The time between October and January is full of decoration changes - there's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan and New Year's. You probably find yourself switching out your holiday decorations each month, which can be a bit of a pain if all those things are stored in the back of your crawl space. Fortunately, this season of updating your home's festive spirit doesn't have to be a major challenge. Here are a few tips for making the swap easier:
Use dedicated boxes
Set aside boxes to use for each holiday - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc., should each have their own box. Label all of your boxes with the name of the holiday and what's inside, as such: "Christmas - Tinsel." In case you decorate over a few days or won't need everything this year, you can grab only what you want to use at that time. You can also divide your decorations by room if you always follow a certain arrangement when hanging your items.
Put away by box
Once you have boxes for all of your holidays, make sure you use them during packing time. For instance, if you organized by room, take down all of the items in one room at a time. Similarly, if you organized by type, remove that one kind of decoration from the whole house, and then move on. That way, your home won't be disassembled and only partly put away - less clutter!
Discard
At the end of the season, throw out any decorations that are broken or that you no longer use. Think of that pesky strand of lights with the broken wire - the lights don't work, so why keep them? Getting rid of these pieces free up room for the things you do use.
Cut down on broken items by putting things away carefully. Take the time to wrap your lights, insulate your ornaments and place wrapping paper tubes. Tossing things in a box without careful consideration will result in damage - what a waste!
Devise a storage system
You can keep all of your holiday boxes together and out of the way using your garage storage system. Before you pick which components you'll use or where you're place the boxes, plan your garage space. All the decoration should be kept in one area - you won't have to guess where you've left each holiday. You can stick the boxes on wall shelves or in cabinets.
Rotate or spread
You can store your boxes so the upcoming holiday boxes are easier to access than ones still down the road. In that case, Halloween would be at the front of the line until it passes. When you put away decorations for that holiday, you can move the others forward and place the Halloween boxes in the back. This systematic method keeps you organized, but also takes time.
If you'd rather decrease time but maintain ease of access, consider storing another way: Arrange shelves on your wall storage unit so that you can line all the decor boxes in a row. That way, they'll all be up front and ready to grab. Those who really love organization can place them in chronological order: Halloween on the left and New Year's on the right.
