Organizing the Storage Room

On Sunday I decided it was time to sort out the storage room yet again. The reason being that there were a few things in there that we will never ever use in this house but Martin wants to keep. I've been working around them. As in re-stacking four broken chairs in every manner possible to make them take as little space as can be. Somehow I wasn't succeeding.

The thing is we have an attic. It's just a crawl space and for eleven years we've kept it completely empty. A few months ago Martin brought home a bunch of stuff which I knew wouldn't be used or worked on for a long time so I agreed we could store it up there and now that we have some stuff up there already I thought we might as well add some more to free up space in the more accessible storage room. It will soon be fall (Yay! I love fall!) and the patio furniture needs to fit in there as well as some other garden equipment.

So I climbed the ladder, fought the wasps and successfully stored the chairs, a metal sink, an vintage wooden soda crate and a wooden toy ride.  And for those of you who enjoy a peek inside someone Else's boxes I'm hereby revealing their contents:

1) Empty boxes and containers. This is where I shop when I reorganize a space.
2) Wille's old Lego's and empty game console boxes. Boxes kept in case he wants to resell.
3) Snow ballers and children's books. I know, weird combo but there was a bit of space in front of the books and there I was with a snow baller in each hand.
4) Marbles, string lights and lamp parts.
5) Box of stuff Martin wants to keep and I want to toss, toy cars for when Wille's cousins come over and plastic bottle and tube caps. Very important. They are for a project yet to be revealed to me. Sigh.
6) Frames and  canvases.
7) Office stuff as in empty binders, clipboards etc. And a slide show thingy. Again, sigh, but on my part. I want to transfer the slides to digital and then toss the originals and the machine. Any ideas on the best way to do that? I know the tossing part, I'm good at it, but the other bit I'm unsure of.

1) Old cameras, cell phone bits and other tech stuff.
2) Herbarium and stamp collection.
3) Lead, plaster and tin for crafts.
4) Vintage toys.
5-8) Wille's toys to be sorted by him at a later date.
9) Keepsake baby clothing.
10) Manga books
11) Easter decorations
12) Halloween decorations
13) Advent decorations
14) Christmas decorations
15) Christmas tree decorations
16) Miscellaneous hardware, lanterns and scraps of foam core board.
17) Abandoned craft projects corralled by yours truly, shell and bone collection aka the smelly box and fishing gear.
18) Comics.
19) More comics. These all need to be easily accessible. Loo literature for the man beginning with an M.
29) Small frames, party stuff as in balloons and decorations and soda and beer bottle caps.

Interesting the stuff one keeps isn't it!? If it were up to me it could all go. With the exception of Molly, my plush bunny of course.

Comments

[Maria Festli]

å jeg eeeelsker din ordenssans!
Du er inspirerende :)

[Icka]

My god - you are so inspiring! I have all that too - but my stuff is just about everywhere in the attic and I have like ten times as much toys and so many clothes I could keep a whole regiment warm for the winter! Time to scale things down, I think. Where have you bought your storing boxes?

[quelle]

gosh i sure hope this inspires me to get started on organizing the copious (endless) amounts of "junk" that my entire family collects.

[rabenfrau]

*sigh* Wish, my storage area would look like this! Everytime Every time I'd clean our basement, my dear husband secretly carries back everything I sorted out and hides it on the shelves again. I swear, these things were lying unused in the basement since we moved in, and that was 1990andsomething! MEN!!!
Maybe I'll make another attempt in autumn...
Rabenfrau

[jja]

Wow! Und nochmals - wow!

[VintagePleasure]

I am so glad you have 'stuff' I was beginning to worry that there was no hope for me! Love how organised it all looks.I wish I could do the same but we have a built up collection of mished mashed boxes.It would take a second mortgage to replace them!
Inspiring as ever benita.

[Jen]

Wow, you have so much stuff, and more importantly so much space to store it. We have no attic, no storage room and no garage!! Our teeny tiny house has no storage space so we just throw out pretty much everything! You'd probably like it!

[Anne]

Why oh why can't I get my little walk-in-closet (or more squeeze-in-closet to be honest) organized, when you can manage all that?

[Sara]

I probably have all of the same stuff, but it sure looks better in YOUR house!! Nice going, miracle girl!

[Isabella Golightly]

I bought a scanner which is USB & does both negatives & slides, but only 3 at a time. But it's super easy to use - and I got it from here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/b070/

And I am filled with admiration for your storage space. Wow.

[jen]

I'm so glad to see that you have a lot of crap, er, STUFF, that your husband MUST HAVE too. :o) The key, I'm seeing, is to have it all in boxes like you do instead of piled on top of each other. In my case it's Beatles memorabilia (blow up dolls, anyone?), record albums, and bits of hardware store fodder.

*sigh* indeed.

