Instagram iconInstagram icon
Facebook iconFacebook icon
pinterest iconpinterest icon
YouTube iconYouTube icon
Tiktok iconTiktok icon
LTK iconLTK icon

A Room-by-Room Guide to Getting Organized (+ A Tour Through ALL Our Cabinets!)

We’re taking you through each room of our house and opening all of our cabinets, doors and drawers! Throughout the tour, we’ll share our tips for staying organized in each room of our home.

bathroom organization with my two dogs by my side | via Yellow Brick Home
bathroom reveal | headband | sweater

A year-and-a-half ago we took you on a tour through all the cabinets in our Tree House kitchen and mudroom, and we quickly learned: You guys are our kindred spirits! You love getting a glimpse into the organization behind all those closed doors and drawers as much as we do, and we had a ball sharing with you. Organizing is, like, my not-so-secret passion. I have fun figuring out solutions for tricky spaces (like this!), and even more so during the execution.

In this video, the stakes are higher, and we’re taking you through all the drawers and cabinets in our whole home! (Well, almost. We need some semblance of privacy, you know?) But before we dive in, I think it’s important to mention that we do our best to cut clutter before it happens. Truthfully, I think that’s where a lot of confusion lies. Before you purchase a single bin or basket, you need to know what’s a necessity (and what’s not).

It’s not about organizing everything you have; it’s about removing the excess, and only then should you organize what’s left.


You can also view the video directly on YouTube right here. If you enjoy our videos, it would make our day if you subscribed to our channel!

While we did tidy up the drawers before filming, we did so minimally. The way you see it in the video is the way it (almost) always looks! No staging. No fancy additions. Just 6 years of living in this 130-year-old home, getting to know her and making it work for our family. Below, I’m breaking it down even further and sharing the room-by-room tips and tricks we utilized to get organized!

A Room-by-Room Guide to Getting Organized

Kitchen

White kitchen cabinets with black hardware and light countertops | via Yellow Brick Home
toaster | butter bell | marble tray | hardware
  • Consider adding a tip-out tray (:55) | That space just under the sink is a great place to stash sponges, scrubbers and soap. We added this tray to eliminate sink clutter.
  • Store your everyday items in an easy-to-access cabinet (1:09) | This way, it never feels like a chore to retrieve or put the dishes!
  • Install a cabinet sliding shelf (1:33) | We had ours custom built to fit our cabinet, but there are endless options available off-the-shelf! (Punny!) This one is highly rated and will make a world of difference in your cabinet game.
  • Put your kitchen island to work! (2:29) | Our island is an old dresser (here’s that DIY) that we painted and added casters to. It’s a workhorse because of the deep drawers, and it’s the number one gathering spot for any get-together.
  • Tip: Any of these Rev-A-Shelf storage solutions will round up all your forgotten about bowls and gadgets at the back of your shelves.

Bathrooms

A neutral and blush pink bathroom with chrome and brass accents and a marble shelf | via Yellow Brick Home
guest bathroom reveal
  • Add a pull-out sliding shelf (4:04) | We DIYed ours, but anything that works in the kitchen can also work in your bathroom – like this!
  • Corral similar items in small bins (4:49) | If this seems simple, it’s because it is! Grouping things together will keep you from squirreling away too much, and will make finding things convenient.
  • Consider using drawers instead of doors (5:23) | Choosing a vanity with drawers in our master bathroom was one of our best decisions! We can easily find ev-er-y-thing.
  • Add electrical to your cabinet, vanity or medicine cabinet (6:01) | We hide away our electric toothbrushes and razor in a drawer where they can be charging at all times. Three cheers for no more junk on the sink top!
  • Never underestimate a single inch (6:28) | We had a spare 9″ of dead space next to our tub, and we hacked an IKEA item to create our linen closet!
  • Use clear bins in the closets (6:55) | If you have bins hidden behind doors, that’s a perfect opportunity to use clear ones. You can easily see what’s inside without needing to open every one to find the box of Band-Aids.

Home Office

A bright and neutral home office space with a wall of green plants | via Yellow Brick Home
desk | chairs | green wallcredenza (similar) | shelves + brackets | light
  • A travel cord organizer works at home, too (7:23) | We learned this trick from our friend Ashley at The Gold Hive, but this cord organizer tucks up under our desk and corrals all. the. cords. It’s a true sanity saver. We talk more about it in this post!
  • Hide the home printer behind closed doors (7:44) | Why leave a huge, honking machine out, hogging up precious space, when you can conceal it in a cabinet? We leave the door open when we’re printing, otherwise, it helps to alleviate that whole ‘office-y’ feeling from the home office.

