Storage Boxes

Storage boxes are the life saver in our busy and stressed out lives. If it wasn’t for storage boxes, we would have clutter up to our ears all around us. The other day I had decided to finally clean up my office. My office was the epitome of clutter with paper covering the desk, one layer on top of another. It was even getting difficult to find the computer mouse. So I began putting things right and the best way to do that was to find something I could use for office storage boxes. I had a quick look in the garage and found some cardboard storage boxes that would do the trick. With some labels on them to let me know what was in them, I’d solved my problem. I also had a couple of those collapsible file storage boxes as well – the great thing about those is they have compartments in them lettered A-Z that make it easy to file documents in them. They also have a clip to stop papers falling out. It was right about this time that I started to realize how reliant we are on storage and decided to challenge myself to come up with all the different types of storage boxes that we use in our home.

Who could get by without plastic storage boxes – we use them for all sorts of purposes. My husband’s favorite includes his underbed storage boxes that are made of clear plastic with a small wheel at each corner allowing it to easily roll out. I picked these up for about $25 each, which seems cheap as I’ve seen them for up to $70 each. They only measure about five inches high, so would fit under most beds and have a lid that clips over the top. My mum’s favourites would be her two art and craft storage boxes and her linen, cloth and fabric storage boxes. She loves art and craft as well as making clothes. The craft boxes have compartments in them and given that there are so many fiddly bits like beads and dried flowers, she would be in all sorts of trouble if she didn’t have somewhere to keep them together and organized.

I have two favourites. The first includes my food storage boxes. I love being able to keep the fridge and pantry completely organized and there are all sorts of clear storage boxes readily available for use in the cupboard. These are remarkably handy for leftover dinners that you can refrigerate for tomorrow’s lunch, or after opening a can of something where not all of the contents can be used in one go. Then one of these storage boxes comes to the rescue. We’ve even got tuperware, which are great because they seal in the freshness and are stackable. They also come in many colours from pink to blue to green.

My second favourites are my shoe storage boxes. You may find it interesting that I use plastic for this, but as it turns out I bought an extra two of the underbed storage boxes that I bought for my husband and they are perfect for keeping shoes that I don’t often wear.

This is another favourite of mine. I have an old wood storage chest at the end of the bed that is perfect for sheets, blankets, pillows or even net curtains. It is even lockable with an old brass lock. I picked this up at a garage sale many years ago. Then we turned one of our two outdoor storage boxes into a bench patio seat. This is perfect as we can keep all the patio cushions inside it when we aren’t using them.

We use these all over the house because wicker makes for such decorative storage boxes that can blend in without advertising their contents. This is particularly the case when it comes to the clothes baskets in the bedrooms and laundry. The wicker blends in beautifully in the bedrooms and although people can guess that they contain our dirty super low rise jeans, old tummy tuck jeans and other dirty clothing, it certainly isn’t obvious unless they look inside. These wicker baskets each have a wicker lid that is easily removed. We even have an old wicker moses basket that we use as one of our son’s toy storage boxes. It doesn’t have a hood over the top so it perfect for him to story his trucks, cars and other toys in a way that allows him to easily carry them outside to play. Then there are the cd storage boxes and dvd storage boxes in the lounge room. Again these fit perfectly in the shelves of the wooden television cabinet although they don’t have lids on them. These media storage boxes also come as cardboard, acrylic, leather or canvas boxes. Where would we be without them? Cd’s and dvd’s crop up all over the house and our used 4x4 suv and something like this is needed to keep them organized as well. In fact, Ikea also has great cardboard boxes for this purpose.

These are often made of steel, aluminium or stainless steel and used in industrial or automotive areas to keep tools and other heavy duty items. Another area where these are used is in the marine industry on boats of all sorts. We’ve got one of these in the garage that we store all of our power tools in and another one where we store oil, grease and cleaning products so that they don’t get all over the place.

So it’s clear from looking at just the areas in our own home, that storage boxes have become an integral part of our lives and a very necessary one in keeping us organized and stress free.