(ARA) – Catch it. Cut it. Contain it. Such are the three Cs of a thorough spring clutter inventory, according to the publisher of one of the country’s fastest growing house wares catalogs.

“Spring cleaning may not be as critical as it was in our grandparents’ generation, when a winter’s worth of heating with coal, wood or oil left layers of soot everywhere,” says Ginny Bean of Ginny’s catalog and www.GinnysSolutions.com. “But that inherent desire to start fresh in the spring provides a perfect nudge for attacking the household clutter issues that plague most homes today.”  

Bean suggests starting with an inventory of each room in the house, noting the clutter problem areas:

Entryway  
Most homes have piles of shoes next to the front door and a heap of coats on a banister. Often, entryway clutter can be eliminated with the addition of a functional piece of furniture, such as Ginny’s popular shoe bench. The solid pine bench has drawers for hats, gloves and those ever-elusive car keys, a front-opening compartment with slots for 12 pairs of shoes, and a place to sit while taking them off. For tighter spaces, Ginny’s new Mission-style storage locker has double coat hooks, a shelf for shoes, and a large drawer for stashing everything from scarves to gardening gloves.  

Family Room
It doesn’t take long for multi-media mayhem to set in on any family room -- disorganized piles of magazines, DVDs and that growing collection of remote controls in various stages of unidentifiable usefulness. Creative solutions from Ginny’s spring ’07 catalog include a universal remote with enough capacity to handle eight different components and big enough, at 11 inches long by 5 inches wide, to defy misplacing. There’s also a portable storage ottoman that not only provides extra seating, but opens to reveal space for 300 CDs, 134 DVDs or 72 VHS tapes.  

Home Office
Many home offices double as guest rooms, or craft rooms, or any of a variety of other functions. One of the tricks to controlling clutter in these instances is to employ functional pieces that can be easily moved and stored out of the way, as needed. Ginny’s popular wheeled storage carts have drawers that are color coded for organizing projects and remove completely for even more portability. A new folding computer desk, with dual-level desktop and a lower level shelf, has canisters for easy rolling, and two quick-release handles that collapse it to a size not much larger than a folding chair.  

Kitchen
The kitchen is probably the room of a home offering the most organized storage space, yet somehow, it’s usually the most jam-packed and disorganized. Bean points to a couple handy pieces in her spring catalog that allow for moving frequently-used items out of cabinets, off countertops, and within easy reach. Ginny’s hanging pot rack attaches to a wall, has 12 moveable hooks for customized configuration, holds up to 40 pounds of pots and pans, and comes in many stylish colors. A refrigerator side shelf creates extra storage for spices, seasonings and condiments out of the unused space on the side of a fridge.  

Bathroom
If the kitchen provides the most usable storage space in the home, the average bathroom easily provides the least. In inventorying bathroom clutter, Bean stresses that only essential items used regularly should be stored in bathroom drawers and cabinets. She also suggests making use of bathroom dead space with organizing solutions such as wheeled carts, hooks on the back of doors, shower caddies and hanging mesh bags. At just over a foot wide and nine inches deep, Ginny’s bathroom basket tower fits into almost any sliver of unused wall space, but provides lots of extra storage in eight vertically-stacked baskets.

Garage
Spring is the perfect time for cleaning out the garage and getting rid of the clutter that’s accumulated over the winter months. Inspect and sort garden tools, bikes and sports equipment. Among a host of innovative gardening accessories in Ginny’s current spring catalog is a folding gardener’s stool with a detachable tool caddy that holds all the essentials in one compact piece that picks up and goes wherever the gardener does.  

To request a copy of Ginny’s catalog, log on to www.GinnysSolutions.com  or call (800) 487-9024.