A Basketful of Function For Your Home
We have three kids, five and under, and our home gets so messy, so fast. This mama doesn’t like clutter and Seth, my husband, will tell you I’ve trained him to hate clutter as well. If you’re reading this and clutter doesn’t bother you, I see you and I hear you. It’s a legitimate thing that different people are bothered by different things. Please do not feel bad that your house is cluttered, especially if it doesn’t bother you. However, if there is someone in your daily life that the clutter does affect or if it actually affects you but you don’t know how to change it, please keep reading. I’m hopeful that anyone can walk away from this read with at least one small idea of how to add more function to your daily life. If this post leaves you feeling overwhelmed at the end, please reach out. Let me walk alongside you through the journey of loving others better by having some order restored to your home. It would genuinely be my pleasure to help you in this way.
So let’s get to it. I’m going to do a room by room breakdown of how we use baskets and how they help us. If you don’t have the time or the desire to read all the details, here are the main take aways:
Leave room for a little more than you have currently and leave a space to collect items when you don’t have time to take them to their home, or they don’t yet have a home. Basically, create some margin.
Using baskets to add function to your home does not have to be expensive! (Go to Dollar tree for bins and baskets that don’t need to look good and TJ Maxx for pretty baskets!)
Storing like items in baskets on shelves is a great way to locate items without having to messily rummage through stuff.
Baskets are a great way to simplify and hide items that may otherwise appear messy orcluttered.
Always keep a few extra baskets on hand so that the moment you have need for one, you don’t have to go out and buy one, you can just grab it from the closet. That being said, when you are done using a basket, just store it away until the next need arises.
Now for the details...
Master Bedroom
Closet: We have baskets/bins lining the top of our closet. They house everything from specific types of clothing, my books that I want accessible, empty baskets and bin, junk (we all need those intentional places that hold intentionally placed items that don’t really fit anywhere), to our computer stuff. We actually have one that’s fairly empty and this is a giant aspect of what helps keep us organized... Leave room for a little more and leave a space to collect items when you don’t have time to take them to their home. Think of it as an overflow space. This catch is that you must go through it. So if you don’t think will actually ever go through it, then just forget that piece of advice, seriously. Anyways, we are always trying to clean up super fast or finding random objects that don’t have a home and it’s so helpful for us to have these spaces set aside just for that. We also have bins with lids for our stock of diapers/pull-up/wipes and for our mateless socks. Ohh and we have one for small home decor items, since I can never make up my mind about what I want where and I always love to “shop our house”.
Bedroom: We have two of the ottoman storage benches in our room to store shoes and other random things that we don’t want out but might need accessible. Like inflatable pirate swords from E’s first birthday party, because you obviously never know when the boys might need them!
Bathroom: Most of our items are stored in an wall cabinet. We keep them grouped together, as it makes sense, and stored in baskets. So, if I need nail clippers, I pull out the nail supplies basket and grab the clippers. I highly recommend a system like this as it eliminates taking a ton of stuff of a shelf just to find that one missing item. No, I was’t talking about you, specifically, we’ve just all had those moments. I also want to say here, this does not have to be an expensive project. Dollar tree has a great selection of baskets and bins and so does walmart. Save your money for the baskets that are out in the open! And even then, don’t pay a lot, just frequent your local TJ Max or Home Goods. Also, Amazon is a great place to purchase the cloth cube storage bins for a really good price.
Living Space
Living Room: I talked about these in my last post, which you can read here. But essentially, we have a blanket basket, some baskets and bins for toys, and then a basket with diapers and wipes.
By the Door: When you walk into our home, you are in the dining room and to your right is a coat rack/bench combo. Here each boy has a bin that pulls out. In the bin are their shoes and socks. There socks go straight from the laundry into these baskets and it’s really helpful! Except when E pulls his out and dumps it everywhere because he heard me say it was time to go. That’s always fun to clean up as we are going out the door. And then I have a basket for a few pairs of my shoes, as well.
Dining Room: We have a basket for our T-shirt napkins (more on that in another post) and a basket to catch things like keys and headphones, since our dining room is the first thing you walk into.
Kitchen: I love baskets for like items in the pantry so I can pull the basket out and hunt for the item instead of rummaging through. We have a medical supplies bin. Honestly, that bin is overflowing and so is the other one in our laundry room, sooooo I’ma need to go through those real soon. We also have a bin for food storage items and lids. And then we have small baskets that we store our spices in so we can pull them out and hunt for that missing one. And we have these small baskets in our miscellaneous drawer also to try to bring some order there. We also have a few produce baskets that we keep out and a basket by the sink full of t-shirt “paper towels”.
Family Room
Office Area: We have a big cloth basket for large toys or just as a general toy catch all during a quick tidy attack. We also have a crate for books and a rolling cart that is a landing spot for out of place books and also houses our router, hidden inside a lidded bin.
Closet: This is where we keep most of the boys toys and activity supplies, as well as all of my craft stuff. Within the green dresser drawers, there are baskets separating items so I can easily locate what I need. Each of the boys bins have a specific purpose. From left to right and top to bottom: Interactive Items (LeapPad, Water Wows, etc.), Jackson’s at home educational worksheets and readers, lots of pieces to a giant GeoTrax train set, more pieces from the train set, miscellaneous collections of items (like buttons, army guys, etc.), cars and trucks, puzzles, and Duplos. The best part is they know where to find and put away all of their things. I often find them in here playing independently. And while the mess from a hard day of play can look intimidating, it cleans up quickly.
Boys Room/Guest Bathroom
Boys Closet/E’s Room: We have another cube storage shelf in here and this is where we keep the boys clothes and more books. They have so many books. There are also a few toy items and a costume bin that I keep stored up high because they don’t play with them often or I just don’t want them to have access to it.
Boys Room: We have a bin hidden behind their recliner where we keep folded up flat sheets as they don’t use these every night but do use them often and I just don’t enjoy seeing sheets lying around. I’m a make the bed kinda gal and loose messy sheets just don’t create that vibe. We also have yet another basket for books beside the recliner. And then their play kitchen has two baskets that hold all of their toy food. While cleaning up the kitchen is still annoying because it explodes all over the room, thanks to baby E, it at least goes really quickly because you just throw everything in the baskets and close the cabinets.
Bathroom: Really in here I only have one basket and it’s our hospitality basket. This basket is stocked with shampoo, conditioner, extra toothbrushes, deodorant, two clean wash clothes, etc. I love this because when we have a guest come, I just grab the basket from under the counter and set it out in their room (the family room/office). This makes them feel considered and thought of and can often meet an actual need. We also have a shower curtain liner with mesh pockets on the inside and this is where we store all of the boys bath toys, as well as their soaps. It also give guests a place to store their bath items as long as we make sure one or two pockets are empty for them.
Well, there you have it... baskets for dayssssssss. I’d love to hear what you currently use baskets for or what ideas were sparked as a result of this post!
Oh and here is the free download from this week’s pun challenge!