Let me be clear; I am not offering clever storage solutions to encourage people to hoard things that they do not need. I’ve been down that road myself. I am on mission to unclutter my home and there are many things that I do need or are valuable to me that I want to keep and yet they don’t need to take center stage in view or perhaps worse, prime time cabinet or closet space. I’ve found a few fun ways to hide things in plain sight.
My recyclables are in a wicker laundry basket right by the back door.
We live in the country where curbside recycling is not available. Because we live in an area where just about everything but the deer and antelope roam, bins on our back porch aren’t an option either. The pantry is full with a chest freezer so that was out. I constantly had boxes of recycling sitting by the back door and running them to the trunk of my car with any anticipation of company. I am proud to be a recycler but I didn’t want this “mess” cluttering up my home. The solution was a wicker laundry basket. The top is easy to lift. It holds about a weeks worth of recycling. We put it all in there, put it in the back of the car once a week and sort it when we get there. It’s barely noticeable sitting there but attractive enough if you do notice it.
Even if you don’t need to have recyclables by the door, there may be something from library books to reusable shopping bags to umbrellas that you’d rather hide in plain sight.
Grandmother’s teacup collection is in a suitcase style picnic basket.
My husband and I received a wicker suitcase style picnic basket as a wedding gift. It was a very thoughtful gift for an outdoor loving couple and indeed a romantic gesture. However, as picnics go, this type of basket even with its plastic dinnerware is not really practical. We usually prefer soft coolers and backpacks. So this pretty picnic sat for nearly twelve years atop my kitchen cabinets looking cute but not serving any real purpose. On the other hand, my daughter had inherited a set of antique teacups and saucers from her great grandmother. We used them once for a fundraiser party and once for a tea party birthday party but the rest of the time they sat wrapped in paper in a box in the pantry. At least twice a year my husband would point to this box as he tried to put away groceries and ask, “what is in here and why is this box here?”
The solution was to pack the teacups into the picnic basket. They are accessible but not in the way. Maybe you don’t have an antique tea cup collection but I’ll be you have something that you only use once or twice a year like Christmas dishes, champagne glasses or Halloween platters that could get out of your cabinets and hide in plain sight.
My children’s school papers and reusable activity books are in a brown leather suitcase.
I once bought a very old brown leather suitcase at a yard sale for two dollars. Yes, I was in my thirties! I didn’t need it but was very attracted to it. It didn’t really have a purpose in my home and meanwhile my kid’s school papers, portfolios and the like were filling up my file cabinet quickly. If my fifth grader did half of a fifth grade summer fun review workbook, I would keep it knowing my first grader could utilize it one day. Sure, I would save a few bucks but it could no longer be at the expense of not being able to find what really needed to be accessible in desk drawers.
Each semester and every summer, I open up the brown suitcase that sits hardly notice under the table in the living room where children have their Wii game area and file what needs to be kept and review what could now be handy. Maybe you don’t need to keep school papers but I bet there’s something taking up space like old photo albums or even a DVD collection that needs to hide in plain sight.
Our knitting supplies and projects are in a decorative hatbox.
My daughter loves to knit hats for babies and scarves for friends. Me? I am still stuck on making dish cloths but never the less, their always seemed to be little skeins of yarn and half finished projects all over our living space. Then I won a chocolate basket in a fundraiser raffle that can came in a decorative hatbox. It was attractive, but not something that I was drawn to put on display at first. Until I realized that it was the solution for the knitting nightmare. Now all projects have to go in the hatbox that sits on the table behind the couch when they are not being worked. When it’s full we cant’ buy new yarn or start new things until we finish what we’ve started and make more room in the hatbox. Not only have we reduced the clutter, we’ve given ourselves some boundaries on hoarding as well.
Maybe you don’t have a knitting nightmare but I’ll be theirs something lurks around your home whether it’s Soduko game books or that by the recliner peanut collection that could be hidden in plain sight in an attractive hatbox.
If you truly don’t value something, you should really consider finding it a new home through a yard sale, charity resale store or consignment shop but if you need it and don’t know where to store it, consider an attractive hiding place in plain sight.
