Monday, April 2nd, 2012
52 Weeks to an Organized Home
I’m participating in 52 weeks to an Organized Home at Home Storage Solutions 101. Check it out for tips on organizing every area of your home.
Week 13 – Organize Your Files: This challenge was pretty much putting together all of the challenges from the last few weeks, organizing further, and determining where you’ll keep all those files.
Here’s a little factoid about me: When I was a child, I asked for a filing cabinet for my birthday.
I know, what child asks for a filing cabinet, right? Well, I always loved paper – notepads, scrapbook paper, stationary, all of it. I always had piles of paper stuff lying around, and I like to be organized, so that’s what I asked for. And that’s where I store my files except some more important things like birth certificates, passports, savings bonds, etc. that I store in a locked fire-resistant box.
Week 14 – Organizing Magazines, Newspapers and Catalogs
We don’t get the newspaper, but we get a small free paper in the mail every week. I usually go through it with the rest of the mail and decide if there is anything worth saving. Once your done reading it, newspaper has many uses, here are a few:
Gardening – It works great for minimizing weeds in the garden and you can use it to make your own biodegradable seedling pots.
Fires – We have a chiminea on our patio and it’s nice to have a stack of newspapers ready.
Pets – Not only can you use it to line a pet’s cage, but many animal shelter will accept stacks of newspapers to use as well.
Packaging – Whether you’re moving or shipping items from a home store, newspaper is a great (and cheap) way to pack items.
Crafts and Home – Use it as a drop cloth when you’re painting the house or cover the table where children create.
I keep ours in a stack in the mudroom, ready for whatever need we have.
While we don’t have a lot of catalogs floating around the house, magazines are something that I have to make a conscious effort to read and then get rid of. My mom used to save magazines until she had boxes just taking up space. So, now as she reads a magazine, she tears off the pages she has finished and throws them away. They get smaller and small until she’s done with the last page. I do the same thing with magazines that I read, but for any magazines that both my husband and I read, I read them and let them sit for a while and then throw them out. I actually let most of my subscriptions run out this year, because I ended up with a stack of magazines that I never had the time to read. I’m slowly working through the pile.
I also have two file folders on my desk at home for ideas and things I want to save. One has gardening information and ideas, the other things for the house. As I’m tearing out pages, I file interesting pages away for later.
Next week, we’re organizing a few more paper/home office things, including internet passwords, user manuals and warranties.