Organize Your Home: Clutter Cures for Every Room

by Better Homes and Gardens (Editor)

Home organization tips from the experts at Better Homes and Gardens Most homeowners struggle to stay organized. "Stuff" accumulates quickly, and finding practical and efficient ways to store it — and the know-how to pare down possessions to those that are truly needed — can be tricky. Organize Your Clutter Cures For Every Room is your comprehensive guide to getting—and staying—organized at home. Packed with solutions for every room that any homeowner can put to use right away, Organize Your Home covers both sides of the organizing the psychology of paring down possessions, reducing clutter, and staying organized as well as the nuts and bolts of finding the right bins, baskets, drawers, and more to store the items you do keep in attractive and efficient ways. Brimming with inspiring and informative photos, plus trade secrets and tips from designers and professional organizers, Organize Your Home shows you how real homes (with real budgets) make organization and efficiency a reality.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crafts, Interior Design

263 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2013

About the author

Better Homes and Gardens is the fourth best selling magazine in the United States. Better Homes and Gardens focuses on interests regarding homes, cooking, gardening, crafts, healthy living, decorating, and entertaining. The magazine is published 12 times per year by the Meredith Corporation. It was founded in 1922 by Edwin Meredith, who had previously been the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson.

Better Homes and Gardens is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love. Love. Love! This book is image-heavy, but there is excellent written advice and instruction for those looking to organize small spaces, rooms, and entire households. Unlike many organizing books that simply instruct readers to start by "de-cluttering," this book provides advice for editing, discarding, and removing the things preventing organization. It also places readers into four different categories of organizing styles, recognizing not just the extreme (label-makers!) but also the casual pilers.

It is appreciated that the suggestions and images range from dollar store-practical to truly aspirational. Often the suggestion is to re-purpose existing piece in your home, though there are helpful shopping suggestions. The images are colorful and well-styled and represent a number of design styles: mid-century, new traditional, modern, eclectic, boho, naturalist, and more. Whether the goal is to organize on a small or large scale, there is something for every reader in this beautiful book!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great ideas and I’ll be lucky if I actually implement even one of them.

[Bookfanatic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! I am on a mission to declutter my home. We aren't hoarders, but we've accumulated junk over the years. I've already tackled several rooms and the biggest closet. There's peace of mind when we exist in surroundings free of piles of this and that. When you know where everything is and everything has a place, you feel less stress. The guidelines in the book are flexible for the kind of lifestyle you have. There's also not a lot of mysticism that you find in some well-known decluttering books.

I'm a very visual person. The large colorful photos were helpful. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I highly recommend this for those who are looking for a clear guide on organizing a home. This works for a beginner to someone more advanced.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains organizing very well. There were lots of examples in the book.

[Carm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this easy to follow book with it’s illustrations and inspirational photos. Arrows on the photos emphasize suggestions for better organization. Tabs on the side allow for quick page turn to desired room. The pages turn easily for great flipping through. Very doable and reasonable goals for improving the problems.

[Donda Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really found this book helpful. It is divided into living space areas. In each space they show multiple ways to stork withthat area. One of the most useful component in each living space is the "IN THE ZONE" breakdown.tells you what's going on. All around that area. This book is making me think about audio "my zones"

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is filled with myriad ideas for organization and storage in every room of your home! I especially appreciated the suggestions (including detailed pictures) for kitchens, clothes closets and sewing/craft rooms and look forward to implementing some as we downsize.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some absolutely gorgeous photos in this book, as well as some good tips. That being said, the text is extremely small. I measured it on the page and it is 2mm tall. It can still be read, but the book isn't worth that much effort.

[Shuang · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a quick and helpful read! I got a lot of organizing ideas and was inspired. Looking forward to implementing some of those in our new home!

[Corinnagoodwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the closet and living room sections the best, the book had lots of pretty pictures, and advice...but it did not actually SHOW you how to do anything.

[LS Schulz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "What's Your Organizational Personality" mini quiz at the beginning of the book was fun, although I found bits of me in each of the four personalities they mentioned. There were some good reminders in here to break projects into chunks, rather than diving in head first and getting discouraged because it seemed like too big a task. I also enjoyed the suggestions for small areas that could be gone through when you have a short amount of time, so that, even if you hadn't gotten far, you'd still have gotten something done and could feel good about it. Like some of the other commenters, I enjoyed looking through all of the pictures and accompanying suggestions, but I found that most of them really wouldn't work for my home or my family - at least not as they were presented. I still enjoyed perusing its pages and did come away with some ideas I can adapt to my own home.

[Minna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an aspirational subject for me, although not terribly realistic. My "house" could fit into several of the spaces shown several times over. E.G., my kitchen is 1/3 the size, my bathrooms are 1/5 the size, my living room is 1/2 the size, etc etc etc. Not to mention the fact that my house has... one closet. ONE.

So. Aspirational, and inspirational, but not super realistic. Let's have an organize your home book for people with tons of clutter and a postage-stamp-sized abode... I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

That said, it certainly is a very pretty book, and I can imagine the type #4 person as described by the book really loving all the meticulously labelled areas, shelves and containers. I'm not sure how the other three types would feel about it. (Sigh)

2 1/2 stars.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non-Fiction; Home Improvement
2 stars

Darn, I was kind of disappointed in this one after highly anticipating its release. It wasn't terrible, it just didn't bring anything new to the table.

Been there, done that.

If this book interests you, I recommend checking out the library copy before investing your money. IMO, it was just an okay read.

[Elissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots more eye candy than useful suggestions for me, but I don't have a large family and I always enjoy BHG books.

[Cody · Rating 1 out of 5]

Intended for families with children.

[Martha]

read again in Mar 2016, Aug 2016 ... I like to organize

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had tons of great ideas. I took notes and hope to get everything in my house, classroom and office in order by the new year.

[Marcy Graybill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it's not revolutionary, it does have some very nice pictures.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, if you're looking for ideas!

[Sheree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book and awesome ideas to organize and decorate. Checked it out at the library and then bought it.

[Beth White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave me some good ideas for storage and organization