35 home organising tips from the pros

“If you have too much stuff without a place to go, the clutter and piles in your home become impossible to actually clean,” says Jennifer Snyder, owner of a home organising business. So if you have a peg in the kitchen for your keys or a shelf for your mail, use them. Plus:

Check out our best cleaning tips for your home.

People with clean homes use their smarts when it comes to products that help them stay organised. “An over-the-door organiser has a variety of clear pockets where you can store jewellery and make-up, sorting by type—pencils, lipsticks, brushes, and eye shadows,” says Paloma Baillie, a DIY expert with the 5mile app. “Everything is laid out, so you have easy access and can see items more clearly.” You can do a similar thing with office supplies if you don’t have room for a desk.

If you consider storage and organisation as part of your decor, as many with clean homes do, it makes the project a feast for the eyes. “I separate my wardrobe so all my dresses are together, all my jeans are together, sweaters, tops, coats, skirts, etc. Then I colour code each category,” says Rachel Parcell, style and design expert behind Pink Peonies. “I love the way it looks and it’s easy to find things.”

Think of your under staircase cupboard as an extension of your garage. If there’s enough room, add a couple floating shelves and hooks for a little extra storage.

Since moisture is a common problem in garages, recycle the cardboard boxes and go with plastic bins to store seasonal items or things you don’t use regularly. Plastic bins will do a better job at keeping moisture out and are easy to label and move around on shelves.

Tuck the microwave under your cabinets to get it off the counter. Microwave ovens are the biggest space hogs on most countertops. With a few models, manufacturers offer optional mounting kits that let you mount the microwave under cabinets. To raise your old microwave, consider the sturdy brackets shown here. But first measure its height and the height of the space above the countertop; with a larger microwave, you might find that the space under it will be too small to be useful.

Plus: check out more quick and clever kitchen storage ideas.

Pull-down racks give you instant access to kitchen essentials without the clutter of spice racks or knife holders. When the cooking is done, the rack swings up against the underside of the cabinet. The acrylic knife rack like the one shown here, or buy a pair of hinges only and make your own wooden rack to hold knives, spices or other small items that take up counter space.

For serious coffee drinkers, stowing the coffeemaker inside a cabinet just doesn’t make sense; you’ll only have to pull it out again in a few hours. Here’s a solution: An under-cabinet coffeemaker is always available and doesn’t take up valuable counter space.

Like a lot of other people, my wife and I love large plastic bins. But remembering what’s inside each bin is tough, and reading a small label is nearly impossible when your bins are stored high on garage shelves. We solved both problems by labeling our bins with large numbers. Each number corresponds to a page in a binder that lists the contents of each bin. It’s simple to change the list, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to find what you need by checking the binder than by rummaging through each bin.

Perfect for storing jewellery at home or away, this hanging jewellery organiser has 32 pockets for storage, along with 18 hook-and-loop closures. Unlike jewellery boxes, this organisation system makes it easy to find just what you’re looking for and takes up less space as it can hang in your wardrobe.