Posts with tag storage

When the seasons change, so does our wardrobe. And, unless you have a much bigger closet than we do, that means certain items get brought out while others get packed away for the next few months.

While some of those items might be easily folded up and put into Rubbermaid bins, but other items have more specific requirements. The formal gown you wore for your best friend's wedding, your silky summer dresses, the flowery pashmina you pulled out for those cool summer nights ... for some, the list goes on and on.

It's long past the time to put away your winter shoes. Especially your boots!

But, you say, it's so hard to store boots. The boxes always wind up crushed and unstackable. Plus everyone hates not being able to see what's in which cardboard box.

For a cool solution to these challenges, enter our Shoe Stör giveaway!

I am not usually one for resolutions but the time I have been spending in suburbia has inspired me to make a few. First one is to manage my money better (that's not going to be easy) and second is to organize my closet. Now that, I can handle.

In order to keep my second resolution I will have to break my first resolution by spending some money at The Container Store, Bed Bath and Beyond and probably a few other places too. I am hoping that organizing my closet will help me actually see how much stuff I have that way I will stop buying so much. Of course my plan could totally backfire and I may end up seeing that I have room for more stuff -- it's a risk I am willing to take.

The first step I plan on taking in my closet organization resolution is to buy new hangers. I found these great ultra slim hangers at suburban super-store, Bed Bath and Beyond. I used my Mother as a test subject and got her 2 packs of 10 hangers. The hangers are great, your clothes don't slip and the slim design takes up less space in your closet.

Get a pack of 10 hangers (choose from a variety of colors) for $9.99 or get a pack of 50 hangers for $39.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Because you are reading a style blog, I can only assume we all share a common problem ... closet space. There is just never enough of that stuff is there? No matter how spacious the house, nor how many closets a person has, they always end up too full.

My shoes are the worst. I started out with everything filed away neatly in boxes. A hundred boxes later, I ran out of room. So I ditched the boxes, and moved on to neat rows lining my closet walls. Rows became stacks and stacks became unruly piles. Unruly piles soon became heaps and the heaps ate my shoes. Seriously, I lost one of my beloved Marc Jacobs flats 2 months ago and I still haven't found it.

So unfair.

So when I saw this design for a "shoe picnic" I was thrilled. I already own beautiful designer shoes so why not display them on my wall? There aren't enough "shoe picnics" in the world to hold all of my shoes, but I can at least display the best of best.

Despite our best attempts at living in a sleek, minimalist home, my girlfriend and I have finally accepted that we live amongst an obnoxious pile of clutter. It's become so bad, that we're about to purge a bunch of our stuff -- even, I'm embarrassed to admit, our books. Not only do they look sloppy crammed into our bookshelf, but they take up a ton of space.

But all that was before I spotted this Invisible Shelving System.

While this may look impossible, the books are actually supported by a row of small, clear plastic prongs -- creating the illusion that they're suspended in mid-air. This way you can have easy access to your favorite paperbacks, without letting big, clunky shelving kill your design aesthetic.

Genius.

[via Damn I Like That]

Okay, so maybe the Ellips shelves aren't really scientifically proven to make rooms awesome, but if you take a look around the website, you should get proof enough and be able to fully embrace the awesomeness.

These shelves are assembled from specially cut pieces of wood to play tricks on the eye, adding extra fluidity to a room that could not be achieved by the usual, bulky, rectangular shelving unit. I especially love the pictured spherical illusion one, called the "Big Jim", but all of the designs are clean and would do well in any home looking for a modern touch.

Many of the designs on the website include detailed measurements of each piece in the unit, so, if you're the handy type, you could actually make your own.

When I was in college, the girls in my first year dormitory consumed approximately enough cereal to feed a European city-state (the Vatican, Lichtenstein, Monaco) for an entire year. Aside from the fact that cereal is relatively low in calories, part of the breakfast bowl appeal had something to do with its presentation at the dining hall. Imagine if you will an entire wall filled with dozens of colorful cereal containers. It was truly a refined corn product wonderland!

I relay this story only to let you know that when I came across the Indispensable Dispenser from Zevro kitchen products, I immediately thought of the few dozen women I knew who would surely appreciate a double-barreled storage container on their kitchen counters. The Indispensable Dispenser would probably expose secret Lucky Charms habits to friends and family, but hopefully by now they've all upgraded to adult cereals like All-Bran and Kashi Good Friends.

But maybe not. Either way, I've got a new go-to wedding present for all my old classmates because deep down I know that while you can take the girl out of the dining hall, you'll never take the dining hall of out the girl.

We know that after spending $&*#^&@ dollars on that gorgeous little nightie that you wear to bed, the last thing you want to do is hide it away. However, if perchance you happen to wear ratty old flannel PJs to sleep, you might want to invest in Modern Twist's PJ Pocket Pillow.

The PJ Pocket Pillow is a handmade fabric pillow inspired by a Japanese anemone box that actually opens up with a quick twist to hold/hide things inside. It can be used on the bed to hold PJs, or elsewhere around the house to hold remote controls, slippers, or even kid's toys. The box comes in a number of subtle patterns, one of which has to match your decor. It doesn't exactly go with my bedding set, but I love the orange PJ Pocket Pillow printed with white elephants (pictured at right, bottom of the stack).

One day I was at my sister's house borrowing her machines to do some laundry, and went on a mini-hunt for laundry detergent, which I had absent-mindedly left at home. I looked in the usual places, and when I finally came to the hall closet and flung the door open, I almost fell over. My sister had not only taken over the entire front hall closet with her shoes (it runs in the family), but she had very neatly packed each pair of shoes away in their original box, with a photo of the pair of shoes on the outside so she could find them.

She wouldn't have had to go to so much trouble if she had come across Shoe-Stor, a company that makes clear shoe boxes. The boxes are sturdier than the cardboard boxes in which the shoes come, so they can stack neatly, and because they're clear, you can quickly scan your collection for the pair that perfectly matches your outfit. Brilliant! They also make larger boxes for boots, men's shoes, and handbags.

Shoe-Stor products are available online from their website, for $39.95 for a pack of 10 regular size boxes.