Containment And Control Of Clutter After The Holidays

Before the holidays hit you may have pushed items that were sitting everywhere in your home into closets, pantry’s and drawers. You had your friends and family over and they brought you more “stuff” for you to enjoy. The holidays were so much fun but what should you do about all the “extra” stuff you now have? It’s time to de-clutter and contain what you have in your home. There are hundreds of organizational tools in the market that might help you but you really don’t need to purchase anything until you know what you’ve got. If you do buy something that doesn’t work it just adds to the clutter and/or you’ll need to make another trip to the store to return it.

The first step is to identify items you are keeping. Once that’s happened you have to choose which room to start in and then where you’re storing the items not needed every day. Choose how you’re going to contain your possessions: Plastic bins, open bins, boxes, etc. For instance, your family room is full of extra books you may want to invest in a book case or store them in decorative baskets or even consider shelves mounted on the wall to hold them as decoration and storage.

Kitchen food items are stored in plastic open bins so they can contain bags, boxes and crumbs. The open bins are then placed on shelves in the pantry. Try to use bins that are square or rectangular and have sharp corners for space conservation. You can use old cookie sheets to put oils, vinegars, and liquids on so drips are caught. If you have wire shelving in your pantry you can use “s” hooks to hang extra bags on and slide extra hanging bins on.

Closets are a good place for see-through plastic containers with easily removed lids for storage of extra clothing, linens, shoes, hats, purses, etc. You can stack them on the shelves or floor. You can use suit bags to contain and hang wrapping paper. Under the bed storage is also a good place to store wrapping paper, odds and ends and clothing.

Christmas decorations can get out of control. Try to contain them in green and red containers so they’re easily found for next year or clear containers showing the contents. There are wreath containers for wreaths, you can also use garbage bags. Trees that can be taken apart can be stored in rolling garbage cans with lids so they’re easily moved around the home. If you have several themed trees make sure you mark the ornament containers with the contents such as “Disney or Formal or Animal” whatever you’d like.

For more advice please feel free to call Paxem anytime. We are organizational experts and can help.