I have Rubbermaids. They appear to have spawned in my basement, these big blue boxes. Luckily they also have labels, one for each season of the year. Christmas has several boxes, while Valentine’s Day and spring are all lumped into one.
I also categorize my items in drawers, shelves, and rooms. Do you have a house that is full of stuff, without any particular order? If so, it’s likely very challenging to find what you’re looking for. Here are some ways that I categorize the items in my home.
Large boxes are one of the ways that I categorize my household items. These are used for camping gear, old baby memories, and seasonal decorations. These large boxes are labeled in the basement. In my daughter’s room, I store larger hand-me-downs in a big box in her closet, ready to go through when she goes through a growth spurt. I store outgrown items in a bag at the side of her closet so that I can remove them and give them away.
In the kitchen, I have shelves dedicated to each sort of food: baking, spices, cooking supplies. I also have a large shelf that acts as a pantry area and a shelf that is my emergency food stash for times when we are sick. This shelf has pre-made meals. In the closet, we have areas for cat food storage, household supplies, and recycling of various sorts to go out to the recycling bins and depots. When we buy food and household items, we often buy in bulk and the extras go into the kitchen and the closet.
In the basement, we have an area for items that are leaving our home. I group these items into things that we might get rid of on Craigslist or Freecycle and items that an organization will pick up.
Organizing items according to when they will be useful and whether they need to leave the home helps rid your home of items that you will not use again. It also prevents you from buying things that you already have. I’m sure we’ve all looked into our child’s closet after buying a piece of new clothing, only to discover that there was one there already.
Do you have bins, shelves, and boxes in your home to help organize your things?