Hi Friends,

You can probably file this post under “blogs that literally no one asked for but I’m writing it anyways”. Lately I’ve been on an organizing kick so all my projects are related to purging things, then buying every container known to man for what I’m not purging, and then labeling until my label maker breaks (literally happened). It started with my bedroom closet, and an afternoon getting things folded and pretty. After that I moved downstairs and started tackling closets: craft room, linen, guest room. Which then brought me to the closet off our family room.

Let me give you some background info on the family room closet. I’ve been doing house projects for a little over 5 years and the only storage I have for tools and supplies was the closet off our family room. In this closet, I had a cube shelf that held 8 cubes that I labeled as various categories: “electrical”, “tile”, “paint” etc. Every time I would do a project I would toss (eventually shove and/or stuff) the leftover tools and supplies into these bins. This is possibly one of the least effective storage solutions ever. You can imagine that after 5 years of projects the bins were all basically overflowing. Anytime I needed just a screwdriver it was chaos trying to dig through the “general” bin to find one among screws, nails, hammers, sandpaper, etc. I started stowing leftover tile and supplies (among other random things) in the space under the stairs in the mechanical room. This space made way more sense for tool and project supply storage but wasn’t really set up for it.

This photo was taken after I had already cleared half the stuff off the floor. It was basically two creaky shelves up top and a giant pile on the floor. I figured I could fit most of my tools, project supplies and paint in this space if I figured out a better way to organize it. It started with clearing everything out and a lot of measuring. I figured I had room for one larger shelf at the back of the space and then I could still fit multiple 12″ shelves on one of the walls with room to get by. I used a scrap board from my (equally messy and disorganized) garage for the large shelf and bought cheap particleboard shelving and brackets for the others.

I spaced the top shelves so that I would have room to store gallon paint cans, and the bottom shelves I made sure I had 13″ or so to fit standard storage bins. Getting the shelves up and level was the easy part. The real challenge came with organizing all my stuff. I measured the shelves and bought storage bins on storage bins and started going through things. I would make a category, and then make a pile for that category to guess how big of a bin I would need to fit it in. It’s basically all trial and error. I think I went to Target and Walmart for more containers 6 times in 2 days. At the end of all that hassle though, was a space that I get so excited over and I’m so proud of!

I used regular storage bins for most items. Craft organizers worked really well for small items like specialty screws, drywall anchors, etc. I used document stackers for long flat items like wrenches and screwdrivers and baby milk crates for small tools with attachments and leftover shelving hardware. Can I just say, baby milk crates are adorable.

This room will never be one hundred percent Pinterest-worthy but it literally brings me so much joy being able to find what I need quickly without sorting through a giant messy cube bin. Definitely wish I would have done this sooner, but better late than never. Now I just need to make my garage look this good. 🙂

Thanks for reading,