Moving to a new home is often a blend of excitement and stress. For residents of Rathdrum, Idaho, this transition can be streamlined with some expert organizing tips.

This guide offers practical advice to help you relocate with ease, focusing on effective planning, choosing the right storage solutions, packing efficiently, and settling into your new home.

1. Effective Planning: The First Step to a Smooth Move

Before you start packing, effective planning is crucial. Begin by creating a detailed moving checklist tailored to Rathdrum’s local resources and your specific needs. This checklist should cover every aspect of your move, from hiring movers to transferring utilities.

Next, familiarize yourself with Rathdrum’s layout and community resources. Knowing the locations of hardware stores, donation centers, and recycling facilities can save time during the move. Additionally, consider the seasonal weather patterns in Rathdrum. Planning your move around milder weather conditions can make the process more comfortable.

Setting a realistic timeline is also key. Allocate enough time for each stage of the move, from packing to cleaning. Remember, things often take longer than expected, so include buffer days in your schedule.

Lastly, inform important parties about your move. This includes updating your address with banks, government agencies, and subscription services. Doing this early avoids last-minute hassles and ensures a seamless transition to your new Rathdrum home.

2. Choosing the Right Storage Solutions

One often overlooked aspect of moving is deciding what to do with items that don’t immediately fit into your new space. In Rathdrum, utilizing storage units can be a game-changer. Specifically, choosing storage units in Rathdrum Idaho, for extra, unwanted, or delicate items can provide a temporary home for your belongings while you settle in.

When selecting a storage unit, consider the size, climate control features, security, and accessibility. Rathdrum’s climate might necessitate a climate-controlled unit, especially for sensitive items. Additionally, look for facilities with robust security measures to ensure the safety of your belongings.

Packing for storage also requires a different approach. Use sturdy boxes and packing materials, and label everything clearly. This not only protects your items but also makes retrieving them easier when needed.

Furthermore, organize the storage unit strategically, placing items you might need access to near the front.

Remember, storage units are not just for excess items. They can also be a strategic part of your moving process, allowing you to declutter your space and focus on settling in without feeling overwhelmed.

3. Packing Efficiently: A Key to Moving Success

Efficient packing is vital for a stress-free move. Start by decluttering your current home. This involves sorting through your belongings and deciding what to keep, donate, sell, or discard. Reducing the volume of items to move not only saves time and effort but also makes unpacking in your new home easier.

Invest in quality packing supplies. Strong boxes, bubble wrap, packing paper, and sturdy tape are essentials. For delicate items, consider special containers or custom solutions. Label each box with its contents and the room it belongs in. This organization streamlines the unpacking process.

Pack room by room, starting with less frequently used spaces. This method keeps your home functional for as long as possible and helps maintain organization. Also, consider packing an “essentials” box with items you’ll need immediately upon arriving at your new home, like toiletries, snacks, and basic tools.

Lastly, if you’re using a moving company, communicate clearly about which boxes contain fragile items. This ensures extra care is taken with your valuable possessions during transit.

4. Settling into Your New Rathdrum Home

Once you’ve arrived in Rathdrum, take the time to settle in properly. Begin by cleaning your new home before unpacking. This gives you a fresh start in your new space.

Unpack systematically, starting with the essentials box and then moving room by room. As you unpack, think about the layout and organization of each space. This is an opportunity to set up your home in a way that works best for you.

Explore your new neighborhood in Rathdrum. Familiarize yourself with local amenities, such as grocery stores, parks, and community centers. This helps you feel more at home and can also be a great way to meet new people.

Lastly, update your home’s security. Whether it’s installing new locks or setting up a security system, ensuring your family’s safety in your new Rathdrum home is paramount.

 

5. Navigating Rathdrum’s Moving Services: Making the Right Choice

When moving to or within Rathdrum, choosing the right moving service is crucial. Rathdrum offers a variety of moving companies, each with unique services. To select the best one, start by assessing your specific needs.

Are you moving to a large house or a small apartment? Do you require special handling for delicate items or heavy furniture? Your answers will guide your choice.

Research is key. Look for moving companies with good reputations in Rathdrum. Read reviews and testimonials and ask for recommendations from local residents. A reputable company should offer transparency in pricing, reliability, and professionalism. Don’t hesitate to ask for quotes from multiple companies to compare prices and services.