[Laurie]

Its so beautifully organized! I have a storage room too but its not quite so pretty. You can't even walk in mine right now. I think I need to go container shopping, rip out the shelves I have now (they are at odd heights) and start fresh. And flying you in to help me...that seems like a good idea too :)

[kelli]

what kind of storage do you have?
cardboard boxes?
clear plastic?
shelving units?

awesome work. your mind works in mysterious ways :)

thanks!

kelli

[clk]

I just wanted to thank you so very much for all of the hard work and time you put into your wonderful blog. It really is perfection. I can not imagine the hours you spend on it for the good of others. You really are improving lives by inspiring us to give some peace and order to the things around us. What is lovely is that your home (as you've written) is actually sort of small, in a regular (nice) neighborhood and is like so many of our homes "out here." Because of this, all the work you do on your home is so much more what your readers can do, too (and relate to!) Just wanted to give a shout out that this New Orleans, Louisiana homeowner reads and learns from your blog everyday!!

[Karen]

Again, I'm so impressed! Everything is so tidy! My mother used to say a place for everything, and everything in it's place - I think she was channeling you! It's odd, but the thing I liked most of all is that you have things like baby clothes and boxes in case something needs to be resold that I also hold on to - yet yours is so organized and mine makes me look like a complete clutter hoarder! It gives me hope that I can keep some important things without feeling like I have failed! And second - I obviously have way too much Christmas stuff. How great that yours fits in a couple of boxes. Mine wouldn't fit in your entire storage room, and I don't know how to get rid of the things that I have collected so carefully :-0

[kat]

ah! i love you!

[Cynthia]

love! love! love! ... just curious ... which one do you like more ... paper boxes or plastic bins?? i have a lot of toys in their original boxes and currently they are stored in paper boxes but wonder if they will keep.

[Emily]

love how organized your are - how every container is the same size and shape looks so stream lined on your shelves and that you KNOW what are in the boxes even better. :)

[Franziska]

I had to smile about some things you keep (or have to keep for someone). But thanks for sharing these pictures. It really looks great. And I hope I can think of some things when organizing my crafting shelf...

[Franziska]

why do I always have a lilac symbol? I'd like to have a green one, too...

[quinn]

I am relieved about Molly.

:)

[elisa]

wonderful - i could let almost all of that kind of stuff go too. if you've got to store it, what a great way to handle it! also good that you *know* what is in all the boxes :P

*

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

Thank you! I'll see if I can find a Swedish source for that! Maybe I can finally say good bye slides!

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

The cardboard boxes were from IKEA but they no longer make them in white so now I get the plastic ones, also from IKEA. They are called Flaj I think but I couldn't find them om the web. I'm hoping they still have them in store because I need more and they were really cheap, like $3 each or so! The shelving units were being tossed away at a place where Martin used to work and we salvaged them. $0:)

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

Thank You for reading :)

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

I love the white paper boxes but they are so old and have been packed so full for so long that they are falling apart. IKEA no longer makes them in white which is why I've gone for the clear plastic since. I like the paper boxes because they're not tapered but I like the plastic because little things don't get caught in the folds at the bottom. The paper is nice because you don't see the mess inside but the plastic is good because you CAN see what's inside :) What can I say, I like them both for different reasns. Aesthaetically I'd go for all white paper though...

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

They are from IKEA. The white ones aren't available any longer and I'm not sure about the plastic ones either, but they do have a similar style one. There's a link in the post to that one.

[craft]

really impressed!!!!!!!!!!!! how well u managed and organised?????????????????????????????????????????

[Leah]

So incredible, Benita!! We don't have a storage room, much less even one decent closet, but oh how I dream about a space like this! I guess it is sort of lucky because it forces us to get rid of so much (donate, recycle, reuse, resell), but it would be nice to have even 1/4 of this space. Sometimes, it really is worth hanging on to a few things. You use it so well. Wonderful post.

[Jaimie]

This is really inspiring - again! Our house has a full basement, and this fall we are embarking on a big renovation project (digging it out to gain more head room, waterproofing, radiant-floor heating, and then eventually finishing it ...) Because it is so ugly and damp-smelling down there at the moment, we have made no effort at all to organize or store things properly, and have just been throwing stuff down there willy-nilly. It looks like a disaster. When the space is finally finished, I am hoping that we can store things properly, and in an orderly fashion, just as you have done.

[Not Your Goddess]

oh gosh, I'll never get my toes where you have your heels...!

[Karen the Californian]

I've GOT to ask about the boxes numbered 1-15: do you have problems with spiders and other little critters crawling into there? It looks like the boxes have handle holes.

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

I don't have a problem with spiders at all, I like them. There are quite a few in our basement but I just make sure I don't step on them and leave them alone :)

[sunny]

yayayayay

so happy to see this! I wondered if you had "stuff" and you do! I was curious about the contents of the containers and then practically giddy when I saw you'd labeled the contents for us so thoroughly. thank you!!!

[Benita ~ Chez Larsson]

Wish we didn't have so much... glad you got excited about it all though :)

[holly rose]

Thanks for giving informative information. I really need this to have an idea in building my
plastic storage shed.

[Royallineage74.blogspot.com]

Just what I needed for today's organizing. Thanks for the ideas.