This week we are organizing the dining room!
Like our other rooms in this challenge, we will be doing an overall organization and then diving deeper into a particular aspect of this room. With the dining room, many people find they don’t really use this room very often. Our deep-dive part of the challenge gives you two fun options to honor and get more use out of your dining room.
Decluttering and Organizing The Dining Room
- First, gather four bins and label them keep, donate, trash, other room
- Next, you will start sorting. Go through everything in drawers, buffest, cabinets, and anything on the table. Sort these items into the bins you have labeled. Try to get rid of as much as you can as you sort. Remember, you want to purge as much as possible, you don’t want to spend time sorting and organizing clutter.
- At this point, your dining room should be mostly empty except for the furniture. Take this time to wipe down all of your surfaces and vacuum or sweep your floors. Don’t forget your baseboards, mirrors, and windows.
- Finally, you are going to organize your dining room. Head to your sorted bins and put these things where they need to go. Don’t leave the donate bin sitting by the door! Put it into your car, and as soon as you finish up this week’s challenge, drive it to the donation spot. If you cannot do that right now, head to your calendar and schedule a date to do it as soon as your schedule allows. Now, put everything that belongs in your dining room back into the buffet drawers, cabinets, and other areas.
Now, let’s look at our two options for our deep dive part of the 2020 organizing challenge, where we are going to look at some ways to use your dining room more or repurpose it!
Deep Dive Option 1: How To Use Your Dining Room More
Many of us only use our dining room on special occasions or holidays. If you think of how many times you use it a year, it really is astonishing how underused this space is in your home.
If you want to keep your dining room as a dining room, consider using it for more than just holidays that come once a year.
- To get more use out of your dining room, why not consider hosting special brunches or dinner parties once a month? These do not need to be fancy (of course, they can be if you like); it’s more about inviting people to share a mindful afternoon or evening together with you in your home.
- You can also make it a plan that your family eats in the dining room all together one night a week. Cook something special or a family favorite on these nights and put out your beautiful tableware for your family to enjoy.
You’ll be surprised how doing these things will breathe new life into your dining room and make it feel like a part of your home.
Deep Dive Option 2: Repurposing Your Dining Room
Now, if you really don’t think you will use your dining room, or are very short on space for a purpose that you would love to have room for in your house, you may want to repurpose this space. Here are a few ideas you can use to repurpose your dining room.
- Turn it into a home office – Maybe you have always wanted a home office but don’t have an extra room to make it happen. If you are really not going to use your dining room, why not make your home office. Your productivity will thank you.
- Turn it into a no-screen living room – You may already have a family room where everyone watches T.V., but what about creating a casual, cozy sitting room that has no screens? It can be a place to relax, a place to read, or even a place for kids to focus on homework.
- Turn it into a library – Have you always dreamed of having an in-home library? Repurposing an unused dining room into a library is a fantastic way to breathe new life into this space. Having a library in your home entices everyone to read more and gives them the perfect place to browse books, add to the library, read, and share stories about their favorite books.
- Turn it into a playroom or homeschool room – If you have younger kids, turning your underused dining room into a playroom or homeschool room could be the perfect project for you.
So Much Potential
I bet you didn’t realize how much potential your dining room had! By giving this space a little time and attention I think you will see some really great benefits and uses for this room in your home for your whole family.
Before you go, don’t forget to download your printable. Share your before and after pictures with the #
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