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" When my grandmother called her the living room the &amp;quot;den,&amp;quot; it always made me feel cozy and warm, like we were bears curling up in our little nook to relax together. Unfortunately many families&amp;#039; living rooms are the opposite of relaxing, littered with DVD cases, snack wrappers, toys, and old newspapers. Here are five must-have tools for getting this cozy space organized and snuggly again, just in time to light an autumn fire! Most living rooms are concerned primarily with the functions of media consumption (movies, television, reading, gaming, music, and web surfing) and relaxing/entertaining (napping, snacking, and fire-tending). To accommodate these activities, here are my five must-have living room organizing tools:  A trash can. Simple, but true. I have seen too many family rooms without a receptacle for garbage, creating the perfect excuse for wrappers, cans, and orange peels to linger. To that, I would add a handy container for recycling dead batteries, which often find their way into the sofa cushions when kids change them out for fresh ones. Magazine racks or baskets. When your magazine rack or basket is full, that&amp;#039;s your reminder to take just a few minutes to clean it out and make room for the new. Don&amp;#039;t choose a container that is too large, or it can become overwhelming. Here&amp;#039;s a video with more thoughts on organizing magazines and catalogs. Media wallets. My choice here is going to be controversial, but I am going to stick by it! CD/DVD wallets (a good brand is Case Logic) hold hundreds of discs in just a few inches of shelf space, while jewel cases hold about 30 per linear foot. Many people resist the idea of giving up the cases, but you can store them together in a less accessible location of the house and get them out when it&amp;#039;s time to sell or donate them. The wallets make it easy to flip through your collection like a book, and you can include the liner notes in the sleeves. A universal remote. Nearly all of our audio and video components come with remote controls now, causing a lot of clutter and confusion. Put some of the remotes away and centralize control with a high-quality universal remote. The Good Housekeeping Research Institute has some suggestions here based on their testing. See also my video on organizing remote controls here with some little known tips! Cord tamers. There are many nifty options on the market (check out the selection here, for example), but you can use cable zip ties from the hardware store just as well. Grab a helper and take a few minutes to fish cords through the cord management holes in your furniture, and label them so you&amp;#039;ll know how to put it all back together another time. Take a photo of the back of your equipment so you can remember where everything goes before taking it apart to move it.  We&amp;#039;ll be doing a monthly series here on the Home Style blog on the &amp;quot;Five Must-Have Tools&amp;quot; for various rooms of the house-- we&amp;#039;d love to hear your opinions and comments! Lorie Marrero is the best-selling author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life, the spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International, and the creator of ClutterDiet.com, an innovative online membership program that&amp;#039;s provided affordable professional organizing advice to thousands of people in eighteen countries. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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