Save Room With A Few Shelves!
If you are anything like me, you are amongst the tons of individuals who manage to accumulate 30 years’ junk in just 5 years! Did you also save the eggshell from the first time that your spouse brought you breakfast in bed? And don’t tell me the dried out leaves from the rose your high school love surprised you with on the last day of school is not somewhere in a potpourri container in a cabinet with a lot of other sentimental items? And what about the jersey you wore 3 years ago? Needless to say it will fit again soon, so you just have to keep it in your drawer!
We are cursed with what I love to call the “sentimental garbage collector syndrome”. We are not able to let go of anything at all and our houses, offices and even our vehicles quite often resemble a storage space or a garage sale! No home will ever have sufficient packing space for us and our lives often end up as chaotic as our drawers!
By thinking outside the box for two seconds we can organize our homes (and lives!) through a couple of basic shelves! Have a look at some of the following suggestions and start saving space!
Out of sight out of mind. We all know this common saying - it essentially means if you can’t see it, it can’t hassle you! For this reason the garage is a great place to stash several of your “collector’s items”. By putting up a couple of durable shelves in the garage (high enough to be out of your way of course!) you may invariably eliminate a couple of those packing containers with files and paperwork from 1920, and the evening gowns you wore 20 years ago (which will never be back in style but which you won’t get rid of!) Store such items in waterproof, airtight containers in your garage and look at it every 5 years (if you need to!)
Don’t always stick to the conventional! Shelves aren’t always always rectangle-shaped bits of wood only good for storing your books, clothes and kitchen stuff! You can build a few very contemporary shelve boxes (simply by using 4 pieces of shelving and forming a box from it!) and use it to display your little one’s assortment of soft toys, Barbie dolls or racing cars. It doesn’t only take some of the clutter off the floor, it doubles as wall décor as well!
If you have a few “dead areas” in your home, for instance a corner in the lounge too small to fit a chair, you can turn this into a nice display area for a couple of mirrors and other small decorations. Remember that less is more, so don’t attempt to exhibit the last 10 years of your life, just one or two eye-catching pieces should do the trick. Just be sure that the shelves are properly attached to prevent the frames and ornaments from smashing to the ground!
The above suggestions are fairly simple and can be done with a bit of “DIY- savvy”!
