Wednesday, 4 May 2011

Ten Minute Tidy : drawers

I love tidying drawers - for one thing, they are beautifully portable. Most drawers will come out of the piece of furniture they are in, so you can plonk yourself somewhere comfortable to sort the contents - in front of the TV with a glass of wine, if you want. And secondly, they don't take long - for a little effort, you can be so much more organised.

I never wanted my blog to tell everyone how neat and organised they can be if only they buy a whole load of expensive 'storage solutions', so while I will add some links to drawer organisers from several UK companies, it's not hard to be creative, and use what you have. It is helpful to have some sort of containerisation going on in your drawers, particularly if you have lots of little bits and bobs, like jewellery, hair accessories etc stored in one drawer.They help you keep like items together (for example, all eyeliners in one place, all lipglosses in another) - divide and conquer is the rule of the day!

But you don't have to rush out and buy anything - you may have some little containers that work very well. Small baskets, plastic boxes like the kind you get from a Chinese takeaway or even sturdy packaging boxes cut down to the same depth - you won't see the printing on the outside if you slot them in snugly. You could always come over all Blue Peter and cover them with sticky backed plastic to get a uniform look, if it really offends you!

Pound shops often have small containers (which obviously cost about a pound!) that work well in drawers - Laura over at I'm an Organizing Junkie shows how well these kind of baskets work for her when she organised her junk drawer. For my make up drawer, which is wide but quite shallow, I found some interlinking drawer organisers at Lakeland which work well for me. Muji also have a gorgeous selection of acrylic boxes which could be used in drawers or small cabinets (like bathroom cabinets) - although I will admit they are quite expensive, particularly if you want a lot of them. The Holding Company has a good range of drawer organisers -  I particularly like their Clutter Buster Drawer Organiser.

I'm sure there is a drawer somewhere in this house that needs my attention -

Happy decluttering! x