STORING ITEMS LIKE WITH LIKE - SOMETIMES WHAT IS USED ALL THE TIME WITH SAME AND WHAT IS USED RARER TIMES WITH SAME IS BETTER

 When I first started reading about getting organized I was a teenager in high school.  One mantra of organizing that I learned about then is to group like things together.  To this day my closet had my shirts sorted by color, my two skirts together and I have 3 hangers, which each hold multiple pairs of pants, hanging from a hook each attached to the back (2) and side (1) walls in the closet.  (These 3 hangers – one holds my jeans, one holds the 3 pants of non-jeans pants I own, and the third holds my old ripped jeans that I use as pjs.)  

My husband was always amazed at this organization – especially since most of the rest house is not so organized – by a lot.  (He is not the greatest organizer either.)  He has changed my thoughts on using this rule for everything.  

I had always (since I was maybe 14 or 15 years old) kept my underwear together and kept my socks and stockings together.  When I lived with my parents this was one drawer.  When we got married my underwear went into the top left drawer of my dresser – a half width drawer – and my socks/stockings went into the same size drawer below them.  

One day husband pointed out the waste of time – every day I would open the top drawer, take out underwear, close the drawer, open second drawer and take out socks or stockings and then close that drawer.  He knew I had in both drawers items that I did not wear as often as others.  That started me thinking – what about putting together items needed every day and ones that are not often worn?  I redid those two drawers – the top drawer now holds my underpants and bras and socks. In the second drawer are things like my slips (haven't worn in years, but if need to dress up will need) and my stockings and pantyhose – only needed for work, religious services and the extremely rare other reasons to dress up.  Now I only have to open one drawer most mornings.  

In the kitchen I organized my dishes.  My everyday dishes, a set of 8 servings, were stacked – all the dinner dishes together, all the soup/cereal bowls together, all the small plates together, etc.  This involved two shelves of a kitchen cabinet.  I am 5' 1”.  I can reach the bottom the shelves, but not the ones above.  This meant every time I needed something on the second shelf I needed the step to reach it to take it out and then again to put it back – which of course meant that items were left in the drying rack for days sometimes if I did not feel like climbing up.  I took out 4 dinner dishes (use for serving plates for us also), 4 bowls, and 2 small plates from our every day dishes.  I fit a stack of 3 small serving bowls in the cabinet also.  (The cabinet has a wire shelf rack I added in it so I have 2 shelves in the one cabinet.)  Mixed in with the dishes and small dishes are 2 lighter dishes each also – these I use as utility dishes – serving, cutting on, draining on, etc. Now it is rare that I need something from another shelf for dishes and I don't have to climb up daily – easy to take out and easy to replace.  I have our drinking glasses in the matching cabinet on the other end of the cabinet.  I have 2 mugs on the bottom shelf, two of the drinking glasses I like, two of the ones husband likes, 2 ice cream glasses and 3 measuring glasses.  There are other items on this shelf also, but these are the basic items use from it and I can use without needing to climb up.  Again the upper shelves hold items not used on a daily basis.  In the third cabinet I can reach (between stove and refrigerator) some platters and serving bowls on the bottom shelf.  

Perhaps the problem is “what are like items”?  In both of these cases if like items means all of the same type of items together, the idea does not work.  If instead it means “items I used all the time vs. items I don't use often” it does work.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

How are your items sorted?  Do you have items you use frequently and items you use rarely together as they same type of items?  Or do you put items you use frequently together where they can easily be reached and used and items that are rarely used together in places which are harder to reach for storage and retrieval?  Try the second idea – it works much better.

I FOUND SOMETHING THAT BROUGHT A SMILE TO MY FACE

You know that stuff that was so important when you bought it, then put it away and forgot completely about it?  Well, I have mentioned that I collect teddy bear (and friends) stuff.  I thought that I did pretty well with keeping track of what I have bought - after all, the teddys have their own room with a dresser for storage (shared with assorted Cabbage Patch Kids clothing),as well as assorted other pieces of furniture in the room.  It was to double as guest room so there is a bed and night stand, shelving, closet and small cabinet.  Some is storage, some is teddys and friends stuff. 

In our studio, which is through an arch from our kitchen, we have 2 dressers from husband’s childhood bedroom.  (A third is the one that teddys “use”.)  One of them backs to the kitchen table and has our TV on top.  It has a drawer (filled with embroidery floss and similar neatly organized in zip bags) and two shelves below the drawer.  I presumed it completely filled with craft room “stuff”. 

