# How to Organize your Work Spaces



## Bootz

I was talking with a couple of the admins and well I really wanted to create a whole section dedicated to this. This might have to satisfy this instead. I was wanting to see some pictures or have some people post up some ideas for organizing an area. Like organizing your work bench, or the garage, even the kitchen cabinets. So if any one has any advice or pictures post them up :thumbup:

Oh one of the Ideas I had was to use jars to keep all your extra nails. Keep the nails or what ever in the jar then take the lid and screw it to the under side of a work area... then when you need a nail or something unscrew it from its lid then screw it back on to store it away :thumbup: dont have any pictures ... my bad :\


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## DangerMouse

I made this one to hold coffee jars. 
The slats swivel and the pegs hold them at an angle that makes them easy to remove. 
Then you can pull the peg and they lay flat. Po)
Double drilled, centered mounting holes in the front to screw to one stud.

DM


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## gma2rjc

This is how I organized my scrapbooking room.

http://www.diychatroom.com/f49/my-scrapbooking-room-45796/


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## Bootz

DangerMouse said:


> I made this one to hold coffee jars.
> The slats swivel and the pegs hold them at an angle that makes them easy to remove.
> Then you can pull the peg and they lay flat. Po)
> Double drilled, centered mounting holes in the front to screw to one stud.
> 
> DM





gma2rjc said:


> This is how I organized my scrapbooking room.
> 
> http://www.diychatroom.com/f49/my-scrapbooking-room-45796/


Hey guys Great Ideas! Thanks alot for the contributions ! I thought maybe this idea for a section would be a bad one ... :blink:


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## gma2rjc

I like this idea. I'd like to see how other people have organized things.


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## Bootz

gma2rjc said:


> I like this idea. I'd like to see how other people have organized things.


Yea I know what you mean [email protected][email protected]! Its like peering into a house and seeing how they have arranged stuff in their house that is most like to yours....strange?"


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## Blondesense

*My Mess.*

This house is a little weird. With the exception of the living room, the laundry room is the largest room in the house. Bigger than any of the bedrooms, it does double/triple/quadruple duty: laundry room; linen closet; pantry; tools; quilting room; winter work room; general storage; etc. etc.

The pic is taken from the doorway. The wall behind my right elbow has a small chest freezer, water softener, washer/dryer and water heater. The wall to my left is lined with more shelves with pantry items, linen/towels, more sewing stuff and more tools. The small plastic containers hold my smaller tools and supplies (screwdrivers, chisels, hammers, clamps, etc) If I want to be able to find them I have to keep them separate from DH's. This is actually the neatest it has been in months.

There should be a table in there too, but we pulled it out to use for Thanksgiving and haven't put it back yet.


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## gma2rjc

Oh, I would love to have a storage area that big. We have a separate room for storage, but I call it 'the landfill'. 

I organize it and less than 2 weeks later it looks like heck again. It seems that our family has sudden attacks of memory loss. Everyone knows where to go to get something they need, but can't remember where to put it when they're done with it. 

If it's not a memory issue, then it must be 'slobaholism'.

Barb


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## Bootz

Blondesense said:


> *My Mess.*
> 
> This house is a little weird. With the exception of the living room, the laundry room is the largest room in the house. Bigger than any of the bedrooms, it does double/triple/quadruple duty: laundry room; linen closet; pantry; tools; quilting room; winter work room; general storage; etc. etc.
> 
> The pic is taken from the doorway. The wall behind my right elbow has a small chest freezer, water softener, washer/dryer and water heater. The wall to my left is lined with more shelves with pantry items, linen/towels, more sewing stuff and more tools. The small plastic containers hold my smaller tools and supplies (screwdrivers, chisels, hammers, clamps, etc) If I want to be able to find them I have to keep them separate from DH's. This is actually the neatest it has been in months.
> 
> There should be a table in there too, but we pulled it out to use for Thanksgiving and haven't put it back yet.


I love it ... its pretty cool stuff ... i need to get me a few of those storage things as well for my closet in the office.


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## ccnvchris

gma2rjc said:


> This is how I organized my scrapbooking room.
> 
> http://www.diychatroom.com/f49/my-scrapbooking-room-45796/


You are now officially my wifes hero.


