Every so-often I’ll throw up a poll on stories asking about topics you want to hear about on the blog. I’m always surprised at how much interest there is around our home. I say that bc after being here for 7 years, I feel very limited when it comes to space/light. Not to mention there are many things I would change but at this point, we feel like it wouldn’t be wise to put any more money into our condo.

Anything more would solely be about the cosmetic exterior — so, totally unneccessary besides me just being bored. For example, I would NEVER do dark hardwood moving forward. It’s what was here when we moved in and we just lived with it. We thought about changing it all, a year or two ago but for the work / $ / inconvenience it’s not really worth it just to cure my boredom.

I’ve taken notes in this house and feel so much confidence in what I want to do with our next home. But back to the floors — I get a lot of msgs from other dog moms asking about how our home looks so clean, organized and uncluttered (and may I remind you, it doesn’t always stay this way!) I will tell you we definitely do make a conscious effort to keep things tidy. We are both very neat/tidy people in general so I actually don’t find it tough to keep things organized bc that’s just how we like it!

Over the years, I’ve acquired a few hacks and found tools that make my job a lot easier. Listing them out below:

SHOP HOME ORGANIZATION

A FEW RULES WE LIVE BY AT OUR HOUSE:

Less is more: every couple months I make a habit of taking inventory of our stock. What do we absolutely love? what can we let go of to make more room?. My top tip to not feeling cluttered, means doing just that. When I shop, whether it be for clothes or home decor I try to work from a similar palette (I’m really into clean, neutral tones) and buy things I feel confident I can mix and match over time and through the seasons. If I’m bringing anything new into our home, it’s got to have a purpose.

Organize your items: either by category or by like items. It helps keep everything together in one place but I also find it visually satisfying as well. Nothing feels better than having your things organized and neatly put away. To achieve this, it helps to use storage items like bins, baskets, dividers etc. which brings me to my next point.

Order some help: if I was allowed to, I’d rather go to places like Target, HomeSense or the Container Store but RN I’ve been relying heavily on Amazon for all things organization, especially for at home. Baskets, glass containers & jars, jewelry organizers etc. make it so that everything has a dedicated place.

Get creative with it: the fun thing about organization is that there are unlimited options. Because our condo is under 1,000 sq ft, we’ve had to get creative with our storage solutions – I like to keep everything looking as aesthetically pleasing as possible, while also being practical and functional.

I can’t tell you how many of those glass containers I’ve bought from HomeSense. I use those for all kinds of things, so whenever I do see any that are uniquely shaped or have pretty details (since they’re really inexpensive) I alway pick them up and figure out what to do with them later. I’ve used mine for everything from displaying my business cards, to sunglasses, jewelry and bubble gum. There are so many fun options.

In order to keep our home clean, there are definitely certain things I use to help get the job done. Especially during the months of the years when our dog is shedding (over our dark floors!!)…
listing everything I use daily/weekly below:

+ Dyson Animal Vacuum: highly recommend & worth every penny. Works like a dream.
+ Swiffer Duster: our place gets dusty pretty quickly so these are great especially for shelves, side tables, lamps, blinds etc. The Swiffer Sweeper is also a great alternative for hardwood, we use ours all the time (again, dog hair).
+ Swiffer Wet Jet: love to use this once a week for a quick, deep clean in mins. Always makes the floors look and smell great.
+ Fresh scents: I have diffusers and a few candles throughout our house to keep every room smelling fresh, clean and calming.
+ Cleaners: I recently started using Dr. Bronner’s products (linked below) but I also love clean cleaning products from Mrs. Meyer’s and Saje.