Paper Chaos: To bin or not to bin

Well, we had another no big project weekend, unless you count bake sale, basketball, family and friends. 

I try to keep our mail, dates and events organized but lately its been a little hectic. I had a little time Sunday afternoon (last weekend) and decided to tackle the paper bin. I have a bin in near the kitchen that I use to put all the mail, and school papers.  My idea was that once a week I would go through the papers and sort them into piles.  Well that did not happen.  The bin became a catch all for everything  paper and non paper.  I think the biggest problem with the bin is that it is big and deep. 

 I did not take a picture of the bin before I cleared it, but here it is empty:

I started with emptying bin's contents on the dinning room table.

Yes, the basketball was in the bin.

By Sunday night the table was an overwhelming mess. We ended up eating dinner in the living room for a couple of days. I must admit that this mess was a little to much for me and sat on the table until I could muster up the courage to sort it out.

Finally, by Wednesday the kids were tired of eating at the coffee table and I had to figure this out. I knew I wanted to put everything in separate file folders but I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to put the folders back into the bin without them falling over or creating a big pile of folders. I also knew I wanted to keep the bin.  It is nice a nice fuax leather bin I picked up at Target.  I really like that it isn't plastic, which means I don't mind having it where people can see it.

 A trip to Staples and 11 dollars later. 

I found a frame that will convert my bin into a file cabinet. Brilliant, I tell you.

Now my bin looks like this:

 You can't even tell there is metal insert in there.

A couple of labels and . .  .

Voila.  My new paper storage.

 I still have to add the school calendar to the front and find it a permanent home 

but I love the way it turned out. 

I linked to what-we-accomplished-wednesday-6.html