This is Offbeat Home's archive of Cleaning/Organizing posts.

Keeping spaces neat and tidy.

Most Recent Posts About Cleaning/Organizing

minimalist-house-3 © by hahatango, used under Creative Commons license.

What happens when a minimalist mom living in a small trendy downtown apartment meets a country boy packrat? Well, if it was a sitcom, hilarity would ensue. Reality? A little stressful. After the initial shock of overstuffed closets, clothes that dated back to high school, and a kitchen bar that doubled as a paperwork graveyard wore off, I vowed to get our family's things ship shape and charged full speed into the attack.

That didn't work.

The always-helpful Unclutterer put together a helpful rubric on determining what to keep and what to trash as you go through spring cleaning, so check it out. This is good knowledge.

Ok, we've talked about all sorts of eco-friendly home hacks, but let's try the final frontier of reusable toiletries: FAMILY CLOTH. The concept is pretty straight-forward: rather than wipe your butt with paper that you then wad up and flush into the septic system, you use small squares of soft fabric that you then wash and reuse.

No more toilet paper, ever. Wait, EVER!?

Great idea of the day: how to store LOADS of tights neatly Get inspired »

My couch was already 10 years old when I bought it, but it looks DAMN good, thanks to the secret method I've figured out for keeping it shiny and soft. Even in a house of four kids.

I always thought I was a disorganized weirdo, but when I started reading about my Myers-Briggs personality type, things started to make sense. I had to work WITH my personality type to get the neat house I wanted.

In keeping with what we often call "Basket Moments," I present to you this simple but brilliant concept: using a wine rack for your towels.

Let me start out by saying I AM NOT A PATIENT PERSON. Just ask anyone in my family. No wait, don't. Just trust me on this one.

So when I read about making this enzyme cleaner that takes 3 MONTHS to "mature"…I just knew I could never stand the waiting! So I ALMOST passed on this idea….until I read a way how to speed the process up from 3 months to TWO WEEKS!

I thought about it long and hard….and after some DEEP soul searching…I decided I COULD do 2 weeks.

A month after making my batch of cleaner, I hadn't even gotten around to trying it — so I decided the bathroom would be my first "test subject".