5 Tips For Using Organization as Decor
Yes you can have a beautiful AND organized home. Here are 5 tips for using organization as decor. Each simple tip serves two purposes- keeping your home organized and adding to its beauty.
Guess what? My friend Melissa from Polished Habitat is here today with some awesome tips on how to organize your space in some really awesome and beautiful ways. When it comes to clever ways to organize, Melissa is your gal. Bonus? She is one of the funnest people I’ve met! So, here she is, with 5 tips for using organization as decor!
Ever look at photos of GORGEOUS spaces in magazines and wonder if they could actually be lived in? I’d certainly jump in the volunteer line to find out if I could maintain the perfect look. Knowing myself, it wouldn’t last long.
That doesn’t mean I’m not striving to create our own beautiful home. Over time, I’ve figured out that I’m able to keep the house looking great much longer when I’ve built organization into our decor. Now, when I design a room update, I start off by thinking about how we use the space on a day to day basis.
I’ve got a few examples to show you what I mean and hopefully they will inspire some ideas for your own home. You can click any of the photos to see more of each space.
The first project that really made me think about incorporating organization into a design was my craft space. The room is half guest bedroom, half craft room. I didn’t want my guests to feel like they were invading my space when they visited, but I also wanted the craft area to feel like me.
Tip #1: Gallery Walls Aren’t Just For Art
I came up with the idea of a gallery wall that blended artwork and storage. The same colors I used in the gallery wall are repeated throughout the room to give both areas one cohesive feel. This concept would also work great in a home office or even a bathroom!
Tip #2: Make Ugly Things Pretty
One of my craziest organizational ideas was to use a real estate flyer box to create a wall mounted trash can for the laundry room. We don’t have floor space for a traditional trash can, so dryer lint and clothing tags always ended up cluttering the top of the washer and dryer. It would have been totally functional to just put the clear bin on the wall, but I took ten minutes to make it pretty. Now it’s a quirky functional art piece and blends into the room.
I used a similar idea to dress up binders in the office. You can buy really cute binders in any color to match your decor, but since I already had basic black binders, it was a great chance to save some money! The plain binders were functional, but adding gold vinyl polka dots and labels flipped the switch from functional to decor.
Tip #3: Cohesive Labels Are Key
Consistent labeling throughout a room is a great way to elevate a good organizing project into great home decor. Our pantry has a glass door, so everything inside can be seen from the kitchen. I’m a huge fan of labels because they tend to KEEP things organized long term. I had several different types of containers, but using the same font on each one pulled them all together. They would have been just as functional with all different labels, but consistency turns them into decor.
Tip #4: Pegboards are AMAZING!
I’m a newish fan of pegboards and I don’t know what took me so long to figure out how great they are. They turn a mishmash of almost anything into a pretty displayed collection. And they can be painted any color to match your style!
In front of our treadmill, I turned a blank wall into a mini-gym with the pegboard pulling everything together.
The garage is a more traditional space for pegboard, but even out there you can upgrade them for a custom look. Sandwiching ours between two IKEA KALLAX units created a fun wall of storage.
Tip #5: Hidden Organization Keeps Surfaces Clear
As much as I LOVE a project that keeps our stuff looking great out in the open, some things just need to be hidden. I realized that the more organized the inside of our cabinets become, the more likely we are to keep the countertops clear. So while this tip doesn’t directly affect our decor, the impact is still huge. Our kitchen looks SO much better when there isn’t clutter all over the island! I couldn’t live without my mini-hamper for dirty kitchen towels now.
The same principle applies in the bathroom.
I can’t wait to use these tips on my own upcoming projects. I just finished designing an update for our shared office, and my tentative plans include another pegboard space. I would love you to come over and follow along.
I can’t say goodbye without thanking Corey for letting me fill in for her today. I’ve been lucky enough to hang out with her in real life on two different trips and she is one of my favorite people…like ever. Her heart for others is HUGE, she can make me laugh in an instant, AND we can sit down at a restaurant and agree on what meal to split in 30 seconds flat. I’m a sucker for a girl who loves Mexican food as much as I do!
So if you ever wonder if the people behind the blogs are as great as they seem, I promise you Corey is. And since you met me like 3 minutes ago at the top of this post, you can definitely trust me!
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