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Use a Dresser to Organize Your Garage!
by Tawra Kellam
It seems like organizing your
garage can be a never ending task. Lots of companies make millions
of dollars selling all kinds of storage systems to try to make
your garage just a little bit more organized. OK I'm about to
confess -- We've had this problem, too! I know, it's hard to
believe, isn't it? The cool thing is we found a great organization
tool that cost us nothing...
We have a dresser that was
given to us by a relative. It's an old 1970's style dresser with
nine drawers. It is about three feet tall, eight feet wide and
two feet deep. It was one of those pieces of furniture that makes
one wonder, "Why would anyone ever have bought that?"
It had the faux wood counter top on top and the drawer faces
were covered with those really tacky twirly relief patterns people
really liked in the 70's. Still, much to my husband's surprise,
I could see
the value in it!
I painted it black (except
for the wood top) and then put in the garage to store stuff.
Even my husband has been surprised to see how well it has worked
out for us. Here's what I did:
First, I designated each drawer
as a place for one category of supplies, and I marked each drawer
with a little index card that I stapled to the front of the drawer
with a staple gun.
One drawer is for electrical
items. This includes outlets, outlet covers, electrical testing
equipment, wire crimpers, lamp pieces and any other electrical
thing we are likely to use. (Just as with any organizing, don't
save stuff you'll never use just because you can. ;-)
We have a drawer for paint
supplies: roller handles, paint brushes, sand paper and such.
(We don't keep paint there. We have a separate small plastic
shelf unit with our stash of paint.)
The top left drawer is our
nail and screw drawer. We have two plastic embroidery floss organizers,
each with twenty or so slots. We use one organizer for nails
and the other for screws. When both of these containers are in
the drawer, there is still room for a few whole boxes of the
nails and screws we use most often.
We seem to have problems with
cords, so one drawer is just for cords. It includes a few lamp
cords, cable wire, phone wire and other cords. I make each one
into a coil and slide it into a toilet paper roll to keep it
separate from the others. My husband likes to just wind each
one up
and wrap it like a noose.
There is a drawer that includes
nothing but batteries, one for glues and adhesives and another
dedicated exclusively to light bulbs.
Another drawer is for miscellaneous
hardware. This is the drawer for felt chair legs, baby locks,
door stops and all kinds of other items that don't have homes
in any of the other drawers.
We also have one drawer set
aside for miscellaneous tools. This drawer is for those tools
that we don't use every day, but that come in handy every now
and then. We use it for things like pipe wrenches, channel locks,
a wire brush and extra socket sets.
On top of the dresser, I placed
several small rectangular plastic containers the size of shoe
boxes. One has hammers and such, one has screwdrivers, one has
pliers and crescent wrenches. I have four or five of these all
together. Essentially, they contain the tools we use most often.
This arrangement also leaves us a little counter space on the
dresser.
Using an old dresser for this
purpose has made life so easy! I see them all the time at garage
sales for $10. This is well worth the price for the amount of
storage you can get and if you like to find new uses for things
that otherwise might hit the landfill, an old dresser might just
do the trick!
Think outside the box!
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Author: |
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Tawra Kellam is the editor of
http://www.LivingOnADime.com.
Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000
a year income. |
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ARTICLE POSTED
January 24, 2007 |
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