Brand
Tags
house
large, Medium (Sterilite 16 quart), small
in terms of stuff, here is my organizational framework
- i have 3 sizes of stackable plastic boxes and EVERYTHING must go into one of them, large (70 qt), medium (16 qt), small (6 qt), and i ONLY buy those boxes (i've got like 80 of each size ball park). these are the best boxes by far. start with like 12-24 of each size.
- each box has a label (these are great cause they peel off easily)
- each box has only ONE type of thing, better to keep it half empty so when you find another one of those things it goes in, and you size the box accordingly, and all of a given thing should go into teh same box (i did this wth the kids room too - they had play-do in 3 differenet areas/boxes which makes it harder to use/play with that anyway)
- create an 'inbox', a box or area for unknown/ misc stuff.
- don't judge whether to keep something as you organize, just organize first and triage later.
- create a donation pile (for shawn to review), of whatever you think you don't need, but give her final say (this has worked with nadine)
- minimize anything you're not using in the high traffic / valuable areas- e.g. i regularly take stuff from the kitchen to the basement, so it's there if nadine asks but most of the time it doesn't get used for a while, and therefore keeps the areas we mainly used a lot more simple.
- have a goal to have ZERO cardboard and don't stop until you get there. will take a few weeks that's ok.
doing this for the basement really helped me prep for this year. also did similar for kids room and big parts of the kitchen. still have other areas to go, but it felt like literally clearing out cobwebs or stretching the fascia.