Garage, attic and basement
Organize garage and attic boxes
Garage and attic boxes are the ones you open once a year, and by then nobody remembers what's in them. A little order now saves a lot of unstacking later.
Sort before you store
Go through everything once and make three piles: keep, donate, toss. Boxes of things you'd never miss are the main reason garages fill up. If you haven't used something in two years and it isn't seasonal or sentimental, it probably goes.
Group by when you need it
Store by season or use rather than by room: holiday decorations together, camping gear together, summer things together. Then each trip to the attic means pulling one group of boxes, not hunting through all of them.
- Every few weeks: tools, sports gear, spare household supplies. Keep these at the front and at eye level.
- Once or twice a year: holiday decorations, seasonal clothes, camping gear.
- Rarely: keepsakes, documents, baby clothes being saved. These go at the back or up high.
Use the same bins, and label the ends
Matching clear or sturdy plastic bins stack safely and keep out damp and pests better than cardboard, which matters in a garage or attic. Label the end that faces you, not the lid, because lids get covered when bins stack.
Give each bin a number and a spot
Number every bin and note where it lives: "garage, left shelf, top", "attic, by the vent". When you take one down, put it back in the same spot. A number plus a place turns "somewhere in the garage" into one trip.
Keep a list you can search
The label on the bin tells you what it is. A list tells you which bin has the thing you need. Photos of what's inside work even better, because you'll recognize the item faster than you'll remember what you called it.
Every bin, sorted by where it lives
BoxRay keeps a photo of each box and everything in it, grouped by location: garage, attic, basement. Search any item and see the bin and where it is.
Download on the App StoreFree for your first five boxes. iPhone and iPad.