William Morris: office supplies

Our office supplies have been packed in a box in the garage since we moved in.  I hadn't figured out a  home for them here yet, so in the box they stayed.

Last week, however, I had the brilliant idea of getting new bookshelves to cover up the pass-through in the living room.  That means that the books that are currently behind closed doors in my living room bookshelves will relocate to the new bookshelves, leaving space for office supplies behind the doors.  (The books in the garage cabinet will also relocate to the new bookshelves, leaving room for fabric and craft storage.  Its like decorating dominoes!  One bookshelf remakes two rooms!)

Nearly all of our office supplies had been packed as-is from our house, in cardboard storage boxes from Ikea.  I unpacked them from the moving box, laid them all out on the floor, and sorted everything.

There were plenty of things that I'm not sure what to do with but haven't gotten rid of. Like these disks of stuff from college and law school.  Some of them have writing samples on them that I would like to use in teaching, so I have held onto them.  But....I don't have a computer that will read these disks.

I stored them in a box with some of our travel magnets that we have collected from world travels.

It occurred to me after an hour that putting a bunch of magnets on top of a bunch of computer disks was a brilliant move, and I can probably throw those disks away now.

I pulled out a bin full of three years worth of pens and junk, and sorted it into pencils, pens, markers, and other stuff.

The "other stuff" included screwdrivers, paintbrushes, nailclippers, keyrings, paperclips, lint, lip balm, screws, binder clips, napkin rings, spackle knife, and measuring tapes.  I returned these assorted sundries back to their various homes around the house (ie. I dumped it all in the kitchen junk drawer).

I also tested every single writing implement, threw out the crappy ones, and put each group in separate bins.

Here is the end result. Sorry for the flash photgraphy, but its dark in here.

The bottom shelf contains blank notebooks and coloring books.  I might note that is not even half of the amount of blank notebooks and coloring books that we own.  I feel safe that we are prepared for a coloring apocalypse, should one happen.

I plan on grouping all the kids' art supplies in our other closed-door bookshelf, so those notebooks and coloring books will be moving to another location in a few days.

I have not actually bought the new bookshelves, so...while I have solved one William Morris problem, I have created another.

I am linking up to Pancakes and French Fries' William Morris Project.