Shelves to Drawers, Co.

Organizing Tips

"from the pros"

After purchasing custom sized Shelves to Drawers, Co. Roll-Outs, a lot of our clients have expressed an interest in becoming even more organized by taking their organizational skills to the next level, but do not always know what to do next.. so we decided to dedicate this section of our website where a variety of professionals share their tips to help you get started! 

Each professional giving us their tips  have provided a link to their website or blog following their tip and we encourage you to visit, if possible, sending a thank you for the information and please be sure to let them know that you found them on ShelvesToDrawers.com!  Enjoy!

Eight Easy Family Friendly Tricks for Kitchen Organization

 by Krista Watterworth 

HGTV Host and Interior Designer

Shelves to Drawers

When I design kitchens and bathrooms I spend most of my time planning out the use of every square inch of the space to keep it efficient and practical. The most important thing to remember when organizing your home is understanding your family's needs. If you are successful here, then you've got an easy road ahead.

A minimal style is clean living.

I've seen stacks of kids' artwork, crafts and school paperwork sit like an ominous pile that haunts the corners of my client's homes. I recently designed a child friendly playroom and I dedicated an 8x10 matted frame to the "Art of the Month Club". The rest of the collection is kept in a kitchen drawer and on New Year's Eve there's an Art Show, then it's discarded to make way for the new pieces.

Endless piles of kids' stuff makes a haven feel like a padded cell!

In each home I design I leave a gift - a large, flat box labeled Our Year of Memories. I have one in my house and all year long we toss all kinds of things in there - postcards, ticket stubs, artwork, funny photos, cards from friends and family, and cool menus. On New Year's Eve we sit around drinking champagne as we open the box and share the memories. Then we toss it all and begin again. 

Easy Access Food Storage

Put bulk items like rice, cereal and pasta in clear plastic or glass storage boxes is a great way to know what you're running low on at a glance.

The Junk Mail Drawer

Register at Ecocycle.org to control the amount of catalogs and junk mail you receive.

Storing Tiny, Little, Small Items

For a cheap-chic look I cover old shoe boxes and cardboard boxes from delivered goods with fun paper to store tea lights, magazine clippings, trinkets, and recipes. It's all kept neatly in a kitchen cabinet. When I buy wrapping paper I stick with the color scheme of blues and greens, and I never buy paper that is so specific (ie. Happy Birthday, Congratulations) I can't use it for other projects.

Family Filing

A vertical file  in the kitchen is a great place to store bills, receipts and notes. Keep it tucked away in a kitchen cabinet. My clients' agree that this is the best spot for these items, not the home office (funny enough).

A Pantry with Punch

Half-eaten snacks clutter everyone's pantry. So brown bag it! Label a brown bag or glass container for each family member - avoiding the habitual snack hog-- portion it out after each grocery trip. Also whatever canned goods won't get used, donate to your local food bank. Keep a small chalkboard on your pantry door with the date of your last pantry cleansing.

Too Many Storage Containers!

Nothing looks great if it accumulates! Decide on the number of boxes that's right for your stuff and stick to that. Labels should be dated and a system set in place so that the box contents is regularly purged.

Check out Krista's Blog at:  http://www.roomrecipes.com  

http://www.hgtv.com/splurge-and-save/show/index.html

Store items using the acronym

P.L.A.C.E.™

By: Eileen Roth. National speaker, productivity expert, and author of Organizing For Dummies.

P = Purge

The first letter in the P.L.A.C.E. process is P for Purge.

Purge items you don’t need, are too old, or you just have not used:

          If you haven’t used that blanket in five years, you    really do not need to keep it.

          If you haven’t tossed your spices in two years, it is past their time.  The zing is gone.

          If a can is dented or “bloated”, it is not safe to eat.  Toss it.

          If something has not been used, is torn or worn, or you just do not like it any more, toss      it. 

Donate or recycle what is useful, trash the rest.

L= Like with Like

The second letter, L, stands for Like with Like.

Put items on shelves or in drawers keeping like with like everywhere.

Put the items into centers. 

For the pantry you will have:

          baking center, cereal or breakfast center, condiment center,

          lunch center, pasta center, soup center, canned fruit center, vegetable center, etc.

When putting items on pull-out drawers, try to put some weight at the end where there is more support. Also try to split some of the heavier items on different shelves.

