As I start the process of unpacking my haphazardly stored holiday decor each year, I always think to myself that there must be a better way. So this year I decided to do something about it as part of our Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life series. What did I do exactly? I turned to a pro, of course.
I asked our in-house professional organizer, Annie, for her favorite tips! Bookmark or pin them now and save yourself a lot of time and grief at the end of December.
It might seem as though this post is jumping the gun a bit, as the holidays still have yet to arrive. On the contrary, now is the prime time to discuss holiday decoration storage.
Now is the calm before the familial, shopping, gift-wrapping storm – the moment when you’re most likely to have the brain space to consider such a thing as being organized with the storage of your decorations.
You can stock up on the supplies you’ll need in advance (after being massively inspired by the following 10 examples) and then come New Year’s Day, your systems will be all ready for you.
Onto those 10 examples, then.
1. It’s impossible to fail storage-wise with the combination of plastic bins and labels. When it comes to holiday decorations, labeled, clear bins are exceedingly useful. Yvonne at StoneGable drives this point home; she uses smaller bins to store all her christmas decorations, thereby distinguishing between ornaments, pinecones, garlands, and so on, while maintaining a uniform system.
2. Aimee of It’s Overflowing employs the same storage principle as lady Yvonne (above) except that she opts for larger plastic bins and slightly broader labeling categories.
If you’re not as concerned with keeping the various types of decorations separated and more concerned with keeping them safely stored and easy to identify in your storage room, then larger bins are for you.
3. The Organised Housewife provides a third iteration of the plastic bin storage method, and it’s essentially a marriage of the previous two examples. Using compartmentalized underbed bins, she’s able to separate between various types of decorations within one storage container.
4. Those looking for a safe and economic way to store ornaments will rejoice in the system stumbled upon by Make Life Lovely. Things you’ll need: an empty egg carton or plastic apple container. That’s all folks.
5. For those who don’t eat eggs or apples, Martha Stewart proposes an equally affordable storage system. Check out her site for a walk-through of how to DIY safe ornament storage using plastic cups, cardboard, a hot glue gun and a container. Don’t say Martha doesn’t always have your back (and/or make you feel ever so slightly inferior at life).
6. Say bye-bye to tangled webs of lights c/o A Real Life Housewife. All you’ll need are pieces of cardboard and a pair of scissors to put this system into action- two things you’re pretty much guaranteed to have on hand this time of year already.
7. The team at Better Homes and Gardens offers another brilliantly simple trick for keeping your lights stored neatly. The recipe? Wrap those strands of mini-bulbs around a tension rod, and fit that tension rod inside of a storage container. As an added bonus, you’ll have space in the bottom of the bin to keep lighting accoutrement, like surge protectors, timers, and extension cords. Brilliant, like I said.
8. Mr This and That solves the eternal dilemma of how to easily store tissue paper. Prepare yourself for a doozy of a “why didn’t I think of that?” moment (don’t worry; I had it, too).
9. If you’re looking for a convenient way to store all your holiday wrapping supplies, ‘A Casarella has the plan for you. Her plastic-drawers-system allows for distinguishing between types of gift wrap (gift tags, gift bags, bows and more), and, I imagine, would be very easy to transport from storage to living room come wrapping day.
10. Finally, The Chic Home has got the lowdown on ultra easy wrapping paper storage, that also happens to be space efficient.
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Annie