Organizing with Bins and Baskets
Many of us make New Year’s resolutions every January, and often those goals involve organizing our homes and removing clutter from our lives. This is a long standing goal of mine, but with a small house and a two pre-schoolers, freeing my home of clutter is a difficult task.
Behold, the power of the bin!
I have recently begun using bins and baskets throughout my home, and not only do they help with the children’s items, but they’ve also proved to be quite helpful with adult items as well. Here are a few suggestions for ways to utilize bins and baskets in your own quest for organization in 2008.
1. Above the Refrigerator: This may be the last place that you would consider using a bin, but if you have vertical space above your fridge, chances are that you’ve stuck a few things up there. In our house the above the fridge stash includes kids’ lunch boxes, cracker boxes, and straws. By putting a high sided white bin on top of the white fridge, the appearance of clutter is removed and the items are less likely to fall.
2. Under the Bed: People are naturally inclined to shove things into the space under the bed – okay, at least I am – so why not use that space in an organized way? If you’ve got a bed that is close to the floor, you can purchase a long, flat bin at many stores that carry home organizational products as well as larger department stores. The two keys to successfully using under the bed bins are to be sure the bin has wheels so that it easily slides out when needed and be sure that the bin has a lid to ensure that your items don’t gather dust during storage. In our home we store the kids’ extra linens under the bed so that they are readily available when changing sheets and pillowcases.
3. Inside Closets: Because many closets – clothing, pantry, linen – have shelves, people often assume that they are automatically going to be clutter free. However, any of you who have experienced the pain of a large bottle of shampoo crashing down on your toes, know that often moving one item to gain access to another can be disastrous. If you organize your items by category inside your closet using bins, you will be able to simply pull the basket or bin out, choose your item, and put the entire bin neatly back into your closet.
Happy organizing!