other things that are available when you search on Google for over-door products. And this is making the best use of that wall on hinges that you have.
And the last tip I have for you – weird tip about doors – that you should look at your appliances. Because there have been many projects I’ve done in kitchens and in laundry rooms where either the washer/dryer or the refrigerator door had a swing that wasn’t very efficient. For example, when you’re opening the washer, you’re taking the clothes out, and you want to put them into the dryer, if the door swing is the wrong way, then it’s going to get right in the way of you putting those clothes into the next machine. So if those are reversible on your appliances, take a look at that. It actually might make your day more efficient, help to get those clothes in faster or maybe your refrigerator door is bumping into a countertop or something, but take a look. It really might be easy and doable for you. Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed these weird tricks.
We’ll see you next time. May you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for solutions for doors that get in the way.
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