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This blog is my own little version of organization central. We touch on just about every aspect of home, family, and holiday organization here. It is my hope that by blogging my experiences, I can grow as an individual and perhaps inspire others to try new things and think about everyday life a little differently. So please join us in organizing for life every month of the year!

Friday, January 10, 2014

Christmas Storage


I wanted to share with you some Christmas storage organization that I am working on this year. EVERY year I say I am going to declutter the Christmas stuff and get it organized and handy for the following holiday season. Every year I usually fail miserably (some years worse than others). So this year I decided to take some drastic steps.

While I was looking at ideas for holiday organization I came across the idea of using clear totes and also of using smaller totes.  In the past I have avoided the clear totes because I felt like the jumble of items inside looks cluttered and disorganized while solid colored totes have a "cleaner" feel to them.  However after trying unsuccessfully for years to label and identify the contents of said "colored" totes I decided to go with some clear ones. 

 
These are the 15 quart Hefty clear holiday ones. (holiday simply because they have the red and green tops.) I bought A LOT of them. They were on sale at K Mart and I also ordered additional ones from K Mart online once I determined how many I wanted. I divided ornaments by colors (blue and purple) (red and gold) etc and grouped other items together (Santas, trees, village houses) etc. You might notice some of the boxes are still empty. That is because I am sill going through random totes and pulling out like items. For example, in several totes I have miniature Christmas tea sets. When I am finished they will all be tucked nicely together in one of these clear bins.
 
The two pictures show the top shelf of my Christmas storage area. There are three additional shelves that are not organized. (baby steps remember) Most of my Christmas totes and other random things are stored here. My goal is to organize this particular storage area as Christmas ONLY. (Plus a section for my sets of "party glasses"-wine, martini and margarita glasses)  I have some other random Christmas totes stored in other areas of the basement. I would like to declutter Christmas enough so they fit on these four rather large shelves.  I will store the tree(s) in another location though.
 
I love the smaller organized totes but realize not all of my Christmas will fit in such small ones.  I am planning to get some Hefty clear holiday storages totes in the next size up which is 29 quart (about double the size of the ones I already have.) Those will be used on the second shelf and the bottom two shelves will then be used to organize the red colored totes I currently have (which are the larger ones).
 
The advantages of this is that the smaller totes are so much easier to get down from the shelves and to carry wherever I want to unpack them. I can also easily grab a box and get just one item out if that is all I decide to use at the time (or for that year). I have so many items that I rotate them around using some things every year but other items just some years. During the decluttering  I will donate or throw away items that no longer fit my needs.
 
Essentially Christmas is "packed away" put I plan on revisiting this storage area as time allows to continue to declutter and organize. It is seeming much more manageable! It's an ongoing process but at least this year I do not just have random stuff sitting all over the basement!!
 
 
 

2 comments:

Luludou said...

Lots of work going on!

Aggy said...

Times like these I wish I lived in a home with a basement or garage. Looks great!