Another important factor is insurance and liability coverage. Ensure the company you choose provides adequate protection for your belongings during the move. This is especially important in Rathdrum, where varying terrain and weather conditions can impact the moving process.

6. The Final Touches: Personalizing Your New Rathdrum Home

After the move, personalizing your new home is the final step in making it truly yours. This involves more than just arranging furniture; it’s about creating a space that reflects your personality and meets your lifestyle needs.

Start by considering the design and aesthetic you want for your home. Rathdrum’s natural beauty and local culture can serve as inspiration. Whether you prefer a modern, rustic, or eclectic style, incorporate elements that resonate with your personal taste.

Conclusion

By following these expert tips, your move can be a more organized and less stressful experience. Remember, the key to a successful move is planning, utilizing the right resources, and taking the time to settle in properly. Welcome to your new home!

If you like to cook and bake it can be easy to lose track of all the recipes you have made over the years. As you add more and more recipes to your collection, it can be impossible to keep them all in one organized place.  

 Luckily, there are many easy ways to organize your kitchen recipes so you never lose a precious recipe again.  

 This guide has all the best ways for recipe organization from using your mobile phone to buying a special recipe organizer.  

 Download a Recipe Book App 

 If you use mostly online recipes rather than a recipe book app is the perfect solution. You can import recipes from the website you’re on onto the app and then have it to read and refer to later. Some apps even allow you to scan recipes from print like magazines and cookbooks.  

 There are also specialty apps that you can use if you want to meal prep with your recipes. These allow you to easily find recipes specifically for meal planning so you can plan out the whole week with your cooking ideas.  

 Sharing recipes is also a whole lot easier with apps because you can share them with just one click rather than having to find the paper of an original recipe and take photos of it.  

 Make a Filing System  

 If you use mostly recipes from print materials like magazines and recipe cards, the best way to organize them is by using a three-ring binder. There are some specifically meant for recipes so you can find one that is decorated just for use in the kitchen.  

 Since you will be using the book around food and spices, consider protecting the pages with plastic page protectors. You can also use colorful tab dividers to sort the recipes. For example, you can make one tab for desserts, one for soups, one for vegetarian meals, one for chicken meals, etc.  

 The page protectors will also protect the pages from grease if you are frying items or if your hands have oils on them.  

 Protecting your recipes is especially important if you have special recipes that have been in the family for years as you want to preserve them.  

 Consider Getting Rid of Books  

 Recipes and cookbooks are a great addition to any kitchen, but most of the time, you will find yourself only using one or two recipes from a cookbook and the rest of the book is never used.  

 Rather than crowding your home and kitchen with cookbooks, consider just scanning the recipes you actually use and then adding them to the binder that we discussed above.  

 You can then donate the book or give it to a friend if you know someone that will be able to make better use of it.  

 Try to Switch to Online  

 While a helpful binder is better than using recipes from all over the place, cooking with recipes online is much easier because they can never get lost. If you prefer your paper though, no problem! Just keep the pages well-organized and clean. If you’re using family recipes, you probably have no option then to use paper as well.  

 However, if you use paper recipes from cookbooks and magazines, you should easily be able to find them online. Almost all cooking magazines post the same recipes online so you can easily find them on their website and then save it for later.  

 This also saves you money because you can stop buying magazines and cookbooks. Some online cooking websites offer paid subscriptions though where you can get recipes early and view as many as you’d like in a week. If you use one website frequently, it might be worth it to pay for the subscription so you can save all the recipes and have access to more of the ones you want.  

 Mark Your Pages  

 If you are set on keeping your magazines and cookbooks, consider buying metal page markers so you can mark the recipes you use often or the ones you want to try in the future.  

 Metal page markers work the best because they do not fall off. With a page marker, you never have to fold down the corner of the page or wrinkle the page. You can also buy page markers in many different colors according to your style.  

 Make a Book Nook  

 Some people love their cookbooks and they prefer to keep their books rather than using line resources. The only issue is that cookbooks can easily crowd the kitchen and make it near impossible to find what you’re looking for.  

 The best thing you can do is make a designated and organized space for all your cookbooks. Just make sure you do not put the books in a place where they could be exposed to grease or too much heat. Next to the stove for example is not a good place for your cookbook collection.  

 You can add in some shelving to make a nook. If you do not have enough space for extra shelves, consider adding one of the steel shelves seen in kitchens where steel pots hang. This way you have created a two-in-one functional space for your books and your pans.  

