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How To Organize Dining Room

Whether you have a big family or live alone in a small studio apartment, today’s kitchen and dining room tables are multifunctional surfaces. While its intended purpose is for meals, oftentimes the dining room table becomes a homework station, home office or even a place for family and friends to gather and play board games.

However, a cluttered kitchen table can quickly get out of control if you don’t have any organizational methods in play. Learn how to keep your kitchen or dining room table clean with the following four tips.

1. Clear the Kitchen Table After Each Meal

It sounds like such an easy task, but you’d be surprised by how often breakfast dishes, coffee mugs or bowls of melted ice cream residue get left behind. Take the time to make the quick trip to the sink or dishwasher after each meal, and have your family members do the same. In no time, you’ll see what a big difference this small chore can make in terms of keeping your dining room table clean.

2. Toss What You Don’t Need

Don’t let old magazines, junk mail and expired coupons that you were never going to use anyways pile up on your dining room table. If something no longer serves a purpose, get rid of it. The same rule should be followed by other members of your family who may be leaving behind the remnants of science projects or crafts. Keep a trash can and recycle bin within easy reach of your table so that no one has an excuse to leave anything behind, and then marvel at how much cleaner your dining room table becomes.

3. Set Up Storage Solutions

If you live in a small home or your kitchen serves as the gathering point for all the family’s activities, you probably spend a fair amount of time wondering how to better organize your dining room. Here are a few clutter-busting ideas that might inspire you:
  • Hang wall-mounted filing bins in your dining room to corral mail, magazines, bills, permission slips, workbooks and so on.
  • Rather than using your sideboard to hold fancy dishes you rarely break out, set up a command center that houses bins to hold laptops and tablets, arts and craft supplies, spare pens, placemats, extra napkins and anything else you need for the meals and activities that occur in your dining room.
  • Use decorative baskets or containers to organize chargers, stamps, envelopes and other supplies.

4. Clean Off the Table Before Bed

It’s not uncommon for people to walk in and toss their jackets or book bags on chairs, while purses and laptop sleeves get flung on the tabletop. Then homework and bills get scattered about, which leaves your dining room table looking less like the place where you’ll serve dinner and more like the aftermath of a tornado. Make it a rule of thumb that everyone puts their own belongings away before they turn in for the night: homework in book bags, book bags and coats in the mudroom, and so on. This way, your kitchen table will be clear and ready for breakfast the next morning.

Figuring out how to organize your dining room table may seem like a massive undertaking right now. However, once you get into the routine of clearing and tidying, you’ll find it takes minimal effort to keep your dining room looking nice.

And if your schedule is so hectic that you barely have time to wash your dishes, much less organize the dining room, contact your local Merry Maids to tag in some reinforcements. Let professional housekeepers take care of cleaning your home, so you can focus your energy on helping out with homework and making sure those bills get paid on time.