Toys + Kids’ Stuff

toy storage ideas via Yellow Brick Home
coffee table | rope basketvintage rug (similar)
  • Hide the stuff behind doors (8:15) | No, really. Let go of items you no longer need in any of the sideboards and credenzas in your home, and allow that space to be the place where the kids’ toys go to hide!
  • Put everything in a basket (8:24) | Lucy can pull out her toys that are categorized by basket, and easily move them wherever she’d like in the home. When it’s time to clean up, it’s all thrown back in the basket and brought back to the credenza.
  • Put a safety latch on it (8:15) | If it’s not for the kids, put a safety latch on it! All of the drawers and doors that hide away Lucy’s toys are free for her to open and use. Everything else is latched. Everything. She quickly learned which areas were hers, and which were ours.
  • Storage can be anything (9:36) | … Like a coffee table! This is our storage coffee table, and we thought we’d use it to stash remotes and grown-up stuff. Ha! Hahaha. As soon as Lucy realized she could open it, we instead opted to use it as the place to hide loose books, puzzles and building blocks.

Bedrooms

closet organization via Yellow Brick Home
our closet system | closet pulls | best black jeans
  • The KonMari method. It works. (10:52) | I began my experiment one year ago, cleaning up closet and learning how to fold my clothes KonMari style, that is, based off of Marie Kondo’s suggestions. IT WORKS. I’ve stuck with it, because nothing is ever lost and everything stays truly tidy.
  • Think vertically (11:27) | Utilize the dead space above your clothing rod to install a long shelf! We store our suitcases up there, out of the way but always ready to go!
  • Donate on the spot (11:49) | I have a medium shopping bag in my closet. If I put something on for the day and take it off because I don’t like how it makes me feel, I consider if I want to put it back into my closet at all! This is an opportunity for me to toss it in that bag for donation.

Thank you for coming along and peeking behind every one of our cabinets – said no one ever, ha! But really, we hope you found it helpful and found a trick or two to takeaway for your own home.

What else would you add? Let’s get geeky about organization in the comments!

Add a comment...

Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *

  • Michelle1.7.20 - 7:32 AM

    I wonder if Scott is as organized…you never show his side of the closet! ;-) I would have liked to see the storage room set up and the laundry room. It’s all the extra stuff in life that gets a little harder to clean up nicely and make you feel organized wholly and not just the day to day things, although those certainly help the most! I’m also in a small home, no garage, but a basement which I’m trying to make work as a shop, though not very well! ReplyCancel

    • Scott1.7.20 - 8:35 AM

      Haha! All great questions, Michelle. I’d say that I’m fairly organized in the sense that everything is folded and put away, but I do allow myself a shelf to throw jeans and things that I’ll wear more than once. I’ve not Marie Kondo’d like Kim has, so it’s just not as nice to look at! Next time around we’ll be sure to show the workshop and laundry room as well.ReplyCancel

    • Shauna Mooney1.7.20 - 9:02 AM

      I copycatted their ikea wardrobe and I stared at the picture of Scott’s side so many times thinking “I don’t know if my husband can be this neat.” So he’s at least organized for photo shoots! ;) ReplyCancel

  • Heather O.1.7.20 - 9:06 AM

    These are great tips, thank you! We just moved in to our home and pretty much got everything in, but not organized (we moved right before the holidays). Excited to put some of these in to practice!ReplyCancel

  • Stacy1.7.20 - 9:10 AM

    Is it possible to have too much storage space? I mean, no, obviously, but I JUST finished renovating my kitchen (literally the day before hosting my first Thanksgiving…) and I’m at this point where I have so. much. new. storage. that I’m kind of paralyzed trying to figure out where the best place to put everything is. I’m moving stuff around a lot. I have quite a few drawers that are just…empty…and it makes me itchy. Empty is ok, right? Room to grow, or something?ReplyCancel

    • Kim1.7.20 - 10:16 AM

      EMPTY IS THE BEST. Don’t feel the need to fill everything! Because then you’ll just be left with a bunch of… stuff.ReplyCancel

  • Kim1.7.20 - 10:07 AM

    I love to organize as much as I love to BE organized, and I’ve gotten most of the rooms under control.  What I constantly struggle with is the garage.   That collection of all the STUFF of DIY…  I’m constantly trying new ideas.    I’d love to see how you manage it. ReplyCancel

  • Paige Cassandra Flamm1.7.20 - 10:29 AM

    These are all awesome tips! I find my life is much more manageable when everything is organized!

