Pretty, clever ideas to keep your house tidy with baskets and boxes.
One of my favorite ways to organize stuff in my house is by using boxes and baskets.
We seem to have an awful lot of stuff around, ‘bits’ as I call them or I guess clutter: cards on the mantelpiece, spices on the kitchen counters, blankets for the couch, magazines.
All that before I even start to look at the kids’stuff!! School stuff, stationery, stuffed animals: seriously, I love clean, tidy spaces but it often feels like a battle I will never win.
However, I seem to have found an ally in this effort to keep the house tidy: boxes and baskets!
I want to be perfectly honest with you: they are not the solution to everything.
We still have stuff around the house but we have less of it and it takes a fraction of the time to put it away. It is also easier so my kids and husband help to (the actually help while usually, they think they do but they don’t really!
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Why use boxes and baskets to keep your eyes tidy
There several reasons why I love boxes and baskets to keep my house tidy.
The house looks more ‘together’
The first one is that they look pretty and they immediately make the house look more together.
You know when you open a cupboard and you have 10 small jars of spices or can, all different and all cluttered together? And your cupboard looks like a mess, even if in reality they are all clean and well organized?
If you put them all into a basket, the mess is gone and you feel like you are looking into a cupboard out of a magazine!
They occupy the same space as before but visually, you have one pretty basket that perfectly fits the space rather than 10 random-looking jars
This is even better int the livingroom. We always have blankets for watching tv in the evening and they usually lie untidy across couches and floors when not in use.
A basket is a much nicer way to store them and can even become a cure décor detail!
They help you keep stuff close to where you need it
The other reason why I love baskets is they allow you to keep stuff where you need it, without ruining the look of your house.
My husband always leaves stuff around the house because ‘he needs’ it. So there is no point in me saying the should put his dumbells away in the shed: he uses them inside the house and wants them near so he will simply not put them in their designated home.
But with a box or a basket nearby, he can simply put them there, no effort, and he can have them handy, while I don’t have to see them!
They are super easy to use
Last but not least, boxes and baskets make cleaning much faster and easier.
If you only have to lift one basket, you can clean the floor in a flash while if you have dispersed clutter, each item is an extra thing to move. And shall we talk dust? A box is a lifesaver for that!
Clever ideas to use baskets to tidy your house
In the bathroom: I like to use a small basket in the bathroom to keep all my daughter’s hair scrunchies, brush and tidbits.
They all live in the basket and she cannot ask me anymore ‘where is my hair clip’ because they all live in the basket and it is super easy to get them back in there when you find a random one on the floor (which is all-the-time!)
I also love a basket for spare toilet rolls: they are unsighly in their plastic wrapper and they can get wet and dirty in the standard upright holders: baskets are a very pretty way to store them and have them handy.
In the living room: I love to have baskets in our living area for blankets. The basket I have is quite large and has two handles so that it is easy to move and I roll up blankets than I the store there vertically. It takes a second to do and looks very pretty!
Since it is just beside the couch, we can also just dump the blankets there very quickly if we need to: the rolling is the extra bit but if we need to get stuff off the floor fast, a basket it just the handiest way.
I also use boxes in the living room for magazines. My husband gets them in the post but never has time to read them so I just cannot simply chuck them away: so, in the end, I bought two lovely boxes and now they are one of the prettiest corners of our room! They live beside the couch and doubt up as a side table. Win!
In the bedroom: I use baskets in the bedrooms in several ways. One if for laundry and one is for the bed throw and pillows. I don’t have many pillows on my bed but I do have some and I always had the problem of where to put the decorative ones when we were going to sleep. A basket is the simplest solution!
In the laundry room: I don’t have a large laundry room but rather a cupboard with my washing machine, where space is at a premium. Here, I use baskets and boxes liberally: for soap, for pegs, laundry bags.
In wardrobes and cupboards: I used baskets and boxes in my closet extensively. I started to store my bags and now I also have them to organize my underwear drawer.
In the hallway: this is maybe the area of the house where boxes have made the biggest difference. I have them tidily stacked on top of the shoe rack and they have all the winter bits and sports clutter: gloves, scarves, hats, shinguards…
In the kids’ bedroom: I also really like to use baskets and bis in the kids’ bedroom.
Usually, I resist putting their stuff in baskets as I always feel a basket is a quick way to get the kids to just dump stuff in it and make no effort to get them organized or take care of them. However, they can be really pretty and there are indeed some things that otherwise do not have a home.
