After organizing a room, it is essential to remind everyone where the homes are for all the stuff. As the individuals start remembering where the items go, it will result in a well-kept, organized area. To help them remember where items belong, labeling is key (Affiliate Link). So, to help you make your well-organized home stay organized, I will share the organized areas that need labeling.
Specific Organized Areas that Need Labeling
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Shared areas you need to label
The shared areas include the living room, family room, laundry room (Affiliate Link), garage (Affiliate Link), bathroom, kitchen, den, exercise room, and home office. All shared bins and shelves (Affiliate Link) should be labeled to help keep your home in order. Reminding kids and yourself where things go until everyone remembers is essential to a well-organized home. Read below for some specific areas that should be labeled around the home.
Bathrooms:
In the bathrooms, the areas that need labeling are primarily in linen closets. Visit our what to store in your organized linen closet. Linen closets have a large variety of stuff in them so keeping these grouped items labeled will go a long way in keeping the linen closet organized.
Toothbrushes: Whether electronic or regular, knowing which toothbrush is theirs will streamline morning tasks and minimize arguments. If you share a bathroom with several people, it is important that everyone know their items to reduce germ spread.
Single-Use Bottles, Brushes, or Sponges: If you use items to clean your home areas or items for a single purpose like a cleaning tub sponge, jewelry (Affiliate Link) cleaner brush, spray bottles, and homemade mixes. Some chemicals can not mix, so keeping these items labeled is important.
Hampers: If you want help sorting your laundry so you can quickly wash clothes, try labeling the laundry hampers, as we did here.
Laundry area:
Labeling laundry baskets will help everyone know which laundry basket (Affiliate Link) is theirs. See this post below on how we did this in our home.
Laundry Basket 3-Bag Rectangular Sorter Basket
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Kitchen and Pantry area:
Bins that contain a category or group - pasta, grains, Spices (Affiliate Link), and herbs must be labeled.
If you have storage bins for extra supplies, it is important to label (Affiliate Link) the front, especially if you can not see them.
Bulk item containers should always be labeled. Things like flour and sugar usually look similar and can be accidently used if not labeled.
If you have snack bins in your home and have children with food intolerances or allergies, it's best to label (Affiliate Link) those bins so you and your child know which bin they can pull from.
Craft area:
Specific crafting item types, like Cricut (Affiliate Link) vinyl, have to be separated from Cricut (Affiliate Link) fabric vinyl intended only for use on fabrics.
Group of supplies that are in solid color bins. Any bins that hold supplies that you can not see through should be labeled.
Assign areas for paints to separate them from other types of paints. There are so many different types of paints, you could have paint bottles for clothing and paints for painting wood. Having different areas for a large amount of a type of paint will reduce the time it takes to find items you are looking for while doing a project.
Anything with pockets that store items. We wrote a post about scrapbook (Affiliate Link) organizing and found that there were lots of pockets to hold stuff, so we decided that it would be best to label (Affiliate Link) them instead of just adding the items into the pockets without any labeling. Check out the post here.
Garage area:
Labeling items on garage (Affiliate Link) shelves (Affiliate Link) tell others where items go. If there are larger single items that are just placed on a shelf, it's important to label (Affiliate Link) the front of the shelf so people know not to use the place for other things.
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Home office or desk area:
And lastly, keeping digital and physical files organized by labeling them like items will help everyone know where they are and how to use them. Making a map to show where items are for other family members helps everyone in case of an emergency. To make the map on paper, draw out the home office/desk area. Include all the drawers and filing cabinet (Affiliate Link) drawers you have. Use arrows and label (Affiliate Link) the different drawers and what is in them. To label (Affiliate Link) a digital filing system, copy a screenshot of the digital files hierarchy from your file manager and paste it into a document, then use arrows and write what is in each folder. Print it out and place it in a secure place for future use.
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Now that we talked about the things that need to be labeled in a well-organized family home let's discuss the things that do not need labeling.
Things you do not need to label:
Clear bins where you can see the group of items inside.
Christmas bins are a great example; if you use clear bins, you can easily see what is in them, so you may not need to label (Affiliate Link) the bin.
Items in bins that only you use.
When you are the only one using items, you most likely know what those items are used for, so you do not need to add a label (Affiliate Link) unless you want to. If others use them, you can label (Affiliate Link) them for their use.
