How to 'Marie Kondo' your home on a budget

First it was her best-selling book, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, now it’s the new Netflix series, Tidying Up, that has Australians embracing Marie Kondo’s advice on storage, packing and folding. The decluttering master creates amazing transformations, restoring calm and order to families all over the world.

While not many of us can afford the luxury of having Kondo whirl through our homes, here are four budget-savvy tips on how to bring the “Marie Kondo” factor into your home.

Tip one: Organising that famous kitchen drawer

Yes, we all have one that is bursting at the seams, and many budget-conscious homewares brands have great solutions for storage boxes with the perfect dimensions for drawers.

The bamboo products available not only look great, but section out and divide all your clutter into separate boxes creating a clean, clutter-free drawer with easy-to-find daily items.

• Bamboo Stackable Basket

Tip two: Avoiding the front door dumping ground

Who is guilty of the dump-and-run shoe collection at the front door? It’s convenient yes, but not so great when you open the front door to a messy pile of shoes. My tip is to store these in baskets or boxes with lids. This is the perfect way to hide those mounting runners, flip flops and kids’ shoes that pile up daily.

The trick is to find a basket with a lid that suits the home aesthetic. When you find the perfect item, you then have a solution which keeps the shoes in a convenient location, hidden from sight but easily accessible for you each day. Here’s some of my top finds for baskets with a lid:

• Kmart Storage Boxes
• Freedom Buco Wire Large Lidded Box
• Target Hyacinth Large Basket

Tip three: Sorting your storage in the garage

The garage is a place that often becomes the dumping ground for beach bags, shoes, sports and camping equipment, plus those bits and pieces that you often use when you’re on a family holiday or day out. Having an easy-to-see storage system is the key here.

We often see cubes used throughout the home in kids’ rooms, entertainment units and even wardrobe storage. Why not incorporate these into the garage? The cubes can be used with and without baskets but are a great way to store and sort sports toys, beach toys, shoes and even garden care products – all easily separated, accessible and budget-friendly. Here’s my top budget-friendly and easy-to-assemble storage cube units:

• Ikea White Shelving Unit
• Target 6 Cube Storage Unit
• Kmart 8 Cube Storage Unit 

Tip four: Make some hanging space

Not all of us have the luxury of a built-in laundry hamper in our wardrobe, but we all have hanging space. A functional space-saving fix is to have a laundry hamper that can hang from the rail and leave valuable space below.

This can easily be carried to the laundry and then hung back up in the wardrobe for easy access.

• Rebrilliant Over The Door Hanging Laundry Bag