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 ‘stuff’ 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 ‘stuff’ upstairs is great!
I know, you are thinking-this sounds like too much
work from the get-go. Well, I really can’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 didn’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 don’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 ‘holiday’ 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 Patrick’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 ‘left’ 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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