If you live in a multi-story home, you're probably constantly shuttling things back and forth between floors. Here is a twist on the basket at the bottom of the staircase idea.
Get individual baskets for each member of the family. We found this good idea over at Sweet Sweet Life. Each family member gets their own color-coded basket so instead of ending up with one overloaded basket, each person is responsible for their own items.
Image: Sweet Sweet Life
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Comments (7)
Very good idea!
I count all the up and down trips as exercise for the day ;)
We did this when I was a kid and honestly, it got really out of control really fast and my mom wound up having to either deal with looking junky or take things for my younger siblings up herself.
We keep baskets for each person in the laundry room that collect their things downstairs and are taken upstairs every couple days.
While the idea is cute, I can't stand stuff on the stairs, so I make a sweep through the house, a couple of times a day if needed, armed with a laundry basket to corral any clutter.
We've been doing this for a couple of weeks now, and it works like a charm for us. I would much rather look at the four little baskets than all the junk that was there before. We empty them every night as we go up for bedtimes, and start fresh in the a.m. As I said, three weeks, and still going strong...Every family is different, of course, so we all have to find what works for us! Good luck!
I did this about a year ago and it only stuck for about a week. Then everyone used it as a dumping place for stuff they didn't want downstairs and never took upstairs.
3 kids, 4 if you count my husband, all slobs. If anyone has a magic bullet for keeping this house neat, I'd love to hear it.
-Alana
http://www.waterspiper.com
i had just one basket at the bottom of my stairs and it worked well - as long as you actively manage it.
unfortunately when we moved into our new house i stopped doing it because the stairs were too narrow and my tall husband kept kicking it over and stepping in it.