It's the Little Things...

We have a utility shelf in our laundry room with all kinds of stuff on it: work gloves, caulking, lubricants (7 different types!), cordless drill, staple gun, glue guns, screws, nuts and bolts, wall anchors, etc. etc. and a bunch of hand tools. In front is our indoor drying rack with is directly across from the clothes dryer. (Skip's hand tools are in the brown rollup with the green straps on the floor.)

During COVID I sorted and organized all the screws, nuts and bolts, etc. into dollar store containers.

The shelves still look cluttered but I am able to find what I need to find in fairly short order as the area has been functioning much better. But I needed better access to my hand tools which were in a big plastic tool box with a lift out shelf. I could never see what was in the bottom and always had trouble finding the tool I needed.

Yesterday, Skip and I went out for breakfast then over to Home Depot and bought a metal tool chest with 3 drawers* that would fit nicely in the space the plastic tool box was in. It wasn't rated very high in durability for workers who haul stuff to job sites, but for my purposes, where it is just going to sit on a shelf, it is perfect.

I used my Bluetooth labeler to label the drawers. The labeler prints via an app on my iPhone.

I also bought a non-skid bath mat at the dollar store to cut up and line the bottoms of the metal drawers so the tools wouldn't slide around. I just eyeballed it but when I got it home, not only was it the correct width for the drawers, but it cut into the 4 pieces, exactly fitting the depths of the drawers! And the liner is white so I can better see what is in the drawers.

My lesser-used items are in the grey top compartment as I have to get on my tippy toes to see what is in there but the other items are really easily seen now.

There are still some things I can discard but for now, I'm very happy all my stuff fit in the chest and what I need is easily accessed. 

It's the little things...

* Fortuitously, during my online research the night before I had taken a screen shot of the item and its price. When we went to buy it the next day, it had gone up $10! Because I had the photo on my phone, the cashier honoured the lower price. Winning!