10-Things Progress: Lofty Goals

There's not a ton of storage space in my condo, but I've done a decent job of making the most of what I've got. Except one notable exception - over my stacked washer/dryer there is an open shelf, which has a few miscellaneous kitchen things on it, and above that, an 11" space that has sat empty. It's not all that easy to get to - there's a step stool involved, and sometimes I even have to monkey up onto the washer, depending on how far back the item is.

Enter: canvas storage bins. I've already got a whole family of them in my bedroom closet holding sheets, towels, ski clothes, and plenty more. Those are relatively easy to pull down whenever I need anything from them. For the space above the dryer, I decided it would have to be things I don't need all that often.


The brown/blue one has my air mattress (not much call for that these days, now that I own a pull-out sofa) and canvas drop-cloths for painting projects. The oatmeal/brown one has my box collection. Yeah that's right, I save boxes. Up until now, the collection had resided under my kitchen table. I pared it down enough to fit in the bin, and I'm very pleased with the space it has opened up!

The great thing about these (in addition to hiding my silly collections) is when I need something it's easy enough to just pull the whole bin down and rummage around. (Plus it made me limit the amount of boxes saved...always a good thing) When I first put them up there, it was a glaring intrusion in the once-empty space, but after only a couple days I was used to seeing them.

I might replace the brown one in the future with a matching oatmeal-colored one (Lowe's, $9.61), or a light blue bin I already own. There is still more space to the right of these. I may add a third bin, if I can figure out what to put in it!