With all the excitement of the holidays, you may not have thought about how you’ll store your holiday wares. When the time comes, you may want some help storing your holiday paraphernalia in a way that is both stress-free and efficient. With these storage tips, you could save yourself time and energy while making the transition out of the holiday season as merry as the season itself.
Label Everything
Your life could be infinitely easier come next year if you take the time to label your storage units right now. Every single bin and box you stow holiday items in should be tagged with a label detailing its contents and what room those items go in. This may make finding items and decorating in the following years much simpler. It could also help you inventory holiday accoutrements and help determine what items you actually use and which you could live without.
Pick a Room
Not all homes are well equipped to store holiday accessories. If your home is one of those where storage space is scarce, be sure to resist the urge to scatter your storage units around the house. There is nothing more frustrating than scouring your home for decorations all housed in different rooms. Deciding on one room to store your holiday items may spare you the trouble of a holiday scavenger hunt next year.
Store Safely
Don’t dampen the holidays next year with broken heirlooms and damaged knick-knacks. The plates and dishes that make holiday dinners special are fragile and should be stored somewhere they won’t be disturbed. Other fragile items should be stored on the ground to avoid falling from great heights and breaking, but they also shouldn’t be at the bottom of a pile of other potentially heavy boxes. Also factor in perishable holiday items such as candles, which should be stored somewhere that they won’t overheat and warp over the summer.
Tie Up to Avoid Tangles
Holiday decorations are decidedly stringy in nature. From garland to strands of lights, these bright and colorful lines help make the holidays festive. You might be so eager to take down holiday lights and other stringed items that you shove them into boxes without thinking about it, only to encounter a tangled mess the following year. Try using zip-ties, rubber bands, and twist ties to neatly contain individual strands of lights or garland before storing them. Then store them in boxes with layered dividers to prevent further tangling.
DIY Storage Units
Sometimes traditional boxes, bins, and other storage units don’t fit your holiday storage needs. If there are certain items that seem like they have special storage requirements, find them yourself. For example, an artificial wreath might not fare well in a cardboard box full of other holiday wares, but it would be adequately preserved in a repurposed hat box. Old egg cartons, coffee cans, and garment bags can all be utilized as storage vessels for certain holiday decorations.
The holidays may be over, but you can still give yourself the gift of convenient storage and stress-free future holiday decorating.
Syndicated via Century 21®. Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/century21/wAvv/~3/1UGHSXIZo7k/