Things you know what they are for without thinking about it.
These would be things like a tool bag that houses the drill (Affiliate Link) and supplies. You know that bag holds all the stuff, so you do not need to label (Affiliate Link) it.
Well, there you have it. I hope this post inspires you to determine what you really need to label (Affiliate Link) in your home after organizing an area.
Would you add anything to this list of things to label (Affiliate Link) in a well-organized home? Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you.
Below are our labeling tips posts; feel free to visit them.
TIPS ON LABELING KIDS SCHOOL STUFF
THE BEST WAY TO LABEL MASON JARS
Recent posts to get inspired!
Phaedra Studt says
Great ideas! I tend to also label see-through containers because sometimes it's quicker to identify what's in there by the label than with me looking at it for a couple of seconds before figuring it out. But then again, I might just be looking for an excuse to break out the label maker. 😉
Janet Barclay says
A label-maker is an organizer's best friend!
Geralin Thomas says
Love labels + like ivory-colored bedding.
I write on the tags of sheets where they belong (e.g., King, primary bedroom; Double, guest room) and am grateful every time I do the laundry that I have everything labeled because it makes it easier to wash-dry-fold-put away (or put back on the bed) with minimal trial and error.
Julie Bestry says
I'm giggling about Linda's self-labeled client hubby! It's funny, because as much as I love to label when I'm working with clients, especially things that I'd never have (like craft categories), nothing in my own home is labeled except my file folders. (Everything is mine, and I know what everything does and where it goes, so unless I get a concussion, labeling would be superfluous for just me.)
The only thing you left out, but which I end up labeling often in client homes, are the shelves for the different sizes of sheet sets. In many client homes, there are crib mattresses, as well as twins, queens, and one king, and if we don't label the edges of the shelves/spaces where each set goes, somebody (read: hubby or child) will invariably stick things willy-nilly.
Janet Schiesl says
I love a label! I use them for filing, in the storage room and a few other around the house. It works great to communicate what goes where. I use clear containers in my pantry so I don't label there. I also like to re-arrange and organize it often.
Ronni Eisenberg says
As long as we’re telling funny stories, I can’t count the number of times, because it’s been so many, that my husband is looking straight at an item and still doesn’t know where it is. And there it is, right in front of him the entire time. As always, I say to him, “look again“. Other times I have to say, “second shelf in the back to the right.”
There are so many areas where labeling is important. Rather than labeling toothbrushes, I’ve always had a different color for each family member. I thought that would be easier. It’s crucial to label sponges or cleaning brushes that are meant for EITHER the bathroom or kitchen. Never both.
Labeling crafts and kid’s toys is not only important it’s a perfect introduction to organization. Pre-readers will know where things go if there’s a picture of what’s inside the bin.
As you mentioned, craft items should be labeled because there are so many and so many small items.
I think you’re going to have everyone on a labeling kick this week for sure!
Sheri Steed says
I love labels! I agree that labels are an essential element of an organized space and crucial for maintaining order. I love the way you have brokent things down. Very helpful.
Seana Turner says
I had a viscerally positive reaction to the title of this post LOL! I agree with all of these. I also don't label bins that go into a drawer, although I might label the front of the drawer sometimes. I also tell people who may be resistant to the look of a label that there are options for attractive labels, and also that once you have formed a storage habit, you may not need the label anymore.
Linda Samuels says
I love labeling, although not everything in our home is labeled. The areas where it makes sense to have a label like the spice jars, multi-drawer supply cabinet, storage/memorabilia boxes, kitchen specialty folders, files, etc., get labels. The other areas are obvious what goes where, so the labels aren't necessary.
You reminded me of a funny client story. Years ago, I was organizing with my client in her kitchen. I suggested using labels, especially because multiple people were accessing the space. She loved the idea so much so that she wanted every drawer, shelf, and object labeled. Her husband thought we went a bit overboard. We heard laughter coming from the other room. When we went to see what was going on, her husband walked in with a big smile and a huge label across his shirt with his name on it. We all burst out laughing.
Sabrina Quairoli says
LOL! I had that happen with a client of mine too some years ago. =) I guess to the other people in a house, we must have looked a little crazy.