You may have looked at pictures of "minimalist" homes in books which look amazingly bare and thought "I don't want to live in a depressing home like that!"

But an organized home doesn't have to be like that. Home organization isn't about form, it's about function. Decluttering your home means getting rid of all the stuff that you don't want, don't like and don't need. You keep the stuff you love, use and need. Getting your home organized means being able to more easily find the things you've decided to keep every time you want them. Neither says anything about how your home has to look - so you can make your decluttered and organized home look just as stylish and beautiful as you wish.

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Take the poll and let us know whether you're more organized or more stylish, then read on for organized and style-friendly storage ideas...

Storage doesn't have to be in cabinets, although you'll probably want at least some of it to be so. It's a fine idea to mix open and closed storage so that you can contrast a visually calm area of closed storage (hiding the necessary but possibly ugly objects) with a more exciting visual feast of open shelving.

If you're the kind of person who likes to see lots of things displayed to view, that's fine too. Just pay attention to how things look when you buy them, even very everyday objects like food packets. If you can choose, buy things which are decorative and even color-matched as well as functional.

Even the most eclectic mix of ordinary stuff can look organized if you impose order on them by the way you store them. Matching open shelf units which cover a large area, especially if the shelving itself stands out in design and color, can impose an ordered grid on the objects stored in it. The tighter the shelving grid, the more organized it will look. Repeating the shelving style within the same space, or throughout the home, gives a more cohesive look.

One important element is to include display space for things you love to admire. These can be displayed in collections, or singly with space around them so that each individual object stands out as something special. Rotating objects on display makes each one more special, as well: you never get so used to seeing it that you become blind to it.

More information about decluttering and organization

While we want to see the items we like, there are other objects we don't want to see and which only make a space look cluttered. Some of the worst offenders here are power and data cables, in their many variations. If you're renovating a space from scratch, try to design in concealment from the start - for example, there are hollow baseboard systems which act as wiring raceways all around the room, along with many other methods which will work. If you're simply rearranging an existing space, take every opportunity to hide cables behind furniture and use cable clamps to corral the spaghetti of cables around so many media systems. Try to keep power and data cables separate, as the fields around power cables can interfere with data.

A good way of checking how you're doing is to take pictures of the room. Our eyes and brains are amazingly good at "editing out" things we don't want to see, but a picture shows the unedited version of how things really look. Keep rearranging and checking with pictures until your house looks the way you want it to - then take a well-earned break and relax in your stylishly organized space!

More information about decluttering and organization