Simple storage ideas can make a big difference.

“Everything in its place” is a phrase that hasn’t applied to my apartment in quite some time. I’m attempting to crack the minimalist code by selling and giving away all of the items I once thought I needed (and you know, never used). Ironically, I now have nowhere to put what little I did decide to keep. If you’re like me and you’re on the hunt for new storage ideas, you’ve come to the right place!

Here are 8 adorably creative storage ideas you won’t be able to get enough of:

1. Welded Letter Holder
It’s very difficult to make mail look pretty. Usually, it ends up in a pile by the front door or gets lost on our desk. This Welded Letter Holder is perfect for high-traffic areas, office spaces, or wherever your mail tends to dominate most. Made of pressed sheet metal, you can store takeout menus, bills and other important documents without hassle.

2. Topsy Turvy Jewelry Box
Most jewelry boxes are such a snore, aren’t they? Store your jewelry in this Topsy Turvey Jewelry Box to give your fave accessories as unique a home as you have! These mismatched drawers are made of mango wood, sheesham wood, MDF, iron, brass, glass, paper and ceramic, and are finished off with vintage hardware.

3. Oakwood Makeup Brush Holder
No compilation of storage ideas is ever complete without an efficient way to store your makeup – especially your makeup brushes, which always seem to mosey their way to the bottom of your cosmetics bag, am I right? This Oakwood Makeup Brush Holder is handmade in the USA by artisan Tyler Kingston. Made of salvaged wood, it fits seven brushes – and no two are exactly alike.

4. Wood Memo Board with Baskets
Perfect for small spaces, this Wood Memo Board with Baskets is full of character and charm. It features two iron-mesh baskets fixed to a wooden back, while the clothespins give you a place to store all of your to-do lists.

5. Stacking Wood Trays
Handmade in the USA, these rustic-chic Stacking Wood Trays can be used in any room of your home. They come in a set of three and include a drawer divider for ultimate versatility. They’re made of antique sinker pine with brass accents for a fancy place to label them.

6. Wire Laundry Basket with Wheels
Just because laundry’s a chore doesn’t mean it has to look like one. In fact, you might find this Wire Laundry Basket with Wheels to be too fancy for your whites: Use it to hold magazines, guest towels, books – the options are endless!

7. Handmade Ottoman
The best storage ideas are ones that pull double-duty. Take this Handmade Ottoman, for example: It’s an ottoman and accent table with room for storage! Crafted by Peru’s Ivo Luksic, this table/ottoman hybrid is made with Tectan, which is made from recycled tetrapack containers. There’s a door on the front that opens to reveal a cubby for storing odds and ends.

8. Reclaimed Wine Rack
After revamping your home with oodles of new storage ideas, what better way to celebrate than by putting them to good use? This Reclaimed Wine Rack is handmade from a wooden railway sleeper that’s been restored and revamped with rustic iron details. Best of all, it can be hung vertically or horizontally depending on your space.

Check out all of the cool storage solutions and shop the post here: 

Which storage ideas have transformed your home?

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Image: Rubbermaid

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It’s easy. Learn how to de-clutter your home with these ingenious storage solutions and tips.

One thing I cannot tolerate in my home is clutter. My home can be spic and span clean, but if there are piles of clutter needing my attention, it drives me crazy. You know what I’m talking about–piles of magazines, new and old mail mixed together, that abandoned crafting project, recyclables, your children’s homework, etc.  I’d rather skip the house cleaning and attack those piles of clutter any day. Clutter keeps me from relaxing in my own home–and I know I’m not the only who feels this way. While I do have some friends who seem to not mind the everyday clutter, I think most of are bothered by clutter and want to eradicate if from the world.

I’ve found clutter’s kryptonite is to not let it develop in the first place. In my house, everything has a home–even if that home is the junk drawer. I try to deal with clutter as it happens, so I’m not left facing a bunch of stuff to clean up and put away before I can even start on cleaning the house.

Part of learning how to declutter as it happens is having storage solutions in place beforehand. When the mail comes in, it should have a home that’s not the kitchen counter. Planning ahead of time and having storage solutions in place can save you and your home from the dreaded clutter monster.

How to declutter:

1. Don’t forget about closet and cabinet doors. Installing hanging storage here, can double your storage space.

Image: jfiess

2. Pegboard can be your friend. While you might not want to hang peg board in your living room, pegboard isn’t just for the garage. Painted pegboard can be a lifesaver in the laundry room, craft room and office.

3. Think outside the box with your storage solutions, like this clever idea for storing spools of ribbon on a skirt hanger. Ingenius.

Image: ReillyButler

4. Large mason jars make great catchalls for those little items we all seem to collect–leftover buttons, old keys, stray matchbox cars and what have you. If you need to declutter quickly, just toss those stray little bits into a mason jar. Cleaning them out can be a rainy day project.

5. It’s a must that you have labeled storage by the door you use to come in and out of the house. Whether it’s a bookshelf with baskets or a table with bins, find a storage solution that works for you. This is where you will sort your mail and other items that need your attention when you are coming and going.

Image: supershoppertoo

6. You need copious amounts of baskets and boxes. I use these everywhere in my home. There’s a basket in every room to collect magazines. I also use stackable decorative boxes to store craft projects I am working on…that way there are hidden away, but I can also easily carry them around the house.

