Hi all,

 

Welcome to decorating season. Today I realized that we have entered that period of the year where there is a holiday coming up just about monthly. My wife likes to have festive pillows, throws, wreaths, and plenty of other decorations for most all of the seasons to a greater or lesser degree.  I get complacent after Easter. When you put away easter you pull out summer/red white and blue and it stays until September. That’s 5 months or more of decorations in one set. Now I’ll have 6 changes before I change back to Easter. So that brings me to the thread title-sustainable decorating.

 

no, I don’t mean low electricity, earthy materials sustainable. I mean how can I sustain the pace of changing decorations and not want to throw them all away.  It takes a lot of effort to pull them out of storage, unpack, pack the ones going back in, get them in place, remember where they go, hang things, etc.  We’ve only owned a house for the past 3 years (we’ve moved a bunch of times, mostly internationally) so I’m still working out my way of doing things and minimizing how much work has to go into it. 
 

i want to hear and see what you all do and maybe share a few things that might be helpful for others. A couple of my learnings:

 

• Labels (in my case sharpie) and write it on every side of the box so you can read it no matter how you put it away
• shelving.  Stacked boxes are a pain and make me not want to dig into them.  I put Costco racking in for decorations and bought a bunch of plastic bins for Christmas stuff (then set the shelf height to those bins)
• vacuum bags!  Life changer for pillows, throws, and anything soft that compresses. We have at least one bag for every season.

 

those three things mean I can walk to the basement and easily pick out all of the things I need quickly with minimal energy expenditure. To remember where things go, I’ve got reference pictures on my phone that I took when decorations were in place. 
 

what are your ways of keeping sane with decorations?

 

 

My moms basement is like that. What a waste of money and space! Hahaha. I despise it all! (Mainly because I’m the one that has to drag it all out, then out it all back up)

 

I lived in a hole in a tree for 5 years, decorating is lost on me