26 Jan 2022

There is nothing worse than a half-finished home improvement project, and the most common project that remains unfinished is organizing the attic. A lot of people have a bad habit of putting anything they have purchased that is not immediately tidied away up into the attic. The problem then is finding these items when you next need them. 

Attics are a great place to store items that you do not need every day. Also, they can be used to store your winter clothes during summer and your summer clothes during winter. However, if you are planning to use your attic for storage long-term, we recommend that you first ensure basic tasks, so your items are not ruined. This includes ensuring there is no damp already there and that you have good wood flooring that is undamaged. 

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We know how quickly an attic can become overrun with items, and everything can become jumbled together. So, we have pulled together 5 ways you can keep your attic organized to be able to find what you need quickly and easily. 

  1. Separate the items by room

The first way you can organize your attic to easily find what you need is to section off your attic so that each area correlates to a room in your home. How you section off the space is up to you, you can use a thin tape stuck to the floor to create areas with a label showing which room the items are for. You can then decide how best to order the items for each room. 

While you are sorting each item into the room section you have created, we recommend that you evaluate whether you need every item you have in storage. Storing items you do not need and do not think you will use again in the future will take up space you could use for other items. 

  1. Shelves, Shelves, Shelves

If you know you have a lot to organize in your attic but do not wish to be overwhelmed by clutter every time you step into the room, we recommend ensuring the floor is kept clear. A clear floor will make the room feel bigger, tidier, and cleaner. One way to achieve this is by bordering the room with shelves. Affixing shelves at intervals around the room at several heights will also be beneficial as you will be able to easily see what is in each section of the room. This will make each trip into the attic quicker too. 

We recommend that if you are planning to use shelves, you use sturdy wood and brackets so that you are not limited in what you can store on them. And measure out the amount of space you need before affixing the shelves to the wall so you can store everything you need to. The only potential drawback of using shelves is that once they are in place, if you buy bigger items than planned, they may not fit on the existing shelves in place. 

  1. Clothing Rails

Clothing rails are an excellent way to store your out-of-season clothes without them becoming musty sitting in a suitcase. If you are someone who stores the clothes they do not need that season, we recommend using either fixed or moveable clothing rails to hang your clothes. Providing you have taken our advice to ensure your attic is free from dampness, then clothing rails are a great way to store your clothes. Clothing rails are also an easy way to see which clothes belong to which person in your home to save time if you need something specific. 

Clothing rails are our preference rather than using suitcases as being able to hang your clothes keeps them from creasing. Also, not having them closed up for months in a suitcase keeps them smelling fresh. Using a clothing rail can save you from having to wash every item you have stored, although we recommend you check each item before wearing them to see if they need to be washed. 

  1. Storage Boxes

If you prefer not to have all of your items in the open in the attic, we like the idea of storage boxes. Storage boxes can be used in a couple of ways to keep things organized. You can either use labels to show which room the items they contain are for. Or you can color code the boxes to the room they relate to so you are easily able to locate the items you need by room. You can also buy different sizes depending on what you need to store to minimize lost or wasted space. 

  1. Most Used at the Front

The final suggestion we have for you is to organize the items in your attic by frequency of use. If you store the items you never/rarely use at the back of the attic furthest from the hatch, you know you do not need to go through everything for the items you use most often. This is also helpful as it will save you time whenever you get frequently used items out of the attic as they will be closest to the hatch to take out. 

Top Tip: Regardless of which organization technique you decide to use, you must regularly go through the items you have stored in your attic to ensure that you continue to need everything you have there. You can do this in several ways; we prefer either the one in one out method of everything you store you remove something or seasonal cleaning where you review everything you have periodically throughout the year.