Photo Storage

Amongst other boxes of hard-to-store can't-get-rid-of items are my photos from middle school and high school. I'm so appreciative that my college years are all-digital and stored on a very large hard drive, but when flipping through photos it is surprising to remember the days when I took 36 pictures of an event and not 100. On the long-range to-do list is culling through and simply throwing out the photos that are out of focus or not worth saving, and selecting the best of the rest to have scanned by a scanning service the next time I see a groupon. But in the meantime, I need a storage solution that isn't a banker's box. I have one of these archival type boxes, but it doesn't even have a lid.

While these are a nice looking idea, I don't see myself putting 50+ sleeves of envelopes into them.

 Something like these are probably a better plan, because they will look nice on the bookshelf in the living room, and the lid is attached to it so I won't lose it. The price of $22 each seems a bit steep, because I know I will need at least three.

These are a cheaper alternative, but the colors don't match our décor as well. 

Turning to Ikea, purveyor of cheap storage solutions, yielded these boxes which are nice looking, or these, which are larger than necessary and ugly:

 There are also always the Cassett boxes, which would also store some of our CD jewel cases that we refuse to get rid of.

It's so interesting to have been a child of older technology and it's so amazing how much the world has changed.  I know my parents feel this even more, because they talk about typewriters and punch cards and carbon paper.  When I was a child, there was no way to imagine that photos would ever not be stored in boxes on a bookshelf.  Even once scanners existed, physical photos were still going to need to exist.  Once I saw the very first digital camera that my mother brought home (the Sony one which took a...floppy disk...), it was still so hard to imagine not having physical photos to flip through.  But within five years, the idea of film just seemed so old fashioned.  The same goes for music.  We keep our CD covers and I used to flip through them and read the lyrics, but now if I need to write a song lyric in a sappy card, I just google it.  Yet we are hanging on to our jewel cases.  We just get to the line between nostalgic and hoarder so much faster since we live in a small house. 

Wrapping paper

This box was the bane of my existence. It held all the wrapping paper and there was nowhere for it to go. I was going to put it behind the secretary desk because we store other tall awkward things there. 

And then I had the best idea ever. 

I folded the stuff that was on really long rolls (there was only 6-8 inches of it), and the rest of the rolls fit perfectly in the empty bottom drawer of the secretary. I particularly love this because the paper and tape is in the desk as well, and also several blank cards, and it's right near the front door and will be close to our holiday tree!

Wrapping paper

This box was the bane of my existence. It held all the wrapping paper and there was nowhere for it to go. I was going to put it behind the secretary desk because we store other tall awkward things there. 

And then I had the best idea ever. 

I folded the stuff that was on really long rolls (there was only 6-8 inches of it), and the rest of the rolls fit perfectly in the empty bottom drawer of the secretary. I particularly love this because the paper and tape is in the desk as well, and also several blank cards, and it's right near the front door and will be close to our holiday tree!

Craft Space

I'm a big crafter, so 5-6 large boxes of craft stuff have been camping out in our guest room while we try to decide how to arrange the office/craft room.  We finally made some progress. 

 

First, we hung the pegboard.

Technically, first we painted it - it was a lovely blue that looked terrible against the wall, so we painted it the same gray that is in the kitchen.  Pegboard is really easy to paint.

Now that I have the pegboard, I've been able to get a bunch of my scissors, stamps, thread, and other items up and out of the way. 

 

We also finally hung the elfa shelving.  We have two sets, one on either side of the door.  The other side is for office supplies and the router and stuff. 

 

Over the weekend, I finally got around to rearranging the shelves, which had become a dumping ground.

The printer is wireless, so it's going to live downstairs.  And so I finally got my fabric into new bins and up on the shelves.  The bins are sterilite bins from Target and I bought 2 enormous ones and a set of 5 small shoeboxes.  I searched for craft room inspiration and fabric storage ideas, and somebody recommended keeping fat quarters/quilting scraps in shoeboxes, which I thought was a great idea. It lets me sort by project or color.  I have a sixth shoe box that I bought for keeping all the birthday cards, etc. that people send me that are really sweet or sentimental and I don't want to get rid of.  (It was a stor-all bankers box before we moved, so good job downsizing, self!)

 

At the moment, the plan is to keep my serger on the bottom shelf, but I'm not sure how well that will go. There is still at least one giant box to unpack of crafting miscellany.  I decided last night to take a good sort through my beads and then maybe sell/freecycle them because I don't like what I have, I don't enjoy beading as a hobby, and they take up a lot of room. 

 

 

Unsustainable

We are bike commuters. And while we required a basement in a house to store our other four bikes, we weren't able to find one with outside access.  Which means that keeping the commuter bikes in the basement isn't really an option.  We have a mudroom, but it only fits one bike right now.  So we need to solve this problem immediately.  The problem is that all the indoor bike storage suggestions on the internet pretty much look like this:

 

(source)

 

Things like this aren't usually an option for my bike because it has a step through frame - this, which hangs from the seat, is the first I've seen that would accommodate one.  We don't really have the wall space to store the bikes on the wall anyway, especially when you consider we have two. 

 

Pretty much my only suggestion for indoor storage is a bike closet. 

The problem with our house is it still doesn't have a lot of room for something like this. Also you have to take the wheels off to make it work. 

 

So we turned to outdoor options.  There is a small corner of the parking pad that hopefully has just enough room to fit this 4ft square bike shed option. 

 

We should be able to get this project done on Saturday while we await our new mattress.  We will be making the modular version that comes apart for easy transport, in case we need to move again someday.  The biggest issue is going to be, with something small and portable, how do we make sure our bikes are secure and the shed itself doesn't wander off with our bikes in it? 

 

Most importantly, what color do I paint it when it's done?

 

Ikea

For the tiny house dweller, Ikea can be a pretty great resource.  We knew we would need to make the most of every square inch of our house, so we started looking at storage beds.  The idea being the storage bed would double as either a linen closet, or as seasonal storage. 

We wound up getting the Brimnes Bed Frame with storage - I really didn't want to get a bed from Ikea, but all of the other storage beds out there were too tall, or had a lot of wasted space.  Of the beds from Ikea, the Brimnes is one of the cheapest with storage.  However, it's the only one where the drawers are on rails.  The other ones, the drawers are just on wheels and roll in and out.  That did not appeal to me with our carpets and other issues. 

Available here

The whole thing took a long time to put together, and for awhile was a six person team.  Two of us assembled drawers, two assembled the beds, and two ran around handing us screws and tools.  Definitely use a drill with screwdriver bit to put this together, and you will also need many regular screwdrivers of the same size if you can.  It has a ton of tiny pieces, so I recommend putting them all on paper plates or in cups to start with to keep them separate. 

We bought the slats but are planning on just using a low profile box spring and mattress (we did not go for an Ikea mattress, so we'll see how this goes), so I think we'll return the slats.  

I'll update once we've actually slept on it and know how durable it is.