    Paige
    http://thehappyflammily.comReplyCancel

  • Molly1.7.20 - 10:42 AM

    I loved this! You guys are great at being really organized and controlling your clutter –  I’d love to think I’m organized, but really I’m still on the path to getting there. Having a large unfinished basement means ample opportunities to keep things long past their useful life. Like you, Kim, I Marie Kondo’d my clothes (and my husband’s) like 2 years ago and I’ll never go back! ReplyCancel

  • Caitlin1.7.20 - 11:51 AM

    Would you say this is the majority of Lucy’s toys or are a significant amount in her room as well?  We have a 2.5 year old who has doting family members who buy him all of the things, but I’m feeling like less is more (and absolutely LOVING your spaces that can function for adults and kids in a nice harmony!)ReplyCancel

    • Kim1.7.20 - 12:56 PM

      These are all her toys!! Her room is for books, but everything we showed in the video is everything Lucy has. Our family knows we appreciate the ‘less is more’ philosophy, so they will always ask if there is anything Lucy NEEDS before purchasing her more STUFF. Usually, we ask for books, socks (she loooooves socks, hahah), or maybe a stuffie of an animal she loves.ReplyCancel

  • Chelsea1.7.20 - 12:56 PM

    What safety latches do you use for the cabinets? Its nice that they’re hidden and they look easy to use.ReplyCancel

  • Erin1.7.20 - 3:41 PM

    I love that you guys have dogs. I have struggled with trying to figure out how to organize the dog stuff. And specifically what to do about his giant bag of food. We’re in a small historic home so unfortunately the food and everything is in the kitchen and is a bit of an eyesore. ????ReplyCancel

  • at home with Ashley1.8.20 - 10:49 AM

    I loved this! Thanks for the walk-through. I love how you use all those tiny containers in your bathroom drawers.ReplyCancel

  • Cassie1.11.20 - 9:05 AM

    I LOVE a cabinet tour! This was so great and I’ll be pinning this post for later :) I also think the dogs were a very close second in value-delivery here <3 xoxo. Quick toddler question for you—what product do you use for toddler proofing drawers? Also, did I see a bunch of vinyl stored down low off of your living room?! How do you manage THAT? lolReplyCancel

    • Kim1.12.20 - 4:14 PM

      We just use simple latches! You can find them in our Amazon shop under ‘Lucy Loves,’ as well as other favorites: http://www.amazon.com/shop/yellowbrickhome

      And yes! We play a lot of records and we’re careful to teach Lucy how to handle and respect the music. We can’t baby proof eeeeeverything (ha!) so we’re big in talking through things and making them teachable moments.ReplyCancel

  • Bethany1.14.20 - 2:10 PM

    I love all the organization info, truly, but the real stars of the show are your sweet pups! They were cracking me up in the bathroom :)ReplyCancel

  • Hillary1.20.20 - 9:48 AM

    What equipment did you use to film this? The video was so smooth and the auto focus was ???? and the sound was really good  too! I’d love to know your secrets ????ReplyCancel

  • Stephanie1.20.20 - 4:03 PM

    Hi Kim & Scott! Long time lurker here :) – thank you so much for the tour! I had questions around your bathroom and kitchen storage please if you have time. 
    We have the same ikea double vanity (and the same electric toothbrush :p).  I was wondering if you did anything to the vanity to include ventilation? I thought about moving everything off the counters into the drawers, but was a bit hesitant about storing damp toothbrushes, cups in the drawers. Relatedly, I find the top of our bathroom vanity, and also the area around our kitchen sink vanity is always wet – do you guys wipe things down after every use (and if so where do you then keep that damp cloth? In the kitchen ours is unattractively draped over the kitchen tap..) Or maybe I have the wrong tap/face washing technique? Any advice gratefully received! Thanks very much. ReplyCancel

    • Kim1.20.20 - 9:35 PM

      Hi, Stephanie! The back of the drawers have built-in venting (more or less, since they don’t go all the way up), so we’ve never ever had an issue with dampness. And I can’t say that our sink stays wet either… I’ll say that after I brush or wash, I’ll use my hands to sweep any puddles into the sink, but that’s the extent of it. I wonder if your bathroom is getting enough ventilation? Perhaps turning on the ceiling vent more often could help as well?ReplyCancel

  • Aishwarya4.22.20 - 7:26 AM

    Interesting and helpful guide! Thank you for sharing.ReplyCancel

Let's be Pen Pals

Our Pen Pals have direct access to first looks, a peek behind-the-scenes, and exclusive interviews showcasing members of the #YBHDIY community. We can’t wait to connect with you!

Kim and Scott

We’re Kim + Scott, Chicago based content creators behind the Home + Lifestyle brand Yellow Brick Home.

Join us as we renovate and nurture vintage homes across Chicago + SW Michigan!

Instagram iconInstagram icon
Facebook iconFacebook icon
pinterest iconpinterest icon
YouTube iconYouTube icon
Tiktok iconTiktok icon
LTK iconLTK icon

LEt's be Pen Pals

Subscribe for first looks, behind-the-scenes, and exclusive community content

/* footer flodesk form */

This site uses affiliate links. We will always disclose sponsored posts in the text and by using the ‘sponsored' tag.

© 2024 Yellow Brick Home. | All Rights Reserved. | PRIVACY POLICY