How to Get Your Attic Organised

Collaborative Post 

Did you feel overwhelmed or stressed the last time you looked in your attic? We cleaned our attic recently and turned it into a much tidier space. It’s not just a storage area anymore. We also made it a cozy game room that’s great for quiet get-togethers. Initially, the job of cleaning the attic and organizing it felt really big and too much for us. Once we developed a plan of attack, though, things went a lot smoother.

Plan Out the Work

We found we could save a lot of time in organizing the attic if we knew what our end game was going to be. You’ll want to figure that out as well, asking yourself questions like these:

• What do I want to do with the space?
• Where am I going to put everything?
• What can be stored away and what needs to be left out?

From there, you’ll need to develop a plan for how you’re going to clean and organize the attic space. If you know where everything is going to go and how it’s going to be stored, that gives you a good idea of what kind of supplies you’ll need. It also means that you’re not moving around large, heavy things too much as you try to figure things out as you go. You can save yourself a lot of energy and time by making up a quick plan first. Don’t just try diving headfirst into handling the attic, as you’ll probably get in very deep very quickly.

Buy Organisation Items

A lot of the items in the attic probably don’t get much use. That’s why they’re up there anyways. It may help you to find them easier the next time you need them, if you put a lot of things into storage containers, in shelves, or in some other storage device. This also helps clear up a lot of space and enables you to use vertical space in the attic as you have it available. You can stack crates and boxes on top of one another and get a bookshelf that’s as high as it needs to be for your attic. I definitely recommend labeling each box very clearly so you can find things quickly.

What other organization items do you need? Some items may be able to just go into large garbage bags, such as curtains, clothes, or other fabrics. You may also want smaller storage containers for those tiny items that you want to be able to access and don’t want them to get lost among the larger items.

Have It Cleaned

While you’re purchasing storage items, you can have family members working on cleaning the attic space or hire a cleaning service to do it for you. Make sure that when you’re cleaning, you keep the attic well-ventilated. It can get really dusty up there, and the dust and dirt can cause allergy symptoms.

You’ll want to make sure that the cleaning is thorough so that it’s pleasant to work up there. Consider airing the attic out for a couple of hours after it’s been cleaned so that dust particles in the air can float outside freely rather than get trapped there. Like the organising, you want to plan your cleaning before you get to it. Will you need mops, scrub brushes, or window washing supplies for the attic? Or will a broom and dustpan be enough to handle the work? If there’s any water leaking there or mold growing, you want to address that so that they don’t damage the things you’re storing in the attic.

Move Items into Designated Areas

Once you’re ready to start organizing things, you can separate them into different areas. So, maybe you don’t want to make time to organize everything right up front, but you want to make a little space to work in. In that way, you can move items over to their designated areas and get them out of the way. If you want to fill a bookcase, only place items that are going in the bookcase next to the bookcase. Move everything else out of the way. Before you start putting everything away and its final resting place, you can do a little pre-organising and just shift things to the general part of the room they’re going to end up in. This will give you a lot more freedom to move around and work more efficiently. That’s really important when you’re working in a room with limited space like the attic.

Consider Not Keeping Everything

What we found when we started cleaning and organizing our attic is that there are a lot of things we didn’t really need. They were just stored there simply to get them out of the way and didn’t have any future use for us. It’s a really good idea to look over each item carefully and consider whether you really need it. Some things that are in bad shape or might not fetch much resale value can probably just be trashed. Items that might have use to someone can be sold or given away, either to friends and family or charity.

Getting rid of some things can be a great way to make more space in the attic and minimize the clutter there. It will give you a lot less organizing work to do and help prevent hoarding. It’s good to let go of some things sometimes, particularly the things you’ll not have any further use for. As you find items in the attic that you’re getting rid of, you should pull them out of there to free up your space.

Cleaning the attic can be a lot of work, especially if you’ve just used it as a storage space for years and have not done much work up there. If you have a plan for how to clean it and organize it, though, you’ll be able to handle even that big job without wasting a lot of extra energy and time.