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## gma2rjc

ccnvchris said:


> You are now officially my wifes hero.


:laughing::laughing::laughing:


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## Bootz

anna38 said:


> Great idea for a new section here! I'll be checking back for some new organizing ideas soon :thumbup:


Awesome thanks for the input


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## MagicalHome

gma2rjc said:


> This is how I organized my scrapbooking room.
> 
> http://www.diychatroom.com/f49/my-scrapbooking-room-45796/


This is what organization means. Thanks for sharing your hobbies and collections. I would love to have your organization skills.


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## Blondesense

> I would love to have your organization skills.


Personally, I got _great_ organizations skills. 

It's the keep-it-organized skills that seem to be lacking!


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## Bootz

Blondesense said:


> Personally, I got great organizations skills.
> 
> It's the keep-it-organized skills that seem to be lacking!


Same but I actually got my closet organized and am Going to post some pics to it


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## gma2rjc

I'm working on organizing my utility room and adding shelving. 

Barb


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## tuzhvouv

Concerning the jars and lids screwed to boards -- that's a quite old method and works well -- EXCEPT if you use glass jars and have a concrete floor. Sooner or later you'll drop one of those glass jars and it will break -- as I learned over 50 years ago at a friend's house. Use plastic jars if you can. I find I like to use the larger plastic jars for mayonnaise to store screws in. I buy the 5 pound boxes of Torx screws, then transfer them to a mayo jar. Works great and I can drop the jar without spilling the screws.


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## falconsirrus

I have to sort my tool cupboard , get boxs tool boxs small pots ; apart from shelfs hooks on wall and maybe wooden board with nails nicely placed to hold serton tools, any better ideas ?


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## paulsmith544

DangerMouse said:


> I made this one to hold coffee jars.
> The slats swivel and the pegs hold them at an angle that makes them easy to remove.
> Then you can pull the peg and they lay flat. Po)
> Double drilled, centered mounting holes in the front to screw to one stud.
> 
> DM



great work there. it`s always heard for me to manage my work place it`s so messy and disturbing.


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## PaliBob

I'm frustrated when I tried these plastic drawer Organizers. For a limited range of wanna-keeps they may be fine. What my problem was that I ending up opening more than half the drawers before I found what I was looking for. Needless to say, I stopped trying to use it.

My preference now is for multi compartment plastic cases with individual compartments that can be removed. The small size that I like has 15 Compartments. They are also available in sizes with larger bins and in double sided cases.

For a large array of small pins, nails, Clips, screws, & nails I depend on this $10 pre-loaded HFT Organizer


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## TheBobmanNH

PaliBob said:


> I'm frustrated when I tried these plastic drawer Organizers. For a limited range of wanna-keeps they may be fine. What my problem was that I ending up opening more than half the drawers before I found what I was looking for.


Labels labels labels!! 

I always keep a pack of those stick-on file labels (like, Avery or whoever makes them). They're good because they're not TOO sticky if you want to take them off and replace them.


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## Blondesense

Another idea is to separate small items (or small quantities) into craft ziplock bags and hang them on a peg board. You can find bags 2"x2" or smaller at craft stores. This way many bags with similar items can be stored on one peg.


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## Doc Holliday

I had no idea you were so crafty, gma2rjc! outside of that ittsy bitsy 1/8" of an inch difference in height , very nice!


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## PaliBob

The goal in getting organized is to have *less *stuff to keep track of and at the same time make your stuff *easier* to find. 
Putting stuff in jars does not make things easier to find:
Have to take the top off to see all what's inside
Easy to forget what you have in there
Odd size stuff does not fit in there
 Keeping stuff in little plastic drawers has the same problems
For me, my favorite is closed top Organizers:
Transparent Top shows everything
Stuff stays in place if turned upsde down
Plastic dividers can be moved for odd size stuff


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## falconsirrus

I've put a small line of white tack, same as blue tack but with slite different, along the top edge so when turned over screws and nails don't move from one compartment to the next


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## falconsirrus

Also if you do use jars, use lables, I hate searching for anything.


