Your kitchen countertops aren't meant to be cluttered up with all kinds of objects, though it's all too easy for this area of the home to become chaotic. "Countertops are valuable workspace, and when they’re filled with items that aren’t used regularly, it limits usability and creates visual clutter that can make the entire kitchen feel overwhelming," says Kelli Lee Dillard, the founder of Slayte Home Organizing in Nashville, Tennessee. "By relocating these items to more appropriate, designated spaces, the kitchen becomes more streamlined, purposeful, and far easier to maintain."

There's nothing quite as overwhelming as the prospect of deep-cleaning your entire home. This year, I decided waiting for spring wasn't an option. After months of quiet accumulation, my space felt overrun with clutter, so I decided that the Lunar New Year presented the perfect opportunity for a refresh.

Once luxury faux fur blankets like Lola Blankets went viral, there was a natural follow-up question: What do you do with luxury blankets when it’s too warm to use them? If you own a Lola or Cozy Earth Cuddle Blanket, you know they’re heavy and bulky, likely too substantial for a hook or blanket ladder.

Cathy Orr, co-founder of The Uncluttered Life, is a Certified Master KonMari Consultant and a Feng Shui expert. She says, “When storing heavy, luxurious or faux fur blankets for the season, it’s best to first prep blankets for storage.”

If your freezer drawer has become a black hole of freezer-burnt ice cream bars and frozen peas, the right tools can make all the difference. To turn the chaos into a useful storage space, we tapped expert organizers to learn their top tips. The pros recommend starting with structured containers like Sterilite Narrow Shelf Bins or Qunclay Plastic Organizer Bins to keep items visible, then adding removable freezer labels so nothing gets lost. Even small upgrades—like lining drawers with these freezer liners—can help keep everything tidy for longer. Read on to shop more expert-approved tools, starting at $7.

Welcome, Mom’s Choice readers! Today, it’s our very great pleasure to speak with Danica Carson, who, together with Cathy Orr, a KonMari Certified Master Organizer, founded The Uncluttered Life, Inc. These two innovators recently won a Mom’s Choice Gold Award for their timesaving Declutter Deck® Kids & Family Edition—a set of 52 prompt cards designed to help families reduce clutter in children’s spaces. The Declutter Deck’s realistic and easy-to-maintain systems make parents’ lives easier and more manageable, allowing them to focus on what’s most important in their lives. The changes, it is reported, are positively transformative, making this product a wonderful resource for busy parents of children ages 1–13.

I've always considered myself a fairly organized person: Everything I own has a "home," I declutter regularly, and I make sure to set aside 15 minutes at the end of each day to prepare my home for the next. And yet, I still feel like my systems could be better. After all, tidying up is only half the battle - it's maintaining that order that really counts. That's why a recent conversation with Cathy Orr, co-founder of The Uncluttered Life, made me rethink one item I've always associated strictly with travel: packing cubes.

It's the first day of spring, which means that deep cleaning before the warmer temperatures set in has become top of mind for most homeowners.

This year, however, you may want to consider a pivot from traditional tidying up to pursue a more trendy and perhaps rewarding method of cleaning: “chaos decluttering.”

The kitchen is often the busiest room of the house, and keeping it organized can feel like a constant challenge. Before you know it, cabinets, drawers, and pantry shelves are filled up faster than you could ever have imagined. Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to fall into storage habits that make your space feel more cluttered and less functional over time.

Utilizing the space under your bed for storage may be one of the best ways to maintain a clean and clutter-free bedroom sanctuary, but this hidden storage solution could also be the cause of flourishing mold and mildew on the underside of your mattress.

Bulky items may also be creating uneven pressure points beneath your mattress, causing irreparable damage and also disturbing your slumber.

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cathy Orr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cathy, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

In business, as in life, there are always set backs, unexpected things that come up, and great surprises that lead to opportunities.

For that reason, I believe in always keeping a positive attitude and looking for the good.

While professional organizers certainly know what to get rid of during a household clean out, they're also experts on what to keep to ensure that you don't experience regret or inconvenience down the line. Here, four pro organizers located throughout the South share six categories of items that you won't want to part ways with the next time you're looking to declutter.

American families are at a crossroads. Over the past decade, households with children have declined by 3% nationally, according to the U.S. Census — a trend that reflects not just delayed marriages and economic pressures, but a fundamental shift in how families think about where and how to live.

For today’s parents, choosing the best place to raise kids is a high-stakes balancing act. Strong schools and safe neighborhoods remain essential, but affordability has moved to the center of the conversation. Housing costs, childcare expenses, groceries and transportation consume a growing share of household income – often determining whether families can meet their long-term goals or simply stay afloat.

When you picture spring cleaning, you probably think of closet resets and kitchen organization. But what about your medicine cabinet? Over time, a medicine cabinet can become cluttered with expired medication, half-used eye drops, and items you simply haven’t touched in years. 

A seasonal reset is just what the doctor ordered. Below, three professional organizers share their top strategies for eliminating clutter. Plus, they explain why spring is the perfect month for a medicine cabinet reset.

There are few things more satisfying than a whole-home decluttering session—but once you've cleared out everything that no longer brings you joy, knowing where to send it all is just as important.

Gently-worn clothes, board games, and books aren't the only items that can go to thrift stores. There's plenty of "clutter" worth donating instead of throwing away, and our organizing experts are here to explain exactly where to drop off your unwanted things.

There are few things more satisfying than a whole-home decluttering session—but once you've cleared out everything that no longer brings you joy, knowing where to send it all is just as important.

Gently-worn clothes, board games, and books aren't the only items that can go to thrift stores. There's plenty of "clutter" worth donating instead of throwing away, and our organizing experts are here to explain exactly where to drop off your unwanted things.

When it comes to getting organized, you may find several tips online that look helpful but that can lead to even more clutter than you had before.

To get clarity on what actually works, we spoke with an organizing expert to help set the record straight on what works and doesn't work. She shares the most common hacks people try that actually may backfire. Keep reading for her breakdown and for advice on what to do instead.

There's nothing quite as overwhelming as the prospect of deep-cleaning your entire home. This year, I decided waiting for spring wasn't an option. After months of quiet accumulation, my space felt overrun with clutter, so I decided that the Lunar New Year presented the perfect opportunity for a refresh.

Clutter is sneaky, y’all. One minute your house is spotless, the next it’s unintentionally decorated with loose papers, old magazines, scattered toys, and even some surprises you don’t know the origins of. It’s a problem we all inevitably deal with, but what if we told you that your approach to decluttering may be all wrong? Many of us often take the route of throwing everything away that’s an eyesore, but turns out, you don’t have to take this dramatic approach to tidy up your home.

Keeping  counters clear is a constant battle when you are actually cooking three meals a day. It is easy to let the mail, the  bread bags, and the half-used jars of honey take over every square inch of workspace. To get a handle on the mess, you have to determine what belongs on your kitchen  countertops. Look at them with an eye toward paring down. Think about what space you need for chopping or rolling dough, and work backwards from there. According to Cathy Orr of The Uncluttered Life, this determines what is allowed there.

There's nothing better than pulling a freshly laundered comforter over your bed that's soft, warm, and smelling clean. But for many people, that cozy moment turns into a disappointment when their comforter develops a musty smell that lingers all season long.

Even after multiple washes, sometimes that stubborn odor clings to the fabric, making the whole bed feel less than fresh. So what's causing it?

According to our cleaning pros, these are the most common mistakes people make with comforters, and simple fixes that keep them smelling clean all season.