In visiting other exhibitors at the National Home Show, I have been very impressed with the quality of storage solutions available to home owners. In my mind I have chosen new clothes storage several times over in each of the styles available from each of the closet manufacturers.
It brings to mind, however, the difference in organizing styles the all of us have. Some of us are folders; others are tossers and droppers. Some of us like things quiet and all the same in storage styles which others, less visual by nature, don’t even notice if one container is a different colour to the next.
If you are looking at storage systems for your clothes, try and figure out what your style is. Match up your new system to that style. There are no rules that say clothes have to be folder when put away. With my own two children, I’m happy if the clothes just end up in the drawers at all. Sliding baskets are great for the tosser and droppers so that they can toss and drop into the basket to their hearts content. Open storage is great for those of us who don’t like to have to hunt for the right drawer for each object.
So make your life a little easier and match up your storage with your organizing style.
Archive for Home Organizing – Page 5
Do you find that clothes end up on the floor regardless of how hard you try to keep them contained in their proper homes?
Take a close look at your dressing area, no matter how small or how big. Are your clothes all contained within the one area? Do you have to go from one side of the room to the other just to find all the pieces of clothing you need for the day?
The farther apart your clothing pieces are stored, the more likely they are to end up on a horizontal surface (bed, floor etc) while you are either dressing or undressing.
Try and get all your clothing storage in one area together, from now on referred to as your dressing area. It can be anything from 9 square feet (3 metres squared) to a room unto itself. It may be just a designated side of your bedroom – probably the side with the clothes closet. Get all your clothes in there and they are less likely to end up on the floor.
Has your young son or daughter finished preparing their Valentine’s cards for their class mates yet? Ever wonder what to do with the left over few cards from the box. Like many of us you probably wish you could hang on to them for next year so they could be used but don’t want to add them to the paper clutter in your home. Here’s a couple of different ideas. Hopefully one will fit your home.
- Store them with your craft supplies and use them for craft projects.
- Send them to your children’s daycare so they can use them for craft projects.
- Keep a box of gift cards and greeting cards and add them to this box.
- If your Christmas decoration box is easily accessible, store them in there. They will be ready to pull out when you put next year’s Christmas decorations away.
It’s the end of the first week in February – do you know where your due bills are?
Do you pay your bills when they first come in the door?
Do you have a designated place to store them until they are due?
Are your due bills all in one room?
Can you find those bills when you go to pay them?
Is the designated place close to your bill-paying method: computer; cheque book and stamps?
Is the designated place easily accessible when you go to pay your bills?
Are the bills identified with the date that they are due?
How much do you pay in overdue bill fees? Would that help pay down your mortgage?
Q It seems that every surface in my home has stuff on it. My home is cluttered but I have no other place to put things. What else can I do?
A It is human nature to put an object down or away in the place of least resistance or the most accessible spot when we are finished with it. For many people, that spot ends up being an empty flat surface. The result can be a cluttered space with every flat surface filled and, in worse case scenarios, several layers of objects on every flat surface.
Switch from horizontal to vertical storage strategies and habits. Vertical space is up and down space in your home. The floor, counters and table tops are horizontal space. Keep your horizontal space clear and your home will look and feel less cluttered and be easier to move around in.
Book shelves are great vertical storage and can be used to storage an array of items besides books. Putting similar items in containers such as boxes, baskets or other plastic containers on the shelves reduces the messy look of many objects. A hook on a wall is another simple and effective means of using vertical space, great for clothes especially in a child’s room.
#8 Clear out Kids’ Toys – There will be more toys arriving in a week’s time. Why not get a jump start on your organization before they do?
Give your children each a box appropriate to their size and age. Tell them they have 10 minutes to fill the box with toys that they no longer play with, may have outgrown or do not like.
Ten minutes later you could all make a trip to a local charity office to donate the toys. (Depending on your space for storage you may want to save them for a garage sale in May or a toy box for younger sibings.)
With the toys reduced, you will have an opportunity to review if the toys storage for your children is still appropriate for their age. If you have children moving from toddlers to preschool age, do you have shallow bins on the floor for them to access their toys? If you have school age children, have you moved from the shallow bins for preschoolers to sorting bins? Sorting and patterning is one of the first task children master in school. They can do the same thing at home sorting toys into difference coloured bins for pre-readers and labelled bins/boxes for the older children.
Here’s an interesting site for those of you living in small spaces. What’s not to love about a site named Loving. Living. Small?
Do you know where your critical documents are?
Do you know what that means?
If your house were on fire, could you get them in less than 30 seconds?
Is there a copy off site safe?
Where is your passport, immigration papers, citizenship documents, birth certificate?
Where is your marriage certificate, divorce papers, name change confirmation?
If anything happend to you, could your Power of Attorney (Finance) find enough information in a short enough time to take care of your affairs the way you would want them handled?
Do you have a Power of Attorney for Finance?
Do you have a Power of Attorney for Health?
Do you have a Will?
Do you have a Living Will?
Do your executors know how to get copies of the Will?
Do you have guardians for your children in the event anything happens to you?
As promised – here it is – a kitchen cupboard that refuses to be organized.
You can see that I have made previous attempts with this shelf. The challenge is that it is deep, pulls out but is at knee height. To really use the space effectively, I have to find tall containers to store the food that could then be labelled on top. That would make them easy to see, identify and ,hopefully, with the right size container, easy to access.
My strategy?
- Pull everything out and completely empty the shelf. (Clean it while empty).
- Assess what to keep and what to get rid of (don’t use, don’t need or is too old to keep).
- Determine from what is left how many containers I need.
- Get the containers. You may have your favourite source; one of mine is the Dollar Store. I have already determined a location to get the size and especially the height I need.
- Fill up the containers.
- Label.
- Put everything back. I will make everything fit the space I have as there isn’t any other space i our 1970’s renovated kitchen for these items. They have to live in the space available.
Stay tuned for the after pictures!
