Coordination OCD

Found another OCD! :p

I love boxes. Really, I do. I love organising stuff in boxes. But that's not enough. The boxes must be coordinated!

Went to a weaning workshop a few weeks ago and got a lot of baby food samples. Rearranged the cupboard a bit to accommodate baby food. As I went about it, I was pretty displeased with the wide range of plastic boxes in the cupboard.

Back in AMK, I had one set of Ikea boxes for my school stuff and another set for clothes. I dumped them when we moved here as we built enough storage space to just put those stuff directly on the shelves. When we first moved in here, I bought this particular range of boxes with lids for foodstuff. When ants got to our sugar, I added a second range of food boxes reluctantly. But nvm, so I have one for regular stuff and another for stuff requiring airtight storage.

Now, unfortunately, my boxes are no longer coordinated. They are of different ranges and of various colours! I tried to put similar ones together but it's not possible all the time. Every time I look at them or even think about it, I get a little jumpy. Tell me that's not OCD? :p

We inherited a number of storage boxes from Mum they all when they moved out. No choice as we have too much stuff and no time to go buy a whole set of the same. I needed more food boxes too but had no time to slowly find the right sizes before ZK arrived so I bought the cheap 17-piece set from Ikea. That meant adding yet another range to the already myriad selections. But I consoled myself that with 17 pieces, they were something I could put everywhere and be pleased with the consistent look and feel.

Then, I ran out of a certain size of the Ikea boxes. It's just stupid to go all the way to Ikea to buy a $4.50 set of boxes so I stooped so low as to get a free box from buying three packs of Vitagen *.* Needless to say, the box is quite lousy!

But! The other day, Mum wanted to go Ikea so I took the opportunity to get my boxes yeah!!! Now I have more boxes but I'm adding on to an existing range - I feel good haha! I think I'll slowly phase out the other food boxes apart from the airtight ones for the sugar and tea leaves etc. The Ikea boxes are cheap but they serve me very well. Two of them are on the drying rack now, almost ready to take over the sotong balls from their plastic bag :)

Even utensils. Found extra teaspoons in the tray when we moved back. Needless to say, they don't match our set. So I keep them in food boxes so that our sugar, tea leaves and Milo will always have their own dry spoons - useful and no eyesore! :)

Also want to refresh our towels. Now we're using all sorts of funny towels, some looking like they're 10-years-old! We even have random furniture like the two uncoordinated sofas and a little cabinet of the wrong colour. The extra bed matches our stuff though, even though it's taking up precious space now and I may not let ZK use it next time as I found mould on it last weekend; may have to axe it if the mould returns..

Of course, I can choose to dump everything and have things my way but I have no time, and it's just a waste to throw away things that aren't broken - ya, very auntie, that last bit... I figure that I can have my way when we next move house, which will happen eventually as our family grows. I can have a new space to recreate a home that's 100% ours with coordinated pieces. Hence I shall keep my OCD in check and invest my jumpiness into putting up a list of things for our next home :)