My Husband Built Me a Bin Storage Rack to House All My Holiday Decor (There Are 42 Bins!)

I’m the kind of person who swaps out my front door wreath every season and has a collection of kitchen towels and oven mitts for each holiday. I often find myself balancing on a rickety staircase, reaching into the dark abyss of our attic, desperately trying to retrieve something like my favorite Christmas garland while dodging a rogue box of Halloween decorations that always threatened to topple over. 

I tried so many storage methods with no luck. Color-coordinated bins didn’t work, as I couldn’t find the same color bins year after year. Plus, stacking bins to the ceiling made it difficult to access the items. Label makers were too permanent, and chalk labels would rub off immediately.

I dreamed of a solution for years, especially as my collection grew. Fortunately, thanks to the help of my handy husband, Jerry, and a brilliant viral video, we finally found one. 

When we completely renovated our backyard, Jerry was the one who proposed we build a shed and dedicate an area to all my seasonal decor. I agreed but thought there’d be no way to contain my collection in “an area” of the shed. But I figured if he was up to the challenge, I’d let him take the lead — anything would be better than the current system (or lack thereof). Jerry did his homework and devised a plan that included a brilliant project he found on TikTok. 

The idea was to recreate the video with a sturdy wooden rack that lined a single wall in the shed to house an entire army of uniform bins. The design includes built-in slats that essentially turn your bins into an easy-to-access drawer. Each bin slides in and out effortlessly, eliminating the need to stack and unstack them whenever we hunt for an item. And while Jerry has become quite handy since moving into our home, this DIY project was by far one of the easiest I’ve thrown at him. On a single Saturday I inherited 42 (27-gallon) bins for a whopping 1,134 gallons of storage space, and sacrificed only two feet of wall space. 

I love that I have the space to grow my collection, and he loves the uniform look — but without my tedious cataloging, we’d never know where to find everything. Each bin is subtly labeled with an Argosy QR smart label and color-coded by season or holiday, making finding exactly what we need down to a science. With these labels, I’m able to access an app to list items and upload photos of a bin’s contents. 

When it comes time to find something, I can scan the QR code to find out what’s inside a bin or find a specific item by searching the app and typing in a keyword, such as Christmas cookie cutters or a kids’ dinosaur costume. I’ve named them by row and column for easy accessibility.

This modern touch is a game-changer — especially for those times when I need my husband to run to the shed and grab things for me. To take my holiday-decor organization one step further, I bought a set of color-coding sticker sheets and placed them on the bins: orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, pink and red for Valentine’s Day, and so on. This step is slightly overkill, but my brain processes color best. Now, the sea of black bins has some distinction at first glance.

I’ve saved so much space and have condensed my collection down so well that I have not only been able to add new categories, like birthday party supplies and outgrown baby clothes, but also have a few empty bins for future additions. 

This bin storage rack has been by far one of the most clever designs we’ve incorporated into our home, and quite literally makes jaws drop when guests come over. As for my husband, he’d say, “Happy wife, happy life,” but I can confirm this is one project that has made us both equally ecstatic.