The other day I was looking for some towels that were kept in this cabinet maybe 25 years ago.  They were towels that we bought to wipe sweat off of us when we came in from riding our bicycles and were in this cabinet to be convenient to use when we came in the kitchen door from bicycle riding.  I thought perhaps they were still in the cabinet after all these years.  So I got down on the floor and moved the empty plastic ice cream tubs stacked in front of the doors and the small sewing machine and opened the doors.  The towels were not there.  But, the space seemed rather empty to me.  Hmm, storage space unused - what can go there? 

I have an assortment of empty plastic containers (don’t we all) many of which are out on one of my 3 small kitchen countertop areas.  These are ones I took out to use from the large plastic boxes at the bottom of the kitchen closet/pantry where the empty ones are stored.  Why didn’t they go back into storage - well, I knew I would need them again and did not want to have to deal with getting them out of the bottom of the closet.  I decided that this cabinet in our studio would be a great place to store some of them - while returning most of them to where they belong - and to store those large plastic ice cream tubs.  (The ice cream tubs are terrific square storage boxes - bread, rolls, etc. fit in them rather well.) 

Last Saturday we came home from visiting my mom at the rehab center and had some time before we would leave for dinner and a movie.  Husband went upstairs to his computer.  I decided to see what I could store in the cabinet.  I moved away - again - the ice cream tubs and sewing machine and opened the doors.  There was more stuff in the cabinet than I thought there was - it was all shoved to the back.  Unused VHS video tapes (yes, we still have VHS recorders and a Beta recorder also), the accessories to the handheld electric mixer - I did check that they were to my current one, not the one that died and we got rid of (and replaced with the new one), our pasta maker (don’t use it, but figured it is a really good dough mixer - I am guessing that when I figure out where to donate stuff again, this might go along with the deep fryer we never use which is stored in another of husband’s dressers in the studio), and some other stuff - of husband’s that needed to be kept. 

I found 3 small legged pieces of plastic that have square holes in them, some sort of packaging stuff we held onto I guess, which would make nice benches for my bear village - if I found some small loose soda bottles (the ones I have are permanently in a small tub of ice) they could be used as holders for same also.  Those went upstairs to the teddy village stuff. 

I also found the cardboard box from when I used to do ceramic painting kits.  It had small pods of paint - dried out, the brushes I used to use (clean and usable), and the cloth I used to clean the brushes (kept for now).  I also found an ice cream box with purchased acrylic paint bottles in it.  The bottles are old and I had put them in this box just over a year ago when I found that I still had some of those ceramic painting kits, but the paints were no longer good (those ones in the pods) and had pulled out paints to paint a kit - which was one of the items in front of the cabinet doors.

I also found a small (maybe 3 inch tall) teddy bear dressed as a carpenter pin that was something to be painted.  Hmmm, without the pin back he would great in the village to wander around looking for things to fix.  I pulled him out and opened his packaging.  There was a list of needed paints and instructions for what to paint which color and in what order.  Oh, boy, right up my alley and I need to do something creative and have been, as they say, “blocked”.  No embroidery no small bears that I came with an idea to make.  This is just what I need and he has been patiently hiding in the cabinet waiting for me to remember him.

We have a lot of acrylic craft paint bottles with assorted colors.  I went through them about 5 years ago and tossed the dried up ones, but who knows if the others have dried out since then?  Tonight I started looking for the colors I needed per the list.  Using a napkin and several cotton swabs I tested the colors I found that seemed to match what I need for him.  I found almost all of them, but needed some light colors that I did not have.  I did find a bottle of white paint and figure I can add some to darker colors and get the colors I need.  I hope to start painting tomorrow.                           

I took the small cardboard box from my earlier project to get rid of the box and see what was in it.  I went through the pods that with the dried paint - all of the pods were dried out.  I kept the ones that had the least paint in them and will try cleaning out as the pods can be used for mixing small amounts of color and storing them short times.  I tossed some paint bottles that the paint seemed to be dried in.  And then I found ----- the carpenter had a friend!  There was a Santa pin in the box also to be painted!  He will wait for now, of course. 

While the cabinet was not as empty as I thought it was, I did manage to get the stack of empty ice cream tubs into it.  I rearranged what was in there so that more would fit in - not the sewing machine unfortunately - it is too tall for either shelf.  I can get a medium sized basket and store some of those plastic containers in it for more convenient access to them.


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing what one can find when one starts going through “stuff”.  If one goes through items that are sitting around one will find surprises.  One will find stuff to toss or donate and make room for what one needs to store and one might find some hidden items that one has forgotten one has that bring a smile to one’s face.