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Hmmm … just a nice little entry table … or so it seems …
Storage in general is the most basic issue in organizing any home. Finding the perfect spot for our TV remotes or cell phones doesn’t matter a ton in the long run. Things we are constantly using are shifting so much it can be pointless to try to pin them down definitively. (Though of course having a regular spot for these items does make it easier to find them!) Finding the right storage for things we rarely access, like Christmas decor we pull out and put away once a year, can be helpful, but really … it is those things we use regularly or semi-frequently that should get a lot of our organizing focus, because finding the right storage for them is going to make a bigger impact in our homes.
One of the most common problems I see with this storage is that we tend to let it become an eyesore. Don’t let this happen in your home!
The trick is finding a way of hiding it. Remember, good organization is a combination of beauty and function!
One of my personally tricky storage items was the kids DVDs. We keep the kids ones separated, so it makes it really easy for the kids to choose movies they are allowed to see. This is an okay exception of the “keep like with like” principle, because not all DVDs are so alike! What made this tricky to me, is that my kids mostly watch movies in the living room, and I do not consider their DVDs good decor for the center of my home. So, my DVDs are conveniently stored in this cabinet, and most importantly, they are hidden. Yeah!
But there they are, all those cute little DVDs! Now those DVDs are accessible close to where we use them most, but not constant visual clutter.
If you aren’t able to go out and buy a new piece of furniture, consider adding baskets to hide your storage, instead of leaving the occasional storage out for the world to see, cluttering up a flat surface or your floor. Baskets also make really great additions to shelves.
The point of all this: Make your home beautiful and hide your storage. There you go, more of my deep thoughts. Ha!
How do you hide your storage?
From my home to yours,
Mary
Liz says
I love hiding clutter. I’m currently using small curtains to hide the PS3, games, dvds, stereo system, etc that are in our open entertainment center. And, of course, out of sight means it helps keep the baby out of there, too…well, most of the time anyway. 😉 Since eyesores keep me nuts, the curtains will help me keep my sanity until we get a new entertainment center.
Mary from Organizing Matters says
What a good idea! I love the curtain idea!
Elizabeth J. says
I spent the day yesterday organizing and decluttering my den. Thought about you the entire time. PS, what should we do with the remotes????? Should they be out??? They drive me crazy!
Becky Koets-Richard says
I found a little basket to keep my remotes in (3 of them). They used to drive me crazy, too! Now, just seeing them in the basket makes me feel better…..and much less “Where’s the remote?!” 🙂
Mary says
Isn’t it amazing how little fixes like that can make such a big impact?!
Emma Tameside says
Hi Mary, fantasic post, thanks for sharing. My husband has a huge collection of CDs he’s collected over the years, and they just look ugly in a normal CD rack. We ended up buying a fairly inexpensive aluminium case for them (I think it was a DJ’s) and it looks actually quite stylish next to the stereo. But ask me if I though a metal case would look nice in my front room beforehand, and I would have definitely said no!
We moved to a tiny apartment last year so we could be closer to work, but there’s hardly any space so we’ve got to be clever about how we store things. Of course, this has also meant getting rid of quite a few items too, but our beloved kayaks had to go to a storage unit in Basildon because there’s no way they could fit in here! Giving up the hobby is unthinkable, so we opted to store them elsewhere.
How do you secure the door on that unit in the photo? Does it use magnets?
orgmatters says
Emma – Personal style plays a major part in how you want to ‘hide’ your storage. If you like the aluminum case, that is great!
The door in the pics latches with a magnet. It is still working great for us!
Mary