One Person's Story: Making Use of Storage Space

I got the following organizing success story in an e-mail from a long-term reader, and he gave me permission to share it with all of you.

I moved from a two-story house with a basement to a one-story house without a basement. Like most people, my wife and I cleaned out quite a bit before moving. And then we were shocked with how much we still "needed." We had nowhere to store these "important" things: seasonal decorations, toys for when grandkids visit, photo albums, etc.

My house has 11-foot ceilings, so I had a lot of unused wall space in my closet. I built some shelves and bought some white bankers boxes from The Container Store (they're much cheaper when you buy 50 at a time) and started filling them.

I found it easiest to number the boxes, and enter everything in a spreadsheet on the computer. That way I can look things up by item, category, or by box. It seemed much easier than labeling everything I had on the outside of each box, and made it much quicker finding things. I printed the sheets and have them hanging on a clipboard by the boxes.

Categories: one person's decluttering story