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5 Top Tips for an Easy Spring Refresh

Practicing being Safe at Home may have you discovering dark corners of your home that don’t get the T.L.C they deserve. Today, I’m rounding up 5 popular and frequently used spaces in your home that need extra care these days and how to accomplish a sparkling refresh without having to open your wallet!

1. Your Kitchen Sink

I’m starting with the area that is most important to me. Sometimes I notice it being the most neglected in homes. Simple tips to keep it always looking fresh are to:

– Sweep excess food down the drain with a sponge. Food and beverages can stain your sink surprisingly quickly and can leave a layer of gunk in the corners. Give your sink a quick rinse after you finish washing dishes.
– Frequently wash your dish draining racks. I’ve mentioned I like to keep a minimalistic drying rack on my counter – easy to clean and put away if I need extra counter space. I make sure I clean it once a week so my dishes are not resting over standing moldy water! Click here and here for my favorite dish racks! The second is intended for baby bottles but we use it for everyday items! So versatile and I highly recommend it.
– Keep a microfiber towel nicely folded by your faucet. It’ll help you remember to immediately wipe down the inevitable splashes from your dish washing!

2. Your Coffee Table

I’m so guilty of leaving coffee rings on my table. We had coasters – nice ones – my kids broke them. I know I can get unbreakable and universally chic ones like this but also, we could never remember to use them. Instead, we got an easy to clean removable tray to put on the table. If something spills on it, we just grab it by the handles and take it straight to the sink. It’s only purpose is to set drinks on (we have the coffee table books set elsewhere) so that space looks clutter free and tidy 99% of the time and it’s so satisfying. Here is one I absolutely love!

3. Your Bedroom

Make your bed every morning and hang your clothes back up when you undress at night!! We have an unspoken morning and nightly ritual between the two of us. No doubt, we break the rules on nights we’ve had too much wine or on mornings we had too much wine the night before… ;-). BUT anyway, here is our routine if you’re looking to add some simple tidying to your life.

AM: Wake up, open blinds to let some kind of light in, make bed and fold pajamas nicely to be set somewhere for the evening. If you sleep with a glass of water on your nightstand, take it to the kitchen to be washed.
PM: Remove clothes, immediately put dirty clothes in hamper, hang/fold and put away clean clothes, put on PJ’s. Do a quick scan of the room and put away any lingering pairs of shoes, accessories, articles of clothes. You’ll wake up the next morning feeling accomplished and a little more zen than if your room were cluttered with yesterday’s things.

4. Your Bathroom

Do you keep beauty/self care items on the counter? Get yourself a small organizer with compartments to separate by category. We have this one and it is sorted like this: My products on the left, things we both use in the middle, and his items on the right. Truth be told, I might use two compartments but… whatever. It’s space efficient and keeps things looking so much more organized during the day. The organizer is under $10 and an added bonus is that, since everything is in one container, we can pick it all up and wipe down the counter when needed.

5. Your Home Office

Last but definitely not least in this day in age. Where are you running your business while at home?

If you saw my post on Instagram, I wrote this post from the comfort of my sofa. What you didn’t see in the post was my notebook, multi colored pens and highlighters, and product print outs. After I’ve completed my daily blog or social post, I tuck away the assortment of desk clutter and sort it nicely in this bin. Sure, we have a home office as well but my husband is currently using it for his job and I’d much rather be feet up on a sofa with my laptop while he’s crunching numbers into Excel on his desktop. Either way, it’s so important to keep the paper clutter organized so you can stay on task during this period of staying safe at home. If you don’t have the budget for new accessories, simply take a stylish binder clip to your stacks of paper to keep them looking tidy. Bonus: This lessens the worry of your young children grabbing a pile of papers and throwing them across the room too!

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Enlist Help

About a month ago, a friend sent me a picture of her mom organizing her cabinet with the caption “You’re going to be so proud”. She herself is the mother of a 3 year old and a (now) one month old and I promised I would come over any time to organize the MANY toys they’ve accumulated over the years. Her mom beat me to the punch. Mind you, her house is super neat! It looks straight from a magazine. The only issue was keeping the storage bins and baskets categorized. Cars were with the legos, magnet tiles were thrown in with puzzle pieces… I think you get the picture.

For a select few, organizing is like meditation. It comes easily and seems effortless. For others, it may be a tedious chore. In my friend’s case, they have full-time jobs with 2 kids and like to travel frequently. No wonder their storage solutions needed a facelift. Whether you love organizing or hate it, my next tip is this:

Enlist the help of others!

Find a friend, partner, even child willing to help and turn on some music, maybe some trashy T.V, and grab yourselves a drink! You’ll find that this person can do more than keep you company. They may have a different perspective on the task at hand and can probably offer up some new ways of getting your life together.

This doesn’t only apply to cabinet organization, but life in general! Maybe you need to figure out a new weekly routine for school pick-ups, a way to balance your new job schedule, or where your new coffee machine would look best. Either way, it does not have to be a painful process and it can’t hurt to ask someone for help!

Drop me a line below and let me know who your favorite helper is. Or, if you want to enlist my help (I’ll even bring the wine!). If you’re ready to get to organizing, below are some of my must-haves for any task management session.

  • Smart speaker: You’ll have your hands full so being able to tell your TV to turn on or what music to play is key! You can even ask it for a joke to pick you up OR to add another bin to your shopping list if you need just one more.
  • Your favorite playlist: Mine is called Deep Focus. It’s a mostly instrumental playlist built and updated by Spotify.
  • Wine! And some wine glass charms so you don’t mix yours up with your helper’s. These were gifted to me by the same adorable friend who motivated this post.