Organizing by colour?
I'm not much of a camper, so for me, the Labour Day weekend is typically a mix of relaxing and getting things done around the house.
On Monday, we had a story about organizing your closet in 10 minutes which inspired me to take my efforts to the next level. With the help of the move, my closet is still in pretty good shape, organized by type of garment and colour, so I had to focus on a more troublesome area of my house: my many boxes.
Ten boxes later, which yielded a slew of outdated photos of me as a redhead and Mr. Speedy with very long hair, a few odd socks, three koosh ball animals and several other odds and sods, along with many things that we actually do like and need, my house was in dire need of organization!
Once the kitchen cabinets and bar were fully stocked (turns out I have as many martini glasses as I do bowls) and the DVD, CD, record and VHS (!) collections alphabetized and stowed away, I turned my attention to the six very heavy (and largely still unpacked) boxes of books that we've been lugging around since leaving Halifax.
Our collection spans a lot of genres, everything from textbooks, anthologies and Penguin classics to chick lit (well, only I can take the blame for that one) and comic books. Not an easy collection to manage, much less organize in a logical way.
So I decided to throw all logic out the window (after all, isn't alphabetized conspicuous consumption so pre-recession?) and organize them the way I wanted to look at them: by colour.
Now, this isn't a new idea. Loads of people have colour blocked all of their belongings. But it was new to me. And, to add a further illogical twist, my massive collection of books would span several floors of my house, so to find a particular book, we're going to need to remember what colour the spine is, and go to the proper shelf on the correct floor.
Black, white and red books (which match our PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox360 respectively) were the first to be sorted out, to complement our basement entertainment den. This is a system that wedges Kevin Smith (of Silent Bob fame) between Orwell and Freud, and the Nanny Diaries next to Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it looks pretty slick. And, just think of all the exercise we'll be getting when hunting for that favourite book on all three levels of our home!
Stay tuned for a pre-painting reveal of our basement later this week - along with some snazzy new vintage inspired artwork!
The colour-blocking looks great! I'd love to try that when I eventually unpack my books (for now inside house-work has taken a backseat to outside work while the weather's still good!)
You mentioned closets, though, and I did manage to get mine organized recently - check it out and let me know what you think!
www.just-you-wait.blogspot.com/2009/09/all-dressed-up.html
Kerry (@effiehandmade)
Posted by: Kerry | September 10, 2009 at 10:20 PM