Organizing Your Attic Treasures

Part I Holiday Decorations

By Cheryl Lewis

Do you feel like you do not have enough room in your attic? Many of us feel that the attic is our hide away, hide the Â‘stuffÂ’ away from the rest of the house! Everything that I do not use on an every day or at least on a monthly basis finds its way to the attic for a resting place until I find that I need it once again.

My attic has grown to quite a clustered, disorganized mess where I have grown to hate going to the attic in search of anything. I have been working for the last few weeks on organizing and creating additional space in my attic for my growing family of unwanted or currently unneeded items. You also can create space by condensing many items and stacking in a fashion that will keep you organized for years to come. This new sense of freedom from the Â‘stuffÂ’ upstairs is great!

I know, you are thinking-this sounds like too much work from the get-go. Well, I really canÂ’t lie to you and this project will require some work on your part but after the initial work is complete on the items you currently store in your attic your treasures will be safer, cleaner and easily found for your future enjoyment.

One of my worst habits is that when a holiday is over- not everything makes it to the attic at the same time. The box is put the entire way in the back of the attic, and when I bring the one or two items that didnÂ’t make it into the holiday box to the attic, I usually set it at the top of the stairs and think to myself that I will put it away on my next trip up. Well, on that next trip up I donÂ’t feel like taking the items to the back of the attic so I pick them up and take them half way back. Does any of this sound familiar yet?

Organizing My Attic Treasures

My holiday decorations are strewn across the attic. I decided I did not want to deal with the brown cardboard boxes any longer. My plan includes buying some clear plastic storage containers from the local store, and putting my holiday decorations in to these. I could now see which Â‘holidayÂ’ is in the box, and I know which boxes are full just by looking at them. I did get some masking tape and a black marker for the boxes that held two holidays, such as Valentines Day and St PatrickÂ’s Day. I did not have enough of either decoration to justify keeping separate boxes, but I do know what I have and where it is now. I opted for the long and flat boxes (the kind that could be slid underneath the bed) for many of my holiday decoration storage solutions. I can easily stack these and I know that I will never put too much in to them where I will not be able to carry them, as I get older. The seal tight containers keep my decorations fresh from any effects from the hot or cold extremes that my local forecast would experience over course of a year.

I know you are thinking- how does this solve walking back to the far reaches of the attic to actually put things away? Now I keep one container- with out a lid, at the top of the stairs. This small container is only the size of a roasting pan. As the container is full from me climbing up and down the stairs and putting the forgotten items into it- I take the entire container to the back and distribute the items easily in to the appropriate boxes as where they should be. This really only happens maybe once a month or every two months, depending on how many decorations and items I have actually Â‘leftÂ’ behind from the holidays!

Look for the next article on how to organize the crates of books, papers, and miscellaneous items floating in your attic.

About the Author

Cheryl Lewis is a freelance writer, wife, and mother of three. She specializes in writing to meet the demands of business. For more information on Cheryl and her writing services visit http://home.att.net/~chlewis.

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