For instance instead of keeping all of the canned items on one shelf, put the canned fruits on one shelf and the canned vegetables on another.  Put condiments on a third shelf.

Pull out shelves make it easy for children to assemble items for their school lunches or after school snacks.  Be sure items are accessible -  at child height.   Do the same for reaching breakfast items in the pantry so children can pull out the shelf and reach their favorite cereals.

Small children need to reach plastic bowls and cups for their snacks, so have those in low areas.

A = Access

The letter A stands for Access.  There are two things to consider here:

1. Frequency of use – how often do you use it? 
2. Closest Use

You will want items you use more often easier to reach.  If you rarely use it, it can be higher up or farther away from you.  You also want to put things near where you use them. 

Coffee cups might be right above the coffee pot – closest use.  However, you might want to store glasses lower than coffee cups assuming more children reach for glasses than adults reach for coffee cups.  Also adults are taller and can reach higher for coffee cups.

In the linen closet, keep all the blankets higher than the sheets assuming you change sheets more often than blankets.  Beach towels might be higher up too as they are only used part of the year, even if you live in AZ like me.   We may not have snow, but we do have cold.

Keep medicines and drugs in the upper shelves of linen closets to be out of reach of children.

Do organize them using Like with Like – keeping cold medicines separate from prescriptions, along with the high access.

In the garage store items like winter sports higher up during the summer and bring them within reach during the winter.  (i.e. snow skis).  Reverse that for summer items like garden tools or swim paraphanalia.

C = Contain

It is important to contain items.  Sometimes it is for safety like weed chemicals or paints and other times it is just to corral items together.  Pull out drawers in a cabinet will make it easier to see the various types of paints you have.

In the garage keep holiday items together in containers on shelves that are higher up as they are used less often.  Garage cabinets with pull out shelves will make it easy to reach items in the back.

Use clear containers to see what is in the containers in the pantry, the linen closet, and the bathroom or bedroom area.  However you may choose opaque containers for some items in your garage where other people might see what you have.   In either case, be sure to label containers with what is in each one. 

E = Evaluate

Evaluate your organization after 30 days, and then every six months to a year.  Ask yourself 3 questions:

What is working?

What isn’t working?

What can I do to improve?

Once you have everything in its place, you can label the sides of the shelves or inside a cabinet to know exactly what goes where. 

Be sure to share your organizing strategy with the rest of the family, or nothing will go back to where you organized it.  They need to understand why the extra bottle of laundry detergent or glass cleaner goes here vs. there.

Put everything in its P.L.A.C.E. and enjoy your home.

Copyright 2009  Eileen Roth  Everything in its Place®  www.everythinginitsplace.net

Nicole Yee, Interior Designer,    NY Interiors....

  Here are ten of my tried and true organizing tips that are both practical and pretty:
1. Add a cookbook shelf in the kitchen: Take a door off of one of your cabinets, paint the interior     a bold color and use it as a place to store cookbooks and beautiful serving bowls.
2. Instead of stuffing cooking utensils in a drawer, cluster them in a vase and place on your counter.
3. Put seldom-used silver pieces to work: Put papers on a platter, spare change in a gravy
boat, business cards in a sugar bowl and collect coupons in a napkin ring.
4. Use a vintage muffin tin to keep small items separated: store jewelry, craft supplies, coins, paperclips, etc. You can tuck it in a drawer or display it.
5. For a child's room or playroom: Hang a string across the wall and attach your child's masterpieces with clothespins. This makes a colorful display that can change as often as your little Picasso does!
6. Paint the back of a door or a kitchen wall with chalkboard paint. Write lists and important dates, eliminating scraps of paper. 
7. For hats and mittens by the door, or towels by the tub, richly textured baskets or colorful metal buckets are a fun way to expand your storage.
8. Stack over-sized books next to a chair. This opens up your bookshelves for more storage and creates a table to set something down on.
9. Have a collection? Group it in one area of your house rather than scattering it throughout. This will reduce clutter, plus make a much bigger impact.
10. Use a beautiful piece of fabric to cover unsightly shelves or storage niches. This will add color and style and erase an eyesore!

Nicole Yee, Interior Designer, 
 Owner of NY Interiors.

She can be reached at: 510.531.3973  or at:
nicoleyee@sbcglobal.net
 or on her website:
http://www.nicoleyee.com

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