Summer-Ready Homes: Organizing for a Stress-Free Season

With long summer days and plenty of outdoor activities, summer is the perfect time to refresh your home for the season. From streamlining entryways to handle extra foot traffic to setting up functional outdoor spaces for entertaining, a well-organized home can make summer more enjoyable. This guide will cover easy decluttering projects, seasonal storage tips, and ways to create a relaxed, inviting atmosphere in your home

Home organization during the summer months can become overwhelming fast if your home doesn’t have systems to keep you and your family on top of things. We get it. Schedules are hectic, vacations and outings take up a chunk of the calendar, sports and outdoor activities have us scrambling, not to mention regular activities like meal planning and laundry getting tossed down the “to-do” list like they don’t exist anymore.

We’re here to give you some pointers and tricks that will hopefully alleviate some of the burden surrounding the summer months. From off-season clothing swaps, creating a command centre, and optimizing your entryway to tackling a quick at-a-glance purge, we’ve got you covered!

Seasonal Storage Solutions

One of the first tasks you’ll want to tackle is swapping out any off-season clothes or shoes from your busy entryways and mudrooms. Many of us struggle with having too many items in these areas, especially when the local weather fluctuates as much as it does here in Calgary. Ensuring only the current season’s outerwear and footwear are stored in entryways will alleviate storage space pressure. 

If you’ve never done an off-season swap-out, don’t worry, there’s no better time than now. The first step entails finding a secondary storage area in your home (think storage rooms/lockers, guest room closets, bins under the stairs, etc.) that would fit your off-season items. Pick out your winter and cold weather items from your entryway(s), then store them in this secondary space however works best. Some people might like to store jackets and coats in garment bags to fend off any dust, while others may choose to fold everything into bins and stack them in a closet. For heavy winter boots, we’ve found stackable bins to be a great storage option. The idea is to keep these items tidy and clean until next winter when you need them.

Next, you can repeat the same process with your clothes. Heavy sweaters, snow pants, under layers, and other winter clothing can also get stored with off-season items. Go through your closets and drawers, taking out anything you know you won’t need until next winter. This should help to create room for your summer items, making your daily dressing routine easier and quicker. If you find yourself short on secondary storage space, we’ve found it helpful to make use of hidden spaces like under the bed, the top shelf in closets, or even an ottoman with inner storage. 

One hack we’ve found quite helpful with off-season clothing is vacuum-seal storage bags. These bags work wonders with puffy coats, bulky sweaters, duvets, and the like, reducing their storage footprint significantly. They also are great for storage under beds and at the top of closets.

Do a Quick At-A-Glance Purge

The transition to summer is a great time to do a quick at-a-glance purge of items you’ve been wanting to get rid of all year. Grab 3 empty bags (donate/recycle/garbage) and walk through every room in your home, putting items in each that you’ve been meaning to deal with. Don’t feel like you need to sort through every item in every room. This is meant to be a fairly quick exercise where you finally get a chance to donate, dispose of, or recycle items that have been bugging you or that you haven’t dealt with until now. You’ll be surprised at how many items end up in each bag! Quickly check inside closets, drawers, or cupboards, grabbing items that you’ve already made up your mind about. If you start going through everything, item by item, you’ll likely get overwhelmed quickly. Only spend about 5-10 minutes in each room. The idea is to make small progress toward freeing up physical space and consequently, mental space as well.

Create a Command Centre 

We’ve found the use of a command centre to be quite beneficial year-round, not to mention the super busy summer months. A command centre is a spot in the home, usually close to your main point of entry/exit, where you have a space both visually and physically for important items and information. 

A calendar depicting the upcoming month and all its events pertaining to the family, as well as items needed for these events, is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of a command centre. Schedules can become overwhelming, so having a central space for all family members to see what’s happening and when will greatly assist everyone during those busy days. Include who will be driving, where applicable, so there’s no confusion the day of.

On your calendar, ensure to include birthday parties and gifts needed for each, vacations and any tasks needing to be completed prior to, events pertaining to any family members and items needed for each (if any), bill due dates and amounts, appointments, and any other important scheduling information.

Command centres can also include a spot for keys (house, car, shed, etc.) so they never get lost, as well as mail (both incoming and outgoing), wallets/purses, a whiteboard for any important notes, a grocery list (either on another smaller white board or a pad of paper with pen), and potentially a thermometer letting you know how warm/cold it is outside so you can dress accordingly.

A functional command centre will make your daily life easier because you’ll know what to expect in terms of your schedule, as well as who needs to be where, with what items, and includes a home for essential items so they don’t get lost, which means you save time not searching for them.

Declutter and Organize your Entryway/Mudroom

Since you’ve reduced the volume of items being stored in your entryway, you can now look closer at the organizing systems within that space. Summer can be a busy time, with summer sports/activities, parties, road trips, vacations, bbqs, and more. We’ve found it helpful to have all that in mind when creating systems for entryways. Making space for miscellaneous items like sunglasses, sport bags, swim gear, sunscreen/mosquito spray, umbrellas, and high-frequency items can make your day-to-day routine significantly easier. These are the items that we inevitably spend time searching for because they have no designated “home” - creating a space for them close to the exit solves this problem.

Going back to your calendar, look at your daily routine through the summer and the activities you’ll be busy with. What items are associated with these events? If it’s helpful, write out each activity at the top of a piece of paper, then list all related items needed for each activity below each event. If required, include things like snacks, extra clothes/layers, gifts, booze, toys, rain gear, etc. When you have your completed list, you’ll have an idea of the items you’ll need access to over the summer and therefore, be able to make a plan for having these items ready, waiting by the door, when the time comes. Include these items in your calendar as well, even typing out reminders on your phone if you find that helpful.

Once you know the various items you’ll be needing over the summer, you can designate space in your mudroom or entryway. Think about the space needed for the largest items. If you have things like sport bags or bulky equipment, there likely won’t be a ton of room to store these items. Think about alternative areas that are still easy to access. Is there an option to store these items in the garage for easy car access? Can they be moved to the car directly the night before, then returned to their usual storage spot once you return? Try to create a space for these items that doesn’t hinder access to high-traffic areas, but still allows easy access for when it’s time to use them.

For smaller items, designate bins, containers, or baskets with labels wherever possible. You can use general categories like “For Tomorrow/This Week” or “Summer Event Items” if the items you anticipate using aren’t going to overwhelm the container you’ve chosen, or, you can use specific categories like “sunglasses”, “sunscreen’’, “baseball”, etc. Ensure you have enough containers for the high frequency items you’ll be needing. Incorporate these bins into your entryway for easy access.

Ensure BBQ, Patio Stuff is Easily Accessible

Another category that often gets overlooked is barbeque items. We’ve often seen bbq utensils tossed into drawers or cupboards with other categories because there just doesn’t seem to be a place for them. They’re awkward, bulky, and hard to store. We’ve often needed to think outside the box when organizing bbq utensils and accessories for clients. One trick we use often is hanging bbq utensils on 3M hooks behind a cupboard door somewhere close to the bbq itself. Another option is to store the utensils in the bbq’s storage area itself, if available. We’ve even used under-couch storage bins when there simply isn’t any room for awkward utensils in the kitchen or close to the bbq. Being able to keep your bbq utensils easily accessible and in their own space will make bbq season much more enjoyable and easy to manage.

As always, if you're simply overwhelmed with the idea of tackling your stuff, our team is here to help. To check out our home organizing process, click here or here if you'd like to book a free consultation.