Turn clutter into storage and decorating solutions

How to refresh a room using boxes, jars, and other household items

3 Clutter-Busting Concepts
These three key steps will get you on your way to making order in your home using basic everyday items:

1. Contain
Enough storage space is, of course, the Holy Grail of any household. But solutions to the problem are probably littering your closets and cupboards right now. Use monochromatic boxes, wooden crates, berry baskets, and empty jars to stash anything from mementos to old files, paper clips to dried spices.

2. Repeat
Transform stray containers or collectibles into a decorative tableau by clustering like objects. Consistency produces a neater look than a random assembly does — and while one or two may look arbitrary, a group looks like art.

3. Repurpose
Although your lidless sugar bowl and your wobbly chair no longer serve their original purposes, they’re far from useless. You can eke a second life out of idle treasures by assigning them new functions — and, in so doing, add style to the surfaces they grace. (Learn how to repurpose stuff from your closets and drawers.)

Contain Photos and Letters in Shoe Boxes

You don’t need to buy fancy fabric-covered storage boxes. Raid your closet for an attractive array of shoe boxes, which can hold photos, stationery, or old letters, then stack them on your bookshelves. Combine them with hat, shirt, or gift boxes in other sizes. Affix labels noting the contents; create consistency by using the same labels and ink color. (You can also use a shoebox to organize your gift ribbons.)

RS Tip: sturdy boxes in the same or complementary colors, with matching lids.

Contain Towels and T-Shirts in Wooden Crates

Take crates that once teemed with clementines or old flea-market finds originally used for wine bottles and convert them into storage for towels in the bathroom or T-shirts in the bedroom. (Don’t worry — they won’t look like the plastic milk crates that held your record collection in college.)

RS Tip: A single crate provides useful, efficient storage in tight spaces. Two or more together look like a piece of furniture.