 Declutter and Categorize  

 No matter which of the organization methods you choose, make sure to first declutter your recipes. Get rid of all the ones you never use or the ones you tried and didn’t like. Then categorize the ones that are left to make it easier to find recipes when you are ready to cook.  

 Final Thoughts  

 There are many different ways to organize your recipe collection whether it be online or in a binder. If you want to use cookbooks, you can also mark the pages of the recipes you use often and then make a nook for all your magazines and books.  

 The best part about recipe organization is that it makes cooking and baking in your new luxury kitchen much easier and fun.  

 

 

 

Organizing your fridge is essential since it makes your fridge look good, reduces food wastage, and makes food preparation pleasurable. An organized fridge also makes cleaning more effortless and prevents disease-causing bacteria from accessing your groceries.

If you’re learning how to organize a kitchen, your fridge should be one of your top priorities. According to WRAP, UK households produce five million tonnes of edible food waste per year. The high number is simply because many people don’t know what’s in their fridge.

Here are seven effective methods to organize your fridge:

Clean It Well

The first important step in organizing your fridge is taking everything out and thoroughly scrubbing all the dirt. Remove the shelves and drawers, and clean them with hot water and soap. Wipe down the interiors using non-abrasive cleaning methods to avoid destroying the plastic. Afterward, place a box of baking soda to prevent unpleasant smells in the future.

Use Clear Containers

Remove your items’ packaging and invest in clear food storage containers. These would enclose your grocery items and other food essentials and keep them together. Label the containers according to the type of items or by expiry date. Besides clear containers making your fridge look organized, they’re much easier to remove and clean than shelves and drawers. These containers also ensure you see what’s available.

Sort Your Shelves

If you’re used to placing your groceries in just any available space, it’s time to change that. Organizing your shelves helps reduce wastage since you’ll know what’s available and where it is. Here’s how to start:

Top Shelf: This is one of the warmer shelves, so avoid storing perishable items here, like fresh meat. Instead, consider storing leftovers and stuff you need to eat soon.

Middle Shelf: Consider storing dairy products, like milk, cheeses, butter, and yogurt, or items that can be left uncovered, like berries. Since these shelves have much vertical space, they’re suitable for taller containers.

Bottom Shelf: This is the coolest spot in the fridge, so items stored here should have a lower risk of spoiling. The bottom shelf is ideal for storing fresh meat and fish. Storing raw food on the bottom shelf minimizes the risks of cross-contamination.

Drawers: These should be designated for storing salads, vegetables, and fruits with their original packaging. They’re also a perfect space to store herbs and other fresh produce to prevent them from freezing.

Door Shelves: These are the warmest section of the fridge and are most likely to experience temperature fluctuations. Therefore, store foods with natural preservatives, like condiments, juice, and jams.

Check Expiry Dates

When storing food in the fridge, take time to check the expiration dates of all the items. While some of them might be consumed past these dates, most of them can be harmful once they’ve gone beyond their shelf lives. Go through sauces, jellies, and jams you haven’t used in a while and either use them or toss them out. It’ll be much easier to find any item you need when you’re not going through endless cans and bottles of stuff you’ll never use.

Keep A List

One of the ways to take your organizing process to the next level is by keeping a list of all items in your fridge. This lets you know what you have in your fridge without sifting through it. However, you don’t need a list of all the items in the fridge. Instead, write down what you bought recently or what items are about to expire soon. This way, you’ll know what you’re missing and keep track of items’ expiry dates.

Keep Perishable Foods In Front Of The Fridge

Food wattage often results from not knowing what’s in the fridge and when it expires. As the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.”  Therefore, it’s essential to keep food items with short shelf lives at the front. If you move things in and out of your fridge more often, designate a separate shelf to store these items and label them for easy remembrance.

Label Everything

It might seem obvious, but labeling your containers can improve your organizational skills. Labeling helps you and your loved ones find what they need quickly and ensures the items return to their proper places in the fridge. You can either use labeling stickers or handwritten scripts that are easy to read.

Conclusion

Organizing your fridge may take a little more time and effort, but it’s worth it as it helps save money and reduce food wastage, all while promoting cleanliness. If you’re wondering how to organize your fridge, don’t hesitate to incorporate the above tips as they’ll surely help.

