Over the last few weeks, I have been trying to take a look at things we have in our house that I like but never actually use.

One of these things happens to be baskets. Over the last 10 years (actually mostly in the last 6 since we moved to the farm), I have collected a bunch of baskets. And I love them. But aside from using one or two to serve bread once in a blue moon, they just sit on top of the kitchen cabinets. Not all that beautiful and definitely NOT useful.

So I have started coming up with ideas to make the baskets more useful and part of our daily routines.

A few weeks ago, after gathering together my husbands trappings for the 100th weekend in a row, I had what I think was a brilliant idea. We have a bunch of cubbies by our front door that were intended to house things that we need on a regular basis and cannot function without…you know, things like the personal cell phone, the work cell phone, car keys, wallet, office entry key, etc. And those are exactly the things that result in a frantic search and rescue mission in the morning if any of those are not easy to locate at the crack of dawn, when no one is really thinking all that clearly to begin with.

My husband was totally not making the most of the cubby, even after we put new plastic bins up here to keep everything contained. Drastic measures were necessary because things would end up in one of two window sills, or all over the top of the heater…or all three…and sometimes none of the above. Yeah, it was kinda crazy.

So instead of trying to keep forcing him to use the cubby, I just gave him a little basket to throw all his stuff in. In fact, I gave him 3 baskets to test out and he selected his favorite. Now when he comes home (most of the time), all the daily stuff goes directly into the basket and there’s no more scramble to find things in the morning. I love it…and he’s said he does too. I just have to make sure to go through it from time to time to make sure extra things aren’t filling it up that don’t belong there.

I also turned another basket into something useful after I came back from grocery shopping. I’m always trying to inject more fresh veggies into our diets, as well as try preparing new things. So I had a slew of fresh goodies and not nearly enough space in the fridge for it all. What to do?

I had all the produce laying here and there on the counter, which was just getting out of hand, and then I remembered all my baskets. So I pulled one down that I really like and put a bunch of the veggies in there. This basket was actually overflowing last week, but we’ve eaten most of the goodies already. Now I just need to get the guacamole going and make some pizza with eggplant. YUM! 🙂

I also recently did something similar with some random old apothecary jars I found in a half-full box which has probably been packed since we moved from Miami over 10 years ago. Ugh.

I’ve always liked the jars and they’ve got to be older than I am…we’ve had them since I was a kid. There are 3 jars, two of which are a bit smaller and my first instinct was to stick the smaller ones in our guest bath to help organize some of the trappings in our medicine cabinet. One now houses an array of band-aids and the other holds cotton balls and q-tips. Before these things were in various boxes and baggies, so it makes it just a bit neater in there.

And since I decided to photograph in there too last minute, I decided to take a bunch of stuff out and do some organizing. I’m thinking that a few little plastic trays or some such might be needed to help make things a little better too, even with just taking a bunch of the stuff out of there in general. Can you see the difference? It’s subtle. 🙂

There was one more jar left and it had no lid…so my first instinct was just to toss it. But then I started thinking about my kitchen sink where I constantly have brushes drying and water building up on the sink area. I hate this because it leaves water stains and I have to scrub. I don’t like scrubbing. 😉

So I grabbed to headless jar and stuck my brushes in there. And I found another glass dish in there (which actually used to have a candle in it) and put my scrubber in there. Everything is able to dry out without getting all grungy and it also keeps the sink area much drier. Don’t judge us for the hideous faucet…it was supposed to be a temporary thing but the story is far too long to get into. It works so it’ll work for now.

If you’re on a mission to make your home more purposeful & organized (or just want to) head over to Pancakes & French Fries to see what is happening around the blogosphere as part of the William Morris project.