LUSCIOUS ORGANISATION: Workspaces

Tackling our Martha Stewart Room

Some of you may know that Mr Luscious is very, very handy – he can fix or build anything, from small appliances and general domestic repairs to complete houses and cars. It’s really pretty wonderful.

But unfortunately, he has a habit of not being organised when it comes to his tools. And this means that instead of going through the existing collection of paraphernalia, he drives 20 minutes away to the hardware store to buy more items when he’s working on a project. I feel this is both a waste of time and money, and it definitely creates a mess.

As a result, we’ve moved from house to house with an increasing number of boxes full of hand tools, electric gadgets, odd bits of pipe, rope, mesh, and about 10,000 different drill bits, nails and screws. And this is in additional to the 50,000 items relating to IT (he’s an IT executive) which I try to sort through every 5 years or so, in the hope that surely some of it is redundant now and can be thrown out or recycled.

So today, after many years thinking about it, I finally got the tools and accessories organised. And all because I wanted to reclaim the long table we have in our Martha Stewart Room (for all things hands-on including arts and crafts) to start wrapping Christmas presents.

I was prepared with various containers including an assortment of large plastic tubs and smaller boxes with compartments for sorting nails and all those other weird bits and pieces we’ve ended up collecting to fix light fittings, door handles, picture frames etc. The nail box with the compartments is my favourite because it gives a home for all those super tiny but essential things like screws and washers.

Yes, I realise I may be a little obsessive compulsive!

Anyway, after several hours – including dragging a reluctant Mr Luscious in to tell me what items could be discarded – it is done. Items are now grouped together, like with like, and still easily accessible.

Sadly, it won’t last forever but at least I’ve been able to get him to throw away the odd thing, realise that he can at least find a nail without having to buy a new box, and all gadgets are ready to grab off the shelf.

One day, when we have our dream house and unlimited resources, I’m going to create a perfectly streamlined and labelled storage system, similar to some of the ones in these collections of photos: