School starts this week, and my living room is full of binders, pencils and everything else a kid or two needs at the beginning of the school year.
They may have everything they need, but I certainly don't. I need order. Not just in storing it, but in gathering it as well.
What I've learned, five years into this tradition, is:
- Keep the supply list all year. You may catch a sale in January, or otherwise run across a grade-specific item.
- At the school year's end, inspect and save extras.
- If you have the storage space, buy in bulk. You know you will need No. 2 pencils until the final SAT is done. However,
- Don't buy more than you will need. Wide-ruled binder paper does have an academic shelf life.
- Decide which is more important to you, and shop accordingly: convenience or price.
Organizational needs do not go away once the kids are in school. The more people one has in a household, the more one needs strategies for dealing with the stuff generated by those people. I find it gets ever more complicated living in an urban dwelling. City houses, condos and lofts tend not to have mudrooms, or even large entries or foyers, to provide landing places for backpacks, laptop totes, soccer gear and such. And even suburban homes are easily taken over by toys, junk mail and the like.
My personal challenge is my younger daughter's 9' x 10' bedroom. Space is at a premium here, so I began thinking of solutions before she outgrew her crib. Things I've tried or have considered include:
• A chest bed, with shelved headboard. The three drawers under the bed are handy now, and will become more so as she outgrows toys and wants more clothes. The headboard, with its three cubbies, provide space for her alarm clock, jewelry and hairband storage and a few favorite knickknacks.
• Ditch the dresser or chest of drawers. It takes up a large footprint within a small room, and doesn't pay dividends in flexibility. A better choice: a closet organizer. By using space vertically, you can claim the same volume as a small- to medium-size dresser in a fraction of the floor space. And most items still will be within the reach of a grade-schooler.
• I can't say it enough: Use vertical space. Hang shoe or toy caddies over doors or from the ceiling. Mount a column of magazine caddies in a narrow, unused space. Hang clothes on multiple-item hangers.
• Try magnetic paint to eliminate wall-hung boards. I can't personally vouch for its effectiveness, but in theory it's a great way to bypass the traditional bulletin board, its many stray thumbtacks and the inevitable holes in the wall.
Some more resources for getting organized and using space efficiently:
Mission: Organization
from the HGTV show of the same name.
How to Organize (Just About) Everything: More Than 500 Step-by-Step Instructions for Everything from Organizing Your Closets to Planning a Wedding to Creating a Flawless Filing System
by Peter Walsh. Strategies for just about every organizational dilemma, including several family scenarios.
Organizing from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life
by Julie Morgenstern. Not just the
what of organizing, but the
how.
HGTV.com's e-mail newsletter takes us to the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show. New, enticing stuff, of course. My favorite: video on appliances for small kitchens. Lots of video, including top-10 must-haves.
