Universal Storage Solutions
Organize your home items with this guide.
By Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick
March 2018
Cover courtesy Artisan Press
Remodelista, by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books, 2017), is a visual guide to an orderly home. The authors share plenty of easy and inventive storage ideas. This excerpt demonstrates some of the author’s best ideas for easy and efficient organizing.
You don’t need cavernous closets and built-in cabinetry to have an orderly household. But you do need a place for everything. Here are our favorite organizational tricks to deploy all over the house.
Hang It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Lacking drawer space? Hooks, pegs, and peg rails are the answer for keeping things organized and handy. The beauty of this approach is threefold: these solutions often cost next to nothing, they’re good-looking (even a nail has an honest charm), and they’re easy to use, so everyone can be brought on board.
Cart It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
From bar carts to industrial trolleys, there’s a range of compact wheeled storage ideal for corralling collections of items in one place. Carts, of course, are easy to move, so they can be rolled out for use or tucked away as needed.
Label It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Name what you’ve got and you’ll know what you’ve got — and where it goes. How else do you think a cockpit or an operating room functions? Use a Sharpie and tape (we like washi tape — made of rice paper — because it’s removable). Or tie on stationery store tags. Sold on your label maker? Use it behind the scenes. For displayed goods, hand lettering is nicer to look at.
Tray It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Grouping objects on trays is the equivalent of adding frames to artwork: trays are the finishing touch that elevates what they contain and creates cohesion. Equally important, trays prevent things from getting lost: they provide a home for small, loose items of all sorts.
Shelve It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Strategically placed shelves are one of the great organizational building blocks. All it takes are simple hardware store parts to create shelving, so plant a ledge wherever you can use one.
Stack It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Kitchen tableware is made to stack. Books and magazines also stack well, both vertically and horizontally. So does firewood. And there’s a world of stacking furniture worth seeking out (like the Frosta stools from Ikea pictured above). Stacking is about using space efficiently, but stick to small numbers of items: you don’t want to live surrounded by Jenga towers.
Decant It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Stop the encroachment of unappealing, bulky packaging the way chefs and scientists do. New to decanting? Start in the kitchen by storing your olive oil, hand soap, and other liquids in pretty bottles and grains and pastas in canning jars. Not only will you gain shelf space, but you’ll also be able to see what you’ve got, and it will line up seamlessly. Then employ this strategy all over the house, for everything from paper clips to Legos.
Kit It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Just about all of us have kits for certain everyday essentials: tools, first-aid supplies, sewing paraphernalia. Whether in a drawer, box, or other container, keeping related pieces in established places is a boon. So we’ve discovered that it makes good sense to assemble more kits for whatever it is you regularly need to do: pack a suitcase, send out a batch of thank-you notes, or throw an impromptu dinner party. You’ll discover our kits in every room in the book.
Sort It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Group like with like and use matching storage items: uniformity telegraphs cohesion. Lining up identical things, such as wooden hangers (white for shirts, natural for pants), wire baskets, and cardboard binders, is a trick used by architects and designers to create a look of order.
Repurpose It
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
Think outside the box when it comes to storage items: a magazine file mounted inside a cabinet door is exactly the right size for a lineup of kitchen wrap; covered enamel kitchen containers make excellent bins for cotton balls, swabs, and other essentials. When objects are made with care, it shows — and they can be put to use just about anywhere.
More from Remodelista:
Excerpted from Remodelista: The Organized Home by Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Matthew Williams.