Are you ready to organise your hoarded items and take on the challenge to remain organised? With just three simple steps everyone can become an organised hoarder! As you’re organising, it might be sensible to arrange a junk removal collection and liberate yourself from all unneeded items in just one batch!

Did you know there is little difference between organised people and hoarders? Well, as a hoarder you literally have your stuff all over the place which makes it hard to find anything you may need. Be it your bills you can find in time to pay them or that one bottle opener albeit you know you probably have 20 of those flying around – somewhere. Organised people often hoard almost as much as you do as a hoarder, but simply in a more organised manner. They may also have 50 cans of chickpeas in their storage, next to a bunch of useful lunchboxes of all sizes. Yet, they’re more organised and can find anything they need with just one glance. Would you like your home to become as organised? Simply follow these 3 Steps!

Start you junk removal project with a friend

Organising your junk removal is certainly not an easy task. The longer you live in one place, the more stuff you accumulate without realising how much you truly have. Once one thing gets out of hand, it can get overwhelming easily. Most often time, you will just be staring at that huge pile, not knowing where to start. Ultimately, you don’t start at all, just because it’s too much.

However, if you had a good friend taking on that challenge with you, wonderful You’re not alone. You can make jokes while you’re sorting your stuff and listen to your favourite music to make the endeavour even more fun. With someone at your side, it’s also a lot easier to let go of things you don’t need anymore. There’s a reason why you’ve kept this much stuff of all sorts. The reason usually is emotional attachment and the notion you could need it one day. If you were alone, you’d automatically keep a lot more than you need and not really make as much progress. A friend could help you with supporting questions about every single item, such as:

● “Have you used this during the last year?”

● “Why do you need 100 bottle caps?”

● “When do you ever wear your 50 pairs of shoes?”

● “When did you last check the expiry date of your tomato sauce?”

You could reflect on all those questions yourself, but with a friend on your side, things will be more into perspective. You may even laugh about yourself having kept 100 bottle caps for the art project you never started. It’ll be easier to realise you never wear all of the shoes you’ve accumulated and usually stick to just two of them while you probably keep one pair for those special occasions.

Start small and don’t quit

If you decide to organise your junk removal in one go, it’s going to be quite a marathon even if you have a friend to help you. Avoid taking on an overly large project and ending up as a quitter. Instead, start with a small area you can handle and don’t stop until you’re done

Begin in one room and imagine what you’d like it to look like. What would your living room look like if all those piles of magazines, newspapers and books were gone? At the end of the day, you won’t enjoy your place being that crammed that you can hardly move around.

There’s no use in having such a stuffed closet that it’s hard to find anything you’d like to wear. In order to start organising, you could start in one particular area of one room, such as at a chest of drawers, a particular cupboard or also a closet. It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you keep it simple. Arrange a few cardboard boxes for keepers, giveaways, and tossers. If you’re not sure about an item, put it into a maybe-box to sort it through at the end.

While you’re at it, you may feel demotivated. Just tell yourself if you stopped now, it’ll never get done and turn into Beethoven’s Unfinished. At the same time, you could find stuff others may need much more than you do or find something you can sell. Imagine how great it’d be to have friends coming over for dinner instead of having to eat out all the time and spend even more cash you need more urgently for your bills. Remember, your life won’t change until you are more organised.

Be The Flash

… or a roadrunner. The key to organising all your hoarded items to also act fast about it. With a friend at your side, you spend less time reminiscing about every single item. The longer you spend with your memories of each item, the longer it will take to organise your treasures. And the longer you take, the sooner you’re going to feel fed up, not wanting to go ahead.

You can be a lot faster with your junk removal if you think less about each item whether to keep or not. Simply stick to reflecting if you’ve used it within the last year or not. If not, toss it. If you wonder whether you may need it at some point, toss it anyway. Most of the stuff each one of us keeps we don’t end up using one day. Even if it’s the yoga mat you bought a couple of years ago and haven’t used. If you don’t commit to starting yoga right away after that much time, another one will be more than happy to give your yoga mat a new home where it’s used.

Consider the same approach for an item that’s of sentimental value for you. If you can’t give it an honorable spot where you can proudly look at it every day, toss it. It may sound harsh, but that’s the only way to quickly overcome with your challenge. The sooner you’re done with junk removal, the happier you will be to have turned your home into an organised hoarding cave.

