Cute containers help organize home
I love to watch those TV shows that arm you with scads of clever ways to organize your entire home. I watch them with great awe, because my home organization borders on chaos. For instance, I ignore the mountain of paperwork on my kitchen counter until it approaches avalanche conditions, then I feverishly excavate. In my zealousness, I have been known to accidentally toss a bill or two, a fact that makes Dan hopping mad.
But after watching TV shows where folks even more disorganized than I turn into beacons of tidiness, I’m inspired to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, about the same time, I notice how sleepy I am and decide to take a well-earned Sunday-afternoon nap. Unfortunately, by the time I awaken, the burning need to sort my junk drawer has passed, and I continue my sloppy ways.
The closer I get to the holidays, the more disorganized I become because I work about a billion hours a week during the busy retail season. But this year, I vow that things will be different. I intend to organize my home this spring, long before the holiday rush. Want to do the same? Here are a few tools I’ll use as I organize with style.
Cute containers
Years ago, I realized that one of the only ways to get myself to sit down at my desk was to make my workspace as beautiful as possible. So I went shopping in my china cabinet and kitchen drawers to find fabulous containers that could corral my office supplies in style. How about using a silver toast holder to sort mail or hold books? Arrange pens in a silver vase like a bouquet. Hide bills under a silver food dome so they won’t get lost. Collect supplies like paperclips, stamps or staples in teacups. Instead of using a traditional address book, write friends’ contact information on index cards, and store them in a vintage recipe-card box.
Use an irresistible silver tray as an “in basket” so your paper pile looks marvelous. I stick the paperwork I put off until tomorrow into a beautiful porcelain ice bucket. Needless to say, it’s always full.
Cute containers aren’t just for the office. Go wild and use them all over your home. In your kitchen, put dish soap in a fabulous olive-oil jar. Store coupons in an apothecary jar. Use silver-lidded jars to corral the mess in your craft closet.
Hooks and rods
Hooks are one of the simplest and most wonderful organizational tools known to man. After years of pleading with my family to hang their wet towels on towel bars, I finally got smart and replaced the towel bars with hooks. To my great joy, when Dan tosses his towel now, it hits the hooks instead of the floor.
If you have a mudroom, line a wall with hooks for your coat and purse or the kids’ backpacks and sports bags. A great way to keep track of gloves, scarves and other easily lost items is to clip them to curtain rings hung on small curtain rods installed inside your coat closet. Pick a beautiful brass or pewter rod and matching curtain rings with clips on the ends.
Message centers
Instead of scribbling phone messages on scraps of paper, create a family message center in your kitchen. Transform part of a wall or the pantry door into a chalkboard with blackboard paint. Or make a fabric-covered memo board, complete with funky thumbtacks topped with old buttons or rhinestone jewels.
Stealth storage
If you lack storage space, hide items in decorative containers that double as accent pieces in your home décor. One of my customers cleverly covered a two-drawer file cabinet with a round table top and tablecloth, then used it as an end table. If you have lots of built-in bookcases, use them as storage spots by tucking in a few lidded baskets containing family photos or board games.
Mary Carol Garrity owns three home furnishings stores in Atchison, Kan., and wrote several books on home decorating. Write to Mary Carol at nellhills@mail.lvnworth.com. Her column is syndicated by Scripps Howard News Service.