Use color to get organized and brighten your living space

A color-coding system can bring order to your living space. By assigning colors to categories or family members, you’ll know what you’re looking at without a miscellany of labels — or having to pull out your glasses.

Here are several ideas that put hues to work, whether you are organizing papers, work areas or everyday items, preparing food, outfitting your entry or setting up a recycling station.

With these bright additions, your living space will be far from drab — and much easier to manage.

Welcome center

Create a coordinated sorting station, with one color assigned to each family member, in the front entry. Squares of Homasote fiberboard become vibrant pin boards when covered with linen, which can be secured to the back with staples. Thumbtacks and clips will keep invitations, keys, outgoing mail, coupons, shopping lists and favorite snapshots in order.

Use magazine files to organize mail and paperwork: Designate one for each family member, and then slip linen-wrapped fiberboard into the file for keeping materials separate.

Spice labels

Categorize the array of seasonings in your cupboard into two groups with these stickers. Orange tags indicate spices typically used for sweet recipes, such as cinnamon; yellow tags indicate savory flavorings, such as cayenne. Download the templates at marthastewart.com/spice-labels, and print onto self-adhesive paper. Attach to matching tins or jars.

Cutting boards

Minimize the risk of cross-contamination in the kitchen by organizing your plastic cutting boards by color. Designate a specific color for each particular type of food: blue for seafood, green for vegetables and fruit, yellow for poultry, and red for other meats.

Keys

To minimize fumbling at the front door, paint the tops of frequently confused keys with distinctive shades of nail polish. Use a different color for each key, letting it dry before flipping it to coat the other side. A single layer should suffice.

Wine tags

Handmade labels let you survey your wine collection at a glance, quickly finding just the right bottle. Choose an organizing system, such as the type of wine or the country of origin, and pick a color to represent each category. Download our template at marthastewart.com/wine-tags. Remember to snip a few small slits around the circle so it slips onto the bottle’s neck easily. Any spare labels can do double duty as gift tags.

Recipe cards

An overstuffed recipe box, brimming with generations of family favorites and recent additions from friends, can be made far more navigable with stickers affixed to a corner of each card. This also works on newspaper and magazine clippings.

Select a color to represent a type of dish or a course, perhaps green for vegetable sides and yellow for dessert.

Holiday storage

Whether your bins of decorations are stacked high in the basement or hidden behind bicycles and boxes in the garage, you’ll be able to find them in seconds with the help of bands of colored duct tape (and, perhaps, a flashlight).

Wrap each container in shades that match the festive decorations stored inside: red and green for Christmas, black and orange for Halloween. Be sure to place additional strips on the top in case the sides are obscured.

File folders

Exchange your manila folders for colored ones, assigning a hue to each category — such as red for medical information, blue for mortgages and green for taxes. The next time you’re hunting for a document, all you’ll have to do is scan for the appropriate shade.

If several people share the same desk in your home, use sets of storage and file boxes, each in a different color, for each family member. Or, you can attach grosgrain ribbons in the same shades to other office organizers.

Recycling bins

Coordinated plastic buckets take the hassle out of sorting recyclables. Choose one in a different color for each material your community-recycling program accepts — green for plastic, yellow for paper, and blue for glass — and keep it consistent from week to week.

Questions should be addressed to Ask Martha, care of Letters Department, Martha Stewart Living, 11 W. 42nd St., New York, NY 10036. E-mail to mslletters@marthastewart.com.

&Copy; 2009 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.