insideKENT Magazine Issue 46 - January 2016 | Page 114
INTERIORS
AN organised NEW YEAR cont.
Labelling is a great idea for food too. Create
boxes (reusable plastic storage containers are a
good example as you can get lots of different
sizes and shapes) for your fridge that are labelled
‘eat first’, ‘packed lunches’, or even labels with
the use-by date on them. Removable fridge and
freezer labels from Lakeland called Freezeasy
Labels mean you can change your message as
often as you want
(www.lakeland.co.uk/p2805/Freezeasy-Labels).
Coats & Shoes
Coats and shoes are perhaps the most irritating
of messes in a home. They come off as soon as
we get in the door, so it’s the entryway that
becomes full of outdoor gear, making it the first
thing that visitors see (and the first thing you see
when you get in, which can put a dampener on
even the best moods). A coat rack (if there is
space) or pegs for the wall can make all the
difference – no more coats left on bannisters or
flung over chairs. As for shoes, a shoe tidy that
can sit neatly in the hallway and not get in
anyone’s way is ideal. If it can tuck under another
piece of furniture or be placed in a cupboard
then all the better.
Keep Your Drawers Neat
Desk drawers, that is. Because drawers are, by
their very nature, meant to keep things hidden
(or at least stored safely), and therefore the
contents generally can’t be seen, it’s easy to just
throw things in and be done with it. The problem
comes when you need to find something, and
you don’t know which drawer it’s in because
everything was filed in a fairly random way. So,
take everything out and throw away the rubbish.
Then see what you’ve got left. Work out how to
categorise your drawers so that you know
precisely what goes where and, if you can,
partition the drawers to keep everything that
much neater.
Go Wireless
Okay, you can’t go completely wireless – not
yet, anyway – but those wires and power cords
that are left hanging around need to be untangled,
sorted, and tidied up. Not only will this look more
pleasing to the eye, but it will also mean you’ll
have an easier time of it when it comes to
removing any of the wires as you need to. There
are some great tools on the market to help you
with this, and they are well worth purchasing (for
some reason, no matter how many times those
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wires get unplugged, untangled, and plug in
again they still end up in a mess, much like the
Christmas lights). They include the good -ooking
and utterly usable cable tidy from Maplin
(www.maplin.co.uk/p/cable-zip-tidy-black-rs62s).
Nesting
Nesting is a wonderful way to keep things neat
– it simply means that smaller items can be stored
inside larger ones, and there is no better example
of that than saucepans. Saucepans are bulky
and much used, and this combination means
that they get shoved into a cupboard any which
way because a) they’re awkward to store neatly
and b) it’s okay, you’ll be using them again
tomorrow. But it’s not okay. It’s not okay because
sooner or later they will become a bigger problem,
with the pots spilling out when the cupboard
door is open (and damaging the floor, themselves,
your foot, your head…) or getting in the way of
anything else being able to be stored there. So
keep the saucepans (and frying pans, they can
sit at the bottom) in a nest formation and you’ll
free up plenty of cupboard space and it will all
look so much neater. As for the lids, they can
be kept in a drawer (neatly), or a rack kept on
the kitchen counter or a cupboard.