Organizing
I bought the March edition of Canadian House and Home. It whispered promises to me each time I passed it in line at the grocery store. "Buy me!" it said. "Look, I'm the Smart Storage issue! I have stylish solutions for conquering clutter! I will teach you to tame bookshelves, cupboards, desktops, and more! It says so on my cover!" I grew hope. Would it do that? Would I be able to stop the spread of papers and other things from the right side of the kitchen island/counter? Would I be able to make more room in my horribly inefficient kitchen cupboards? Would I be able to continue what my father started in the storage/laundry room, and maybe move it on to the computer room and games room? Would I be able to figure out a new and possibly good system for my increasingly hard to manage library?
Why do I listen to inanimate objects?
There are some solutions, but they only really work if you have the same style of house as shown in the pictures. It shows you neat little baskets to put on shelves in your laundry room, but not shelves for your laundry room. It shows you some efficient use-of-space cupboards, but not how to make more efficient your existing cupboards without renovation. And the bookcases? Wrap unattractive books in kraft paper for a uniform look. Hang or rest pictures in front of your books to hide clutter; put a picture of food in front of your cookbooks, or of flowers in front of your gardening books. Oh, and group your like knicknacks together for the greatest impact. These people don't own books! I was looking for bookshelf organization ideas, not how to make my library look more uniform or how to display my knicknacks to the greatest effect! I have five bookcases of books. Is this strange?
I was also hoping the promised "Chic Home Offices that Work" would give me some ideas on how to redesign the work office, but alas. It was more about art and making it seem less like an office and more like an office/playroom/lounge than actual efficient office space solutions.
Back to the drawing board... Anyone recommend a good book of ideas for smart storage, taming bookshelves, and overall organizing?
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2 comments:
The IKEA Catalogue :) It works for me every time!!!
Good Luck!
I have that issue. I have had a subscription for years now, but I have to say that I'm going to let it lapse when my time's up. It's just not as good of a magazine as it used to be. It's all about accessories that are far to expensice for pretty much anyone. It's disappointing though, considering how great it used to be.
As for good books, I find that the Taunton series is good. Look up Organizing Idea Book and Home Storage Idea Book on Amazon. I've got several of their books and they're quite good. Of course I don't have any of the storage ones. Don't know if they'll have many ideas sans renovation, but it might be worth a trip to Chapters. They're pretty popular so they'll probably be in stock.
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