7. Have labeled storage for toys and games in your kids’ room and playroom. Wooden crates turned on their side and hung on the wall are a great solution. Label each with the child’s name or  the type of toy that is stored there. Use pictographs for young children.

Top image: Xoyos.com

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A place for everything and everything in its place…really?

An interesting tidbit: not only is containerize a verb (to pack in containers or ship by containerization, of course) but it’s a mid-century word possibly invented to meet the growing popularity of the suburban Tupperware party.

Many promises were made during the heyday of the Tupperware business model of the 50s and 60s: airtight freshness, careers for women, organization for life. In subsequent decades, though, two factors burst Tupperware’s hermetically burpable seal: first, the party scheme was responsible for ushering in the Mary Kay get-together and Amway pyramid (for some, everything is for sale…even friendship); secondly, the myth that the key to familial bliss was an organized cupboard.

The myth is not dead, of course, even in light of today’s marriage statistics. Rather, it has evolved (and multiplied) – out of the cupboard and into our living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, medicine cabinets, underwear drawers, and beyond. Perpetuated by the likes of HGTV, the Container Store and Peter Walsh, here are seven myths we’ve come to believe about a containerized lifestyle.

Are you drinking the Kool-Aid? More importantly, is it labeled and color-coordinated?

Myth #1: A New Bin Will Fix…Everything!

Clear plastic or neon bins carry with them the prospect of an organized life, one in which the bills are always paid on time and days unfold in containable, sterilized batches of predictability. If only our sanity could be containerized like storage.

Remember: acquiring more bins than you need will leave you “Bin Laden” and we all know how that story ends.

Myth #2: I Don’t Have Enough Room

Now you’re just being negative. Before overpopulating the housing market in a bid to acquire even more storage space, source out underused nooks and crannys in the house you’ve already got.

Plastic bins aren’t always the answer; consider shelving in your future.

Myth #3: Storage $olutions Don’t Come Cheap

This is why you spend so much money at Target. You could look for cheaper storage solutions at the dollar store (the threat of becoming Bin Laden lurks here too). Or containerize responsibly with reused containers and baskets.

Who says storage has to be transparent, neon or pretty? It just has to function.

Myth #4: My Space is Too Full

So…what: you need more storage?

This brand of optimism is best reserved for glasses of water. When your physical environs spill over into “full” that’s probably because you have too much stuff. Being the optimist that you are, you might have purchased this excess stuff optimistically from HSN.

A garlic dicer will not simplify your life, it will clutter it. The same goes for more storage.

Myth #5: Containerizing Will Lead to a Debt Free Lifestyle

This is related to #4 above, except that you either learned this on a morning talk show or read it in the grocery check-out line. Did you notice the advertisements between the pages and during the commercial breaks?

Avoiding the Container Store will lead to a debt free lifestyle. Buying less stuff will guarantee it.

Myth #6: I’ll Become More Efficient if I Containerize

Stores like Staples and Office Depot exist solely for the purpose of perpetuating this myth. The reason you haven’t written your first novel is not for lack of desktop organization. It’s because Office Max is selling you too many writing blocks (and paperweights, pencil holders, folders, etc.).

Myth #7: Containerizing Will Make My Space a Cleaner Place

Au contraire: containerizing according to any of the myths above will not make your life more organized, efficient, successful, full – not even clean and/or sterilized.

Instead it will turn you into your worst nightmare: a hoarder.

Images: Rubbermaid Products; Baby Center; Krissy Venosdale; Matthew Moss

The post The 7 Myths of a Containerized Lifestyle appeared first on EcoSalon.

Small was sexy in 2011. 

The world’s population hit seven billion this year and is projected to reach nine billion by 2050 – a sure sign that we better start figuring out ways to maximize space. The average house size in America has more than doubled since the 1950s, forcing us to consume more utilities and resulting in a housing culture where bigger is better. We think just the opposite.

These Shelter posts from 2011 highlighted the small space trend and showed that less can definitely be more.

Not only are narrow homes more energy-efficient, they’re also genius and popping up in cities from London to Tokyo.

Artists, professionals, and sustainability activists like Graham Hill and Jay Shafer are turning extreme micro-living into an art, but can others follow suit?

When her partner starts building a 130-square-foot wooden cabin from scratch, Merete Mueller decides to document the process. The result is “TINY: A Story About Living Small,” a film exploring the couple’s turn to minimalism and the concept of small living across America.

Small living is one thing, but dumpster homes? Artist Gregory Kloehn debuted Elite Waste, a luxury urban home installation housed in a trash receptacle, at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in September.

Guests at the Tubohotel in Tepoztlan lodge in 6-by-9 foot concrete tubes set in an organic orchard. What they lack in entertainment and facilities, they make up in pure novelty.

Mirrors can instantly make a small abode appear larger. We loved these 12 eco-friendly ones.

If you’re ready to make the leap to little, you’ll need some innovative storage solutions. Try these.

SEE ALSO:

2011 in Review: The Most Offensive Ad Campaigns Of 2011

2011 In Review: The 10 Stories That Defined Shelter in 2011

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