How to Organize Your Living Room

Organize Your Home in 40 Days – Week 3

Living rooms are often one of the most cluttered areas in the house. If you have children, at some point during the day there are probably toys strewn about the room, odds and ends shoved haphazardly between sofa cushions, and books and magazines scattered across the floor. If you don't have children, you might struggle with endless paper piles or unwieldy stacks of DVDs instead.

We get it. It's difficult to create a calm, perfectly tidy environment. But your home doesn't have to look like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens to be a more functional, organized, and cheerful place. And once you get organized, the easier it will be to stay organized, as well as more productive and healthy in other areas of your life. That's why for week three of the Simplify Challenge, we're challenging you to get rid of your excess living room clutter! If you're not able to tackle all the tasks we've outlined by yourself, don't worry. Just contact us to get some help from one of our awesome professional organizers!

Organize Your Living Room Surfaces

Let's get started on living room using the same strategical steps we used for week one and two –

PURGE, CLEAN, ORGANIZE, and MAINTAIN. First, we'll focus on living room surfaces, especially the entry table, coffee table, end tables, and sofa tables. These areas have a tendency to get pretty cluttered. Here's how to change that:

PURGE - Grab a couple of bags for trash and recycling, as well as several boxes in which you can put items you want to donate, sell, store, or move to another area of your home. Start sorting items, getting rid of as much as you can. Ask yourself if the item is functional. If it's not, do you enjoy its decorative qualities enough to look at it every day? Donate items you know you'll never use again, such as old magazines and books. Let someone else enjoy them instead!


CLEAN – Now that all the surfaces are clear, dust them off and clean them if necessary.


ORGANIZE - Put back only your favorite decorative pieces and functional items. Also sort through assorted electronic accessories. Consider repurposing a basket you have around the house to hold items like remote controls. Also, make sure to take action on all of the items you put into boxes so they don't take up space and create more clutter. When you're all done, enjoy the clean simplicity of the space!


MAINTAIN - Having a place for every item in the living room, and putting these items back in their designated spaces daily, is key to keeping your surfaces clear and clutter-free.