Hey there, friends! How is everyone? Other than the constant RAIN in our parts, we are good! But the forecast says it’s supposed to dry out, so I’m looking forward to some lake time and great garage sales at the end of this week.
So…there have been 2 more hot messes in our house that I have recently cleaned up and organized. And it feels great! I told you about our weird drawers containing potatoes and batteries. Now that they’re cleaned up, I’ve moved on to wrapping paper and electrical cords. Do you guys have problems with either of these items? I’m super-envious of people who have space for “wrapping stations.” That’d be nice, but I don’t have anywhere to put one other than our basement, and I’m not willing to invest time and money down there right now. And YET…our wrapping paper has been lying on the basement floor in a heap, so I guess that HAS been our wrapping station. I never said I made sense.
But then I came across this great tip I shared with you once before in my roundup of 10 (more) Smart Storage Ideas: use IKEA’s plastic bag holders for wrapping paper. Genius! But where to hang them? So I purchased some, but they’ve been in our basement next to my heap of wrapping paper rolls. Then I got rid of some old toys taking up space in a closet and badda-boom, badda-bing, problem solved! See?
It may not be super-duper pretty, but it makes me super-duper happy to not have to traipse down to the basement for wrapping paper. (And please note: the batteries are now in that basket you see on the shelf. No potatoes in sight. Because they’re still on the floor in our dining room. Because that makes sense.) Anyway, you’ve really got to get some of these plastic bag holders from IKEA. They cost a whopping 2 bucks. Get a few.
Ok, so on to the cords. I avoided our basket of cords at all costs because it caused me major stress and anxiety each time I had to search through it. Once again, I referred to that post featuring other people’s great ideas for storing pesky items, and I found this solution: toilet paper tubes! So now I’ve turned this:
Into this:
I attached these bin labels from Jo-Ann’s to some nesting boxes I had on hand…
…and now we have handy storage for our cords, as well as office supplies, stationery, reference books, and CDs. The boxes are all on our wrapping paper-backed bookshelves, and I just couldn’t be happier with having all of this storage hidden in plain sight.
Life is sooooo much easier with these small changes, I can’t even tell you. I’m an organizing machine! What organizing solutions have changed your life?
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