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## gma2rjc

It also helps if you hang a sign in your storage area, threatening death and destruction to anyone who takes something and doesn't return it or puts things back where they don't belong. :yes:

Or you could set an empty box or cart out in the open and tell everyone that when they return something, put it in the box/cart and you'll put it back where it belongs.... like they do at the library.


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## TheBobmanNH

PaliBob said:


> The goal in getting organized is to have *less *stuff to keep track of and at the same time make your stuff *easier* to find.
> Putting stuff in jars does not make things easier to find:
> Have to take the top off to see all what's inside
> Easy to forget what you have in there
> Odd size stuff does not fit in there
> Keeping stuff in little plastic drawers has the same problems
> For me, my favorite is closed top Organizers:
> Transparent Top shows everything
> Stuff stays in place if turned upsde down
> Plastic dividers can be moved for odd size stuff


Jars are transparent, and anything can be labeled. THe biggest problem with those clear bins is if you want to rearrange anything you have to pretty much start from scratch. I have two stacked sets of those plastic drawers, all carefully labeled. If I want to rearrange them? I can pull out however many I need to and move them around willy nilly, the labels all still point me where I need to go


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## PaliBob

TheBobmanNH said:


> .....The biggest problem with those clear bins is if you want to rearrange anything you have to pretty much start from scratch..........


Not true- That Organizer has 27 Bins and they are all removable. Any home made labels would be completely redundant because with the cantilever top open you can see the contents of all 27 bins
.


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## TheBobmanNH

PaliBob said:


> Not true- That Organizer has 27 Bins and they are all removable. Any home made labels would be completely redundant because with the cantilever top open you can see the contents of all 27 bins
> .


My mistake; that's a neat product.


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## JustScrewIt

Bootz said:


> take the lid and screw it to the under side of a work area... then when you need a nail or something unscrew it from its lid then screw it back on to store it away :thumbup: dont have any pictures ... my bad :\


Hey that's pretty clever. I like it :thumbup: One tip I'd add, assuming you're using a glass mason jar, is to wrap it a few times with one continuous length of clear tape (the kind from the post office. Not scotch tape of course). That way if you drop the jar or whatever and it breaks, it'll still be held together by the tape and you won't have broken glass everywhere while you're trying to work.


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## JustScrewIt

There's a British-made product called--wait for it...--Really Useful Box that I've recently discovered at OSH and have since become a fan of. They have different sizes and colors so you can color code things if labels are not your thing. Pretty inexpensive too. I bought about 12 of various sizes that fit together nicely into one large one, and they all have handles so I can just pull out the one I need and go. The cover is see-through as well to make life a bit easier.


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## EmilyGreen

Ziplock bags are great for small items, I use them very often.


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## esther.diaz

In my work, I have this stocks of art pens and etc. anything you can think of what you can bring in the office. I really love writing on sticky notes and I have lots of different varieties of pens, I like to keep myself busy and writing my task on a paper instead in the laptop typing it. Anyways, I do my own <a href="https://diyprojects.com/" rel="follow">DIY office storage</a>.


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## dereklotts

How do you guys organize your garages? I am looking for some inspiration. Most of my tools and such have always remained in boxes due to moving rental to rental every couple years. With my own garage I would like to make things more accessible and organized.

I don't have a lot of tools - mainly wrenches, sockets, screw driver sets, drill bit set, cordless drill, small pins, clips, nails in different sizes + yard tools. I am slowly adding stuff though as I work on the house. The garage is a 2 car single door and has a work bench opposite the entry. 

For my tools and misc I am thinking of getting some pegboard and hooks. Almost everyone I know either has a disaster zone garage or is empty. I want to break that trend with something organized, compact, and affordable.


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## dereklotts

TheBobmanNH said:


> Labels labels labels!!
> 
> I always keep a pack of those stick-on file labels (like, Avery or whoever makes them). They're good because they're not TOO sticky if you want to take them off and replace them.


Awesome idea, I don't have stick-on file labels, but my wife uses for her job these Dymo labels, so I printed on them info and labeled every drawer, spray cans and oil bottles - looks easy on the eye :smile:


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## Yodaman

I keep a Sharpie in my tool belt and label things as needed. Not as aesthetically eye pleasing as a printed label, but it is convenient.

If you don't want to use peg board, plywood and a box of finish nails will also work to hang hand tools.


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