Your Living Room Organization Checklist

Happy spring! As we head into spring, many of us begin itching to get the house in order before the humid, rainy days of summer. Going through each room systematically now means that you should have a nicely organized home when it comes time to spend the hottest months indoors, where it’s nice and cool.

Take a look around your living room. Is it cluttered? Are you not quite sure what movies and video games are lurking in your entertainment system? Maybe your bookcase is looking pretty messy and unkempt? Here’s a living room organization checklist that will have your room whipped into shape in no time!

Look around your living room. Chances are you have a coffee table, end tables, and maybe other types of tables in the room. Grab a laundry basket and swipe the items off of the tops of all of these surfaces into the basket. (Remove breakables first!)

Take a look in the basket. What actually belongs in the living room? The remote controls can go back on the end table, and maybe a short stack of magazines or a couple of books belong on the coffee table. The kids’ figurines, your latest craft project and yesterday’s junk mail don’t, though. Find a new place for these items.

With the new gaming systems available, it’s possible to buy digital downloads of many of your favorite video games. If you do this, feel free to put the disks in a box for your next garage sale.

Go through your DVDs and BluRays at the same time. There are probably some that you no one in your family watches anymore. If this is the case, you can go ahead and purge these, too.

While you’re organizing this section of your living room, decide whether your storage system is adequate. Are the cases staying dust free? Are you able to find what you want within a minute or two of looking? If not, you might need to invest in a system that will work better and keep your belongings in better condition. 

Are the books on your bookcase falling over? It’s time to neaten them up. Remember: Taking everything off of your bookcase at once is a surefire way to get overwhelmed by chaos!

Instead, empty one shelf at a time. Go through the books, getting rid of the ones you no longer want, and put them back so their bindings are facing out. Taller books (or even shorter books, to create visual interest) can lay on their sides. If you have thin children’s books, consider stacking them in a basket; this will help prevent a big mess when your little one goes to take one book off of the shelf.

Once everything is neat and tidy, you will be able to easily dust all of your surfaces, vacuum the floors and shake out your area rugs. Good organization goes a long way toward making it simpler to keep everything clean!