Do you want to organize office supplies and materials in your home office?
Don’t have a lot of cash on hand to spend on new organizing products?
No problem!
In this post, you’ll find several budget-friendly organization solutions.
Check your home office for organization products.
When you’re on a budget, it makes perfect sense to use what you already own.
What’s hiding in your home office?
Take a good look around your office for unused or otherwise abandoned organizing products.
Don’t see anything right away? You might have to do some digging.
Don’t be afraid to open drawers, pull back curtains, and open closet doors.
You might also want to go through that pile of stuff that’s sitting next to your desk.
Besides checking your home office, you might want to take a quick look in other areas of your home.
Maybe there’s a bunch of empty magazine holders sitting in your living room, or an untouched desk organizer sitting on a table in your garage.
You might even find you have a few organizing products still sitting in the trunk of your car from your last trip to the office supply store!
Breathe life into old products.
Let’s say you’ve successfully found ten organization products from your home office treasure hunt.
The only problem is that the smoky brown letter holder bores to you tears, your pen holder has seen better days, and you absolutely can’t stand the sight of your steel-gray magazine holder.
Are you destined to work with boring office products? Of course not!
With a bit of imagination, you can easily transform these items into unique and aesthetically pleasing pieces.
You could spray paint items a different color, glue or affix colorful, fancy ribbons or stickers to items, add a touch of glitter, or resurface a piece with decorative/wrapping paper to freshen it up.
Repurpose other items in your home.
This section is all about turning “trash” into desk organization treasure.
Look for wooden, plastic, metal, and ceramic items in other areas of your home that could be easily put to use.
How about gathering up all those plastic containers without lids from your kitchen and using them to organize contents of a shallow drawer?
Or cutting away a chunk of cardboard from a sturdy corrugated box and turning it into a magazine holder?
What about turning a wire fruit hanging basket from the pantry and turning it into light storage for small office supplies?
Likewise, now is the perfect time to dig out all those pretty boxes, bowls, containers, holders, and items you’ve been meaning to display or use.
Why not turn that gorgeous mug from your trip to Italy into a pen cup holder?
How about using that beautifully woven basket as a magazine holder, or a set of bronze statues as bookends?
How about you? What do you struggle with most when it comes to organizing things in your home office? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!
One of the MANY percs of running a home business is that you can decorate and organize your office however you like, and not be bound to boring old filing cabinets and desk organizers. My cat mug pen holder is just one of the many “personal” organizing products I have in my office.
Yes, that is *so* true, Janet! I have a dog pen holder and a little dish shaped like a cat. They are two of my favorite items on my desk.
I find with most clients that we can at least get a system set up with items they already have on hand. If they want to go back later and buy some pieces to make it look better, they can easily do that, but the functional design work has already been done.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Setting a solid, functional design foundation is paramount. The extra pieces are great for making an office more fun and personable.
I love the challenge of refreshing, reusing, and repurposing what I already have! Thanks for posting to POBC!!
Glad you liked it, Olive! Thanks for stopping by the blog and for your comment. Happy New Year!
Excellent post.
Thanks, Patricia.