Perfect Bits and Pieces for Home Life

Filling your home with your favorite bits and pieces is very different than cluttering up your space with junk. In the first place, there are items that you probably use every day, and these may be practical as well as aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the more often you use something, the more it becomes an essential part of your lifestyle. Household items only turn into clutter when you’re not able to easily find what you’re looking for because other things that you don’t need to use so often get in the way. Here are a few tips to think about when searching for, and organizing, your perfect bits and pieces.

Consider the environment

Repurposing and upcycling unwanted objects have become very fashionable, and with good reason. So many people tend to focus on material goods and seek to acquire every must-have new device or gadget as soon as it becomes available. In the process, some of these people are guilty of discarding whatever their new purchase is replacing. This has led to a degree of wastefulness that is evident from the amount of garbage produced by individual Americans every day – about 4.4 pounds per person. If you think about it, that’s 323.7 million people producing roughly 728,000 tons of garbage every day – enough to fill about 63,000 garbage trucks.

The good news is that Americans are recycling more than one-third of their garbage every year, and the fad of repurposing means that what isn’t being recycled is at least finding a new lease of life, albeit in a different form. Your options for creating clever bits and pieces for your home are enormous, from using your old dish rack as a handbag holder to hanging knee-high boots in your closet from pants hangers. You can find lots of useful and versatile everyday household items and As Seen On TV products in local shops and markets, at craft fair stalls and yard sales as well as online.

Furniture heaven

What if your coffee table could double as a toy box, or your chest of drawers could provide you with a charging point for electronic devices or a feeding tray for your pet, or both? This is all possible if you choose multiuse furniture, such as a stylish chest that also functions as a coffee table, or furniture that can be customized. For example, attaching a wired extension lead to the inside of a drawer allows you to plug in a number of devices and keep them charged out of sight. There will be no unsightly cables trailing at floor-level. Fitting a lower drawer with feeding bowls lets your pets eat at what is a comfortable height for them. You can then slide the drawer neatly back into place so that there are no pet dishes cluttering up your kitchen floor.

Of course, if you already have old or broken furniture, then the whole family can get creative and have fun crafting useful homemade items. Finding unusual ways of organizing your bits and pieces provides a great opportunity to make full use of your imagination and become inventive.

Bottle it

One of the most common types of trash to accumulate is the plastic bottle – about 22 billion of them are thrown out every year in the US. Yet, these bottles are more versatile than you would believe, and they are also easy to work with if you’re crafting with the kids. Among the most fun ideas are turning them into brooms, sprinklers for watering the garden, bird feeders, piggy banks for the kids and kitchen storage containers.

Talking of kitchens, glass jars are also items that can be recycled but have the potential to be artfully repurposed, providing a useful repository for smaller bits and pieces in your home. A jar can be used to store kitchen utensils and cutlery, for example, so that they are always on hand. They also make a great place for the tiny screws and nails that are necessary for the effective do-it-yourself enthusiast. If sewing is your hobby of choice, then glass jars provide an ideal storage option for buttons. For fans of drawing and painting, they are perfect for holding pens, pencils and brushes.

Whichever items and objects you favor most when it comes to a happy home life, there are lots of ways to organize them with flair and style so that you can quickly and easily find them when you need to. You’re almost certain to get a great deal of satisfaction from this — all the better to help you appreciate even more the bits and pieces that you regard as perfect for your home life.