Storing a colour wheel of scarves

So, what does a professional organiser do on their day off? Reorganise their scarf drawer, of course!

I’m well known for my extensive scarf collection. Scarves are my signature piece. They can lift an outfit from dull to colourful in the time it takes to loop one around your neck. They have the added advantage of keeping your neck warm or keeping the sun off it. But! I digress…

Back to my scarf drawer. I’ve been trialling a few different storage methods but I’m yet to hit my sweet spot. There’s nothing I like seeing less when I open the drawer is a jumble of scarves that all tumble out when you try to choose just one.

Time to try something new. First I tipped the contents of the drawer on my bed, then I carefully rolled each scarf to approximately the same size, taking care not to crush them. Them just for kicks I arranged them in a colour wheel. That made me very happy!

A colourful collection to add that extra something to any outfit

My drawer is not ideal but you have to work with the storage you have. I decided to try a system I know works well in other situations and raided my ibox supply. 

I then put a single layer of scarves into the drawer and added the rest into a couple of boxes. 

The bottom layer

The top layer, using two iPad boxes

These boxes fit perfectly on top of the layer in the drawer and are easy to remove so I can see what’s under them. I think I’m going to like this new system but I’ll keep you posted about it goes.

Oh, and before you go. In the interest of transparency, here’s my other scarf drawer. It holds warm wintery scarves as well as beanies and gloves. Time to give it a spruce up too.

All the warm stuff

The great laundry flood of 2017

‘Mum, the laundry is flooding’ are not the words you want to hear when you’re on your way home from a relaxing weekend away.

We arrived home to find our daughter wasn’t exaggerating when she said water was gushing out of the washing machine tap, which by the way, is located inside the laundry cupboard. 

My daughter walked into the room in time to see a trickle coming out of the bottom of the cupboard door and when she opened that door she was met with a mighty deluge.

The empty cupboard with a drip tray in place - waiting for the plumber to fix the taps

Luckily the plumber was already booked to fix the bathroom leak (that’s a whole other story) so we were only without the washing machine for a day. Meanwhile I was faced with the soggy contents of the laundry cupboard.

Nothing like a messy job to bring you back to earth with a thud! We’d only just celebrated two years in our new house so figured there wouldn’t be many excess items to clean or cull. Boy, was I surprised at what we’d managed to build up in that time.

It was time to don my professional organiser hat and get to work. Water damaged items went straight into the bin. Empty bottles were sent to recycling and I dried and categorised the rest.

I then grabbed some boxes from the stash I keep on hand for clients. Three mango boxes, an iPad box and the box my planner came in were the perfect combination.

This mango box was perfect for storing bottles and cans in my laundry cupboard

One box was for laundry detergent and associated products, another was for shoe cleaning supplies and the third housed the pets’ assorted brushes and combs. The final three contain other cleaning products and sunscreen.

And the beauty of the box system? The boxes are easy to lift out of the cupboard. so, everyone in the household can easily find what they're looking for and return it to where it should be when they've finished using it without creating a huge mess.

The great laundry flood of 2017 occurred in January and I'm happy to report the cupboard is still in tip top shape, give or take a bottle or two!

PS. Xena thoroughly enjoyed the laundry clean up. She couldn't decide whether to be in the cupboard or the boxes and finally settled in the laundry basket.