Clever Containment Strategies

No matter how spacious a house, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to stow everything you own behind closed doors. Find a solution with containment strategies: out-in-the-open methods to keep your stuff stored in view but within bounds.

Containment strategies are especially useful for those of “the piler” persuasion. Stuff stays where you can see it without being permitted to sprawl, yet any visual hint of a pile is overcome by the restrictions created by the container. It’s a win-win!

For filers, containment strategies create intermediate staging areas to hold items in transit to their forever home. When bringing in the mail, toss new magazines into a shallow basket near the reading chair; after they’ve been thumbed through, they can be sorted into separate bookcase files for future reference.

Try these containment solutions to corral clutter around the house:

•  Stack newspapers in a shallow basket beneath an end table or coffee table.

•  Stand CDs, DVDs, and video games title side up in a plastic organizer bin.

•  Manage magazine clutter with wall-mounted racks to hold current issues.

•  Keep pens and pencils at the ready in a cheerful coffee mug near the phone.

•  Keep craft supplies close at hand underneath a worktable in a rolling drawer cart.

•  Store bulky bedding, sports equipment, or toys in footlockers and trunks.

•  Corral bottles of condiments in a small basket to speed sandwich making.

•  Display stuffed animals in wall-mounted baskets in a child’s room.

•  Use pretty boxes with a lid to organize ongoing craft projects.

•  Organize paper on the shelves of a hanging canvas sweater caddy.

Since there will be a constant in-and-out aspect to clutter containment, make it easy to add or remove contents. Open or easily accessible containers work best to contain clutter.