rechelle's lifelyrics

All 3 storage options have their practical purpose. I’m going to show you some techniques I use to keep things organized. I hope you can create more functionality within each of these spaces in your own home by using some basic principles presented in the following pictures:

Base cabinets are deep and roomy at a standard depth of about 22″ inside the cabinet. This is a great option for large items that take up most of the depth of the cabinet while the door hides their cosmetic appearance from view. These are also a pain for storing multiple smaller items that have to be pulled out each time you need the item at the back of the cabinet.

This is where drawers are superior in their purpose, because you can see everything in the simple motion of fully extending the drawer space. If you have a lot of cabinets and few drawers, do not despair! You can purchase inexpensive, sturdy, plastic bins to store on your shelves behind the cupboard doors. (Make sure to take measurements before you head to your nearest Wal Mart or Thrift Store for your new solution to more efficient storage.)

Also, with a few inexpensive dividers, you can turn a shallow drawer into a very efficient space for lots of small items that you use often.

Standard wall cabinets are 11-12″ deep inside (make sure to take structural ledgers into account in your depth measurements!), and can be maximized by turntables that enable you to easily see all of the items stored on each shelf. Make sure to group items together according to what you use the most in each area of your space.

Open shelving in the kitchen is great for things like cookbooks or display items, but it is really better utilized in closets or utility areas. Here, you want to store items that you need to easily see what variety you have for the need at hand. In the picture of part of my closet, above, you can see that I have things like sweaters, shirts, shorts, and sweats easy to identify in stacks that utilize the entire depth of the shelf, while smaller items like undergarments and swimsuits are in bins that can be pulled from the shelves when I need to select one from a bunch. Cute bins are another way to create handy drawers for things you don’t want to display.

Speaking of bins for miscellaneous items you need to store and access from time to time, you can select oversized baskets for the top shelf (as long as you keep the overall weight light enough to easily pull down and access), because they aren’t going to get in the way when they stick out a bit from the top shelf like they would in the middle of the shelving unit! Ray keeps all of his camping and scouting gear in these baskets on his top shelf in our closet, and it has proven to be very handy while not getting in the way of the things he uses most often.

Please leave a comment and let me know if you found any of these tips to be useful for your own home! I would just really like to know that the things I post in my weekly blog are helpful to a few folks!