Grand Little Place

If you love seasonal decor then you’ve inevitably run into the problem of how to store it throughout the year.  Here I’ve gathered up my best DIY tips and ideas for holiday storage that are easy and inexpensive.

My step mom is one of the best real life decorators I know.  Her house has always been beautiful.  As a kid our house always ushered in the seasons with different florals and decor, which even at a young age made my heart happy.  It’s one of the things that our whole family enjoys and looks forward to.  The only downside with her love for seasonal decor is that we’ve never had a great designated spot for it.  Which meant that inevitably it was strewn about in various closets, garages and sheds.  This hasn’t been ideal for a lot of reasons.

The non-centralized storage wasn’t great was because it led to

1. things not being able to be found
2. things not being able to be used
3. things getting damaged.
4. things being overbought because we couldn’t see all the items in one place

As the family has grown and begun to leave the nest the house has changed and it’s freed up storage areas that weren’t accessible before.  That led to a conversation after Christmas one year about needing to organize the decor.  So on one summer trip I was able to use my best holiday storage ideas to help corral our fall and Christmas decor.

Before I continue I just want to say this:  everyone decorates differently and that is OK.  I am going to show a large amount of holiday items that are the result of decades of collecting AND inheriting a giant amount of holiday decor from my grandmother  (who also loved holiday decorating). Some of us love to wrap decor on every surface while others prefer a minimal look – there is no right answer.  Some readers may look at this collection and think it is a lot, others might think it is not enough!  This isn’t the discussion we are having today 🙂  Today we are talking about how to store holiday collections efficiently.  Organized spaces help our home serve us, and our homes purpose IS to serve us.  So let’s dig into how holiday organization helps meet that goal.

The first step in any organizing project is to gather everything together in one central location.  Because I was putting all of the non-Christmas seasonal decor into the guest room closet I brought every scrap of holiday-anything into that room.  It’s a smaller room so the mess looks that much bigger.  This mess was 100% me made as the first step of organizing, but it’s ok.  If you feel stressed looking at this picture just breathe and know that it gets a lot better.  🙂

Once everything was in one place I started making piles.  Before you get too far into going through stuff go ahead and designate 1 pile for trash and 1 pile for donations.  Now the sorting piles I made are going to be different than what your needs are.  I basically started with generic piles for sorting (Halloween, Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter, Fall, etc.) and then as I was going through things I began to identify categories that could be separated out further.  For example, there is a lot of fall specific items so within the ‘fall’ category I made piles for floral’s, kitchen linens, decorative items, candles, etc.

After you’ve done the sorting you’re going to have piles of different sizes.  Now is the time for you to pull out a tape measure and measure the space you have available for storage.  Notice how that last sentence was in bold?  Yeah, that’s because measuring FIRST is THE KEY to using your storage space most effectively.  Don’t skip that step!!!  I was using a closet that had 1 shelf across the top, one in the middle and a small section of shallow shelves inset on one side.  I took measurements of the closet and then made a list of the different piles I had made.  Next to each category I wrote ‘small, medium, or large’.  With this information in hand I headed to the store.

Note that I did not purchase storage containers until after I had the information about what we needed and had taken measurements of the space I was organizing into.  This will save you so much time and money if you do the work in this order!

I have found that the best storage containers and bins for organizing storage areas are clear.  Not only do they give you a quick peek inside of them but you can also see how full, or empty, they are at a glance.  My parents live in a rural area and the only store available to purchase bins within 30 minutes is Wal-Mart.  I grabbed Steralite containers in various sizes for the closet.  I also find that labeling containers makes a huge difference in my personal ability to locate what I’m looking for quickly as well as being able to put it back correctly.  I prefer to use adhesive label pockets because you can easily swap out a card if you need to change the label but the local store didn’t have those.  Instead I reverted to a simple system of blank note cards and double sided tape.  I simply wrote the category on the notecard and taped the card to the inside of the tub facing out.  I taped it to the inside instead of the outside so that there would be less of a chance that the card would get ripped off.  I try to avoid writing directly on any storage tub directly because storage needs change over time and often tubs end up labeled incorrectly if you write directly onto them.  Plus if you get in the habit of adding a label card you’ll be more intentional about storing items in the correct place and keeping up with the labels as they need to change over time.

Once I had the tubs and labeling supplies things got really exciting (ok, exciting may be a bit of an oversell) and started to move quick.  Bringing the tubs upstairs I started loading the various piles into their own separate tubs and labeling them.  When they were all filled I loaded them into the closet.  Ideally I prefer not to have tubs more than 1 deep or stacked on a shelf.  I am a petite woman and I personally find it hard to pull tubs out if there is more than 1 deep on a shelf or if they are stacked.  In this case I didn’t have the option of a second shelf across the bottom, but the space wasn’t large and the tubs weren’t heavy (we even ended up with a totally empty one!).  Because the tubs on the bottom had to be stacked I made sure not to overfill any one tub too full.  My step mom and I are a similar size and since she is primarily the person who will want to get in and out of the seasonal decor I wanted to make sure that they were very easy to locate and lift.

How to store wreathes:

Now you can’t talk about seasonal decor without thinking about wreaths.  Closet rods are awesome for storing wreaths!  If they are a wire frame you can stick a wire hanger easily through the back to hang on the rod.  For grapevine or other wreaths I bend the wire hangers a little but they still work great to keep the wreaths hanging easily.  There were also a few different seasonal flags in the decor stash so for those I used pants hangers, they worked great!  In a previous attempt to organize we had put command hooks on the backs of the closet doors for the wreaths.  This is a great option but ultimately wasn’t the best overall option this time around once we had gotten everything else in order.  I was able to use those command hooks for a few hanging baskets/arrangements that otherwise didn’t have a spot.

DIY Tips and Ideas for Holiday Storage:

• Gather all items in one place
• Sort items into categories (make sure and give yourself a donate and a trash pile)
• Measure your storage space and take note of how large or small your item categories are
• Shop for clear storage bins and determine the best labeling system for you (These are my preferred adhesive label pockets.)
• Fill & label your storage bins
• Load your storage area
• Stand back and admire your work!

Organization isn’t just about making things pretty or for a certain types of people.  The goal of organization is to simplify systems to help make your life easier, and who couldn’t stand for something in their life to be easier?!

Don’t forget to pin!

From time to time I offer affiliate links for my audience’s convenience.  I receive a small commission from these links but items to not cost more because you shop through them.  You can find all of my disclosures and policies here.