How to Organize a Living Room

If you spend a lot of time in your living room, as many people do, it's easy for clutter to accumulate. Follow these steps to organize your living room, reduce the mess, and create a relaxing space to visit with friends, watch television, read a book or take an afternoon nap.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Create a list of all activities that occur in the living room, such as watching television, entertaining and playing. Then, divide the living room into spaces for these activities to occur, allowing some of the activities to overlap into the same spaces, if necessary.

2. Make note of what pieces of furniture or which living room objects you'll need for each function the living room will serve, and move those items into their designated areas. For example, you might need your small table and floor cushions in the play area for your children to use.

3. Designate two piles, one for all books, newspapers and magazines you've already read and one for those you have yet to read. Place the books you've read on shelves, and recycle those old newspapers and magazines.

4. Purchase baskets or other attractive containers and place them beneath your end tables or coffee table. Store all unread magazines, books and newspapers inside them. Storing the reading material in this way will give an organized and clutter-free look to your living room.

5. Clear off the coffee table, which tends to act as the catch-all for a variety of living room clutter. Place remote controls in a basket on an end table, move bills to the desk in your office and file any important papers.

6. Sort through and organize your music and movie collections. Purchase a CD storage container, remove all CDs from their jewel cases, and place the CDs in the container. Group your movie collection according to genre, or into movies for the household's teens and adults, and those for the children. Store your movies in a cabinet near your television.

7. Store all toys, books, and puzzles in a toy box or storage container, if your children play in the living room. If many of your children's toys have small pieces that you frequently find all over the living room floor, purchase inexpensive plastic boxes in which to store the toy parts. This will keep the pieces together and not scattered at the bottom of the toy box.

8. Display a few favorite collectible items, and place the rest in storage or in another room. This will not only focus visitors' attention on the pieces you have displayed, but it will also give your living room a clean and organized look.

9. Reduce picture frame clutter by placing framed photos on shelves, on the mantle, or by hanging them on the wall. This gets the frames off your coffee table and end tables, while still allowing them to decorate the room.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't have time to thoroughly organize your living room and you're expecting visitors, consider loading up a laundry basket with all the room's clutter and stashing it in an unused closet. Remember to go back to the basket once your visitors have left and place all items in their proper places.
• Consider donating the magazines you've already read to your local library, or swap them with a neighbor who subscribes to a different magazine.
• Once your living room is organized, make it a point to keep it that way by spending just five minutes a day removing clutter and placing things in their proper locations.
• Alphabetize your music and movie collection if you have the time to do so. This will make it much easier for you to find what you're looking for.