When your house isn’t organized, it can drive you and your family up the wall as you search for things that never seem to be in the same place. Not to mention that being around chaos can be stressful. To help you find peace again, these 12 DIY home organization ideas are ones you’ll want to try in different rooms.

1. Add Towel Bars to the Inside of the Linen Closet

If you always seem to have too many towels and not enough space, then hang a towel bar or two on the inside of the linen closet door. It could be a towel to grab for cleaning or the one you reserve for guests who show up unexpectedly.

2. Hooks for Pots and Pans

If all your pots and pans don’t fit in the drawer at the bottom of the stove, then stop trying to jam them in there! It’ll only frustrate you, and then the drawer never seems to close all the way.

Instead, put hooks along the sides of cupboards in the kitchen to use the open space for storage. As for the lids, store them in a wall organizer so you can see them at a glance and pick the best one for the pot.

3. Put a Tension Rod inside the Spice Jar Cupboard

Do you use a lot of spices? If so, put a tension bar within the cupboard to make it two shelves rather than one. The small jars will sit on top of the rod and rest on the back of the cupboard.

You’ll maximize the vertical space with this DIY project. A bonus is being able to see the labels at a glance so you can pick them to use while cooking.

4. File Papers by Color

Sort papers so that you can find them easily (and quickly). Instead of having piles of random papers in one room of your home, or on the kitchen table, keep them in dangling file folders within a drawer or storage box.

Go the extra step by color coordinating file folders, depending on the topic. For example, make receipts the blue folder, designate red for appliance manuals, and green for past tax returns. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll know exactly where to look for what you need.

5. Skylight above Closet

Without proper lighting, your clothes closet is dark, and you might forget what’s in the back or not see the garments in their best light. To showcase your favorite shirts, dresses, and other pieces, install a skylight above for natural lighting.

6. Put Up Corner Shelves

Corners are places that can seem awkward to some people, but they’re a great place for shelves. Put books, photos, vases, and more on them.

Shelves add storage space to any room, whether they’re in the corner or not. Get shelving online using NetVoucherCodes.co.uk and save money that you can then put toward the skylight mentioned earlier or another DIY project.   

7. Open Laundry Basket – No Lid!

This one’s a shocker, right? For as long as you can remember, you’ve been hiding your dirty laundry.

But the best way to make sure it always goes into the hamper rather than the floor is to make it super easy for everyone in the house to add to it. So, opt for an open hamper.

Also, put it in the corner of the bedroom or laundry room, rather than tucked in the back of a closet. That way, clothes are easy to toss into it, and seeing the basket is a gentle reminder to use it.

8. Simple TP Organizer

If you’re not sure where to store the toilet paper, here’s a quick solution. Take rolls out of the packaging and put into a magazine holder at the side of the toilet.

Then extra rolls are within reach of guests or anyone in your family who uses up the last of a roll and is looking for more. Decorate the magazine holders if you want, using contact paper to match your bathroom.

9. More on Spices…

Here is another clever home organization tip for spices. Take old baby jar bottles, remove the labels, and wash thoroughly, then fill them with spices for a uniform look.

Next, find free printables online for labels for them. Lastly, store the jars upside down in the cabinet or drawer for a classy look.

10. Takeout Menus Go Here

If you get takeout a lot, group together the go-to menus. Then put them into the fridge!

Yes, that makes sense, right? Put them on the side of a middle shelf in a clear container you can just take out when you want to order pizza or another treat.

11. Cleaning Supply Basket

Rather than having bottles of cleaners spread throughout the house, keeping them in one place is a major time saver. Keep them in a basket or even a plastic bucket so that you can pull it out whenever it’s cleaning time. Conveniently take the basket from room to room with you.

12. Drawers for Under-Bed Storage

Why waste the room under the bed? It’s valuable storage space.

A simple DIY project is to take drawers from an old dresser and put wheels on them. Then fill the drawers with extra clothes as part of your goal to declutter your closet.

Other items to put in the drawers are shoes and extra toiletries. Then roll the drawers under the bed, and just bring them out whenever you want to grab something from there.

Staying Organized

Once done these DIY projects, then it’s important to make sure you keep the place clean and everything in its place. Otherwise, you’ll be back to square one. Take your family around the house to show them how to file papers and the new storage locations, like under the bed.

Better yet, involve them in the DIY ideas! Get their ideas on how to improve rooms around the home so that it really is a comfortable place for everyone who lives there and looks great too.