Brilliant tips for holiday storage
January 05, 2021
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Hello there and happy new year! I hope you had a lovely holiday season! I
didn't mean to take two weeks away, but I've been busy getting the Christmas
decor put away and it took longer than I thought.
I forgot when I was putting it up that I have to put it allll away. ;)
Although in general I find putting holiday decor away is much faster
and easier than setting it up. This year I bought new storage bins, so I
reorganized and the whole process took longer than usual.
I'm sharing my Christmas decor organization methods and a few tips I've
figured out along the way!
I will tell you off the bat that this won't be one of my thriftiest
organization posts. I spend a little extra to make things easier and more
efficient when I pull things out for the next year. (But they will last from
year to year!) These little tips save my sanity each November when the holiday
decor comes back out!
-- Label your decor for next year --
My first tip is to label as much as you can -- especially the stuff you put up
in the same spot every year. I have found over the years that labeling light
strands I use for specific areas helps a TON!:
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You can find my
awesome label maker here! This
smaller version
works great too -- it's just a little more basic. Both are super easy to
use.
I label any spot that uses more than one strand of lights -- both inside and
outside. So when I get them out I know exactly how many bushes or trees are
covered by that group of lights. I also label them inside, like the strands on
our stair garland. That way I'm not trying to figure out how many I used the
year before.
I use a LOT of
these remote plugs and switches
for our indoor lights -- I store them away with the lights that need a remote,
like on our stairs. I just keep them plugged into the light strand.
If you have more than one set of these remotes, you know the joy of trying to
figure out which one goes with which remote. ;) I label the matching sets so
we know what goes with what:
-- Store your trees upright! --
Next up is the trees! We have...uhhh, quite a few. ;) My dream my whole adult
life has been to store our Christmas trees upright -- and not take ONE thing
off of them each year. Yes...this is the stuff that makes me giddy.
Well in this house, my dreams were realized, at least for some of our trees!
We have a storage room in the basement with plenty of room to store our two
basement trees upright.
I found this
stand up Christmas tree bag
years ago and it works GREAT! You just place it over the tree and tuck the
branches in here and there -- it zips up and then cinches as well:
You may have to fluff a little the next year, but otherwise everything stays
put!
I loved that cover so much, I went to buy another one -- but they were sold
out. I looked around some more online and ended up with these plastic tree covers and they work just as well:
They are made for nine foot trees so are plenty big for our seven to eight
foot trees. It's so roomy that it's easy to grab up the extra and tie it at
the bottom. To carry them around, one of us grabs the top and one the bottom.
You'll be surprised at how much stays put!
We've stored a couple of our trees like this for years and they look almost
perfect when we uncover them the next holiday season. It saves a TON of time
-- you just need to have the space. And really, they don't take up much more
space than the horizontal bags, you just have to have the vertical storage
space.
-- Designated spot for Christmas decor --
For years we stored all of the Christmas decor in our basement, but I realized
a few years in that it was a major chore to get it all upstairs (sometimes two
flights). Since then I've stored everything in our garages.
This year I treated myself to new, clear storage bins for our Christmas decor.
I'm a geek -- it made me so happy! Our old bins were covered with paint or
busted up. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about seeing everything inside -- I was
worried it would feel too messy.
But I LOVE IT:
Ahhhh I can't even tell you how NICE it is to see everything! I was going to
label each bin, but decided against it once I got everything in there. There's
no need really.
I did a serious purge of all our decor before putting everything back. I
haven't really gone through the Christmas decor in years. I chose to
use more smaller bins instead of larger ones we had in the past.
We had similar wood shelves built up to the ceiling in our last garage, and
we loved it so much we had them built again in just the second day in this
house!
Up till now this corner has had a mix of holiday and other random stuff, but
I decided to make it all seasonal this year. It's mostly Christmas, but I
have Halloween and Fourth of July stuff here too.
By the way, I organize my seasonal decor by item, not room. I put all
garland in one bin, extras for the tree in another, soft stuff like towels
and pillow covers are all together and general decor is in its own bin.
This makes it easy for me to switch things up room to room every
year!
These are the bins I used -- all of them have latching handles. I used this
small clear bin
for most of the decor:
This
medium storage bin
is the perfect size:
And
this bigger one
is great for bigger stuff like our outdoor decor:
Somehow I ended up with way more room than we had before! I am determined to NOT fill that!:
It's killing me a little that those two bins on the left are different. Ha!!
We already had those so I didn't want to replace them for basically the same
thing. But...
We had these shelves built to fit the big parts of our giant family room
tree -- if you build something similar, make sure to measure your bins and
then build your shelves so you can stack numerous bins on each one.
Do you do anything specific with your holiday storage that makes the next
year easier for you? These tips help me a ton -- especially the stand up
tree covers!
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I was wondering how you keep your garland from scratching the wood railing?
ReplyDeleteThe garland is soft, but I use cup hooks underneath to hang it. :)
DeleteMy label maker is by favor my most-loved purchase of 2020. SO helpful for seasonal decor and my pantry!
ReplyDeleteThis was very helpful & I enjoyed reading it! To answer your question, yes, I have an itemized list on the box of what is in each box. Now of course that isn't anything new, but it is very helpful when PUTTING AWAY things. The biggest way it helps me is as I pack each box I see my list, and then remember to get the bells from the front doorknob, etc. If I don't do that it seems like every year, everything is all put away (in basement here) and then I spy some Christmas books, a pillow, kitchen towels, or something that got missed. Arg! So this helps keep me from missing an item!
ReplyDeleteI really admire your system, and am always trying to improve mine. Having an organized method helps make it more 'enjoyable'. Thanks and Happy New Year! Christine
Great idea and I'm borrowing it. I also spend all year with some random Christmas item in my closet because I didn't notice it until everything was packed away. Thanks.
DeleteI also use clear plastic storage bins. It's so nice to be able to see what's in each bin simply by looking at it. Your storage area looks so neat and tidy. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE LOVE LOVE stand-up tree storage!!! I wanted it for decades and finally have it now!! 😍
ReplyDeleteI also love your blog, Sarah, and quote you all the time! Haha
Thanks for all your share with us!!
Camille
Such a great idea for storing your trees. My dream house would have a tree closet off of the main living area to store two or three fully decorated trees that would sit on wheels and could just be rolled in and out. Ha! That will likely never happen...I can dream.
ReplyDeleteI switched to clear plastic storage bins three years ago and like you, I used smaller bins. It makes it so much easier. I do label mine with a standard form printed on 8.5 x 11 card stock that I just slip down into the bin in the side that will be visible when the bin is stored on the shelf. That way it is easy to see and read exactly what's in there when I take them down and I know which bin they belong in when I put things away again.
Looking forward to lots more of your great projects and tips this year!