Frugal Organization

One of my biggest pet peeves at any of our other houses was that we had nowhere for backpacks, jackets, shoes, etc.  And it drove me crazy!!

When we built this house one of my strongest requirements was that the laundry room be large enough for us to have cubbies/lockers for all four kids, or a "launch pad" as one friend put it.

We have them, and they are great!  There are two cubbies, one above and one below, and a locker area with two hooks. The kids can come in through the garage, drop off their stuff, and I never have to see it!  It is amazing!  But, the cubbies get trashy! The older kids are really bad about stuffing things into them that they don't want to take the time to put up.  We used to have fabric baskets in them, but somewhere along the way the older kids' baskets got taken out and lost.

Yesterday when I was at Walmart, I was walking past the Easter section.  It was being marked down to 75% off.  Of course they had tons of Easter baskets.  But, they also had these little dark brown baskets that look like those large laundry baskets.  They were $1.25 each!  I thought, "I don't know what I can do with those, but I'm buying them!"  I bought all 8 for $10.00 total!

When I got home and walked through the laundry room I caught a glimpse of the cubbies. There!  That's what I'll do with them!

Here's the before:

Here's the after:

A $10.00 organizational solution!

Pheobe's having a Organizational party over at her blog, so go get some other ideas!