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Products let you stow your holiday stuff in style
Products let you stow your holiday stuff in style
By Jane Grau
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:12/17/2006 11:31:55 PM MST
How do you divide the pre-Christmas labor in your house? Is there one person who mulls the cider while the other puts up the tree, unpacks the ornaments and puts up the lights? If you're the former, consider giving the latter some special presents that will give you a new appreciation for mistletoe.
We're talking about ornament storage. The latest ornament organizers are designed to protect for the long term fragile Christmas accessories such as glass balls, calendar plates, train sets, artificial greenery and lights - not to mention saving time and space.
The ultimate storage challenge may be those marvelous mouth-blown, handpainted European glass ornaments by Christopher Radko. Each one can cost $100, give or take $50, so your collection represents a huge investment that you don't want broken in the course of hanging it on the tree. But neither do you want these jewels to crack from the extreme temperatures in uninsulated basements, attics and garages. So Radko recommends stacking containers in a guest-room closet. Modern Display carries fabric-covered cardboard boxes with acid-free liners (chemicals from regular paper corrode hand-painted finishes) to accommodate Radko's oversized products.
For ordinary ornaments, organizers designed to prevent breakage and eliminate unwrapping and untangling are readily available at area stores and on the Internet. Check these out:
When Christmas is over, you can take up to 75 ornaments off the tree and hang them, hooks and all, on crossbars in portable "ornament safes" lined with acid-free foam. Only 2 feet high and 5 inches deep, these carriers don't take up much room in the closet.
Some under-bed drawers or mini-chests are constructed to last, with metal handles and corners. One company offers a stackable, hard-plastic storage box with an acid-free interior and wipe-clean exterior that folds flat when not in use. Lowe's has a sturdy polypropylene mini-chest with wheels and six divided drawers - it holds 72 balls - and a fabric-covered trunk with handles.
Two ways to keep strings of lights tangle-free: Wrap them around stiff panels that insert into corrugated chests, or wind them on reels like garden hoses, put them inside polystyrene cases and carry them to the garage.
Protect ceramic plates and model trains in a 12-drawer storage box with a laminated, leatherlike finish that doesn't collapse or tear the way plain cardboard does.
To keep artificial wreaths looking fluffy, store them in stackable, hexagonal, waterproof plastic boxes or vinyl bags with carrying straps that also make them easy to hang on the garage wall. Put artificial tree parts in tear-proof, zippered vinyl bags.
State-of-the-art storage extends to what goes under the tree, too. Wheeled "gift-wrap centers" made of steel wire include drawers, organizing hooks, ribbon dispensers and work tops. Stash tubes of wrapping paper in the vertical compartments of blueprint dollies on casters, or in plastic hanging bags with see-through pockets that hold tubes, scissors, tape, ribbon and other equipment.
Since all of these inventions are reasonably priced, generally $10 to $35, there's no cause for complaint. Well, there may be one: Once you've packed all the tree, mantel, door and tabletop trimmings into these marvelous containers, do you need to add an extra room onto the house in which to store the storage?
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* JANE GRAU can be contacted at jgrau@sltrib.com or 801-257-8694. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
Storage sources
* ORNAMENTSAFE.COM: The ornament safe holds up to 75 ornaments on three ornament hangers. The cost is $19.95.
* LLBEAN.COM: Boat-and-tote wreath-storage box is available in medium, $34, and large, $39.
* LOWES.COM: Iris six-drawer mini chest with ornament dividers, $19.97; 92-quart ornament box, $14.98; Sterilite 54-ornament storage box, $9.97; Real organized fabric 32-ornament box, $7.97; Rubbermaid frosted vertical wrap organizer, $9.97.
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