15 Quick and Easy Projects to Tackle Before the New School Year Starts

The final stages of getting your home and family ready for the school year are a bit like preparing to set sail on an ocean voyage. You’re well past serious structural work and charting your course; now it’s time to confirm that all spaces are seaworthy, gear is where it needs to be and your crew knows what to expect when you encounter squalls. (There may also be swabbing and sing-alongs, but that’s up to you, really.)

Bearing that in mind, we’ve pulled together our cleverest low-investment, eve-of-adventure DIY projects; with relatively minimal time and resources, you and yours can be shipshape for whatever you find at the horizon.

Whether you’re corralling the kids’ school supplies, straightening up your own work area or endeavoring to bring order to a craft corner, this dead simple project generates a custom accessory to elevate any space. (Psst: It’s an equally-handy stand-in for kitchen utensils that would otherwise crowd a single canister.)

Creating a cohesive, coordinated caffeination area for overnight and holiday guests is thoughtful. Extending yourself the same hospitality and facilitating frictionless mornings throughout the year, in turn, is just sound strategy.

If your kid has outgrown last year's lunch tote and set their sights on a new one, create a grab-and-go activity box with the castoff. Packed with toys, games and art supplies, last year’s school accessory can be this year’s car-trip MVP.

Speaking of repurposed accessories, might we suggest making the most of end-of-summer sales and picking up canvas totes to create dedicated toy destinations? Bonus points for monogramming.

While you can’t monogram mesh vessels like these, they’re inexpensive enough to buy in bulk and easy to see through. A storage solution that gets kids’ collections off the floor and reduces rummaging? Priceless.

If your kid doesn’t favor a single, dedicated study space, load up a rolling storage cart like this one that can meet them where they are. A shower ring clipped to the top handle can be used to hang a lap desk when homework is finished; magazine holders can stabilize a mini-library, and a lightweight pen caddy can serve as an organizer and a portable art station.

Tuck a beverage or dorm refrigerator beneath a kitchen or playroom counter, then fill it with healthy snacks and drinks.You’ll help your little ones develop independence by enabling them to access those items without your help.

When your collection of to-go gear exceeds your needs in the kitchen and begins to clutter up your cabinets, redeploy the extras to other rooms as organizers for craft supplies and smaller items to be tucked within larger bins.

Shave valuable time off of school and playdate prep by devoting a drawer in your pantry (and a quadrant of the refrigerator, if you can spare it) to lunch and snack components and containers. That streamlining might feel minimal, but packing a meal without performing a scavenger hunt in your own home is a thing of beauty (and earns you at least one extra poke at your alarm clock’s snooze button).

If your kid could use a bit of help focusing when it’s time to study, converting a standard closet to an immersive homework space can help concentrate their materials and attention. Thanks to doors that become room partitions, a zone like this one can feel more conducive to work than a desk in an open bedroom would; it can also disappear when school tasks are complete.

While you should be able to get a good look at the next month and beyond somewhere, crowding the wall with too many engagements can be overwhelming rather than helpful. Keep the family on track with a easy-to-read, erasable board like this one, and get to next week when it’s next week.

There’s no time like the present to edit the medicine cabinet and bathroom shelves down to what’s fresh and in use (so long, mostly-empty sunscreens and bug sprays). Discard older and empty bottles and tubes, then concentrate what’s left into labeled spaces that will be easy to access and re-stock when cold and flu season arrives.

Trudging back to the bathroom after breakfast is great and all, but have you tried keeping a spare cup of brushes by the kitchen sink so you can knock that task out just steps away from the table? Pure magic.

Turning your family into a well-oiled morning machine is all about keeping your eyes on the prize (the prize being everyone showing up where they need to be in a timely fashion). Investing in a few stylish reminders of just how long everyone’s got until departure—and how long a particular task is taking — can help keep all parties in sync and on track. Speaking of managing all parties…