Managing Memories - Hope Chest - Morganize with Me

Today is all about hope chests! I tackled my hope chest as my first Quarterly Organizing Challenge. Then I shared the results with you on my Organizing Challenge – Recap post. The challenge was a process of purging, cleaning, painting, decorating and re-vamping! My hope chest had been the holding spot for all of my memories and my hubby’s too. When I say holding spot you could really just insert “dumping ground” for the past 15 years!

Here is my new and improved hope chest.

Walking by this everyday just makes me happy. It is such a transformation! I still haven’t ordered the black and white canvas photo to go above. I am toying with the idea of making it on my own, a little DIY??? Over on Pinterest I see a lot of great examples. (If any of you have made your own canvas print please share your tips with me!)

After conquering this BIG project I realized I needed a separate post with a break down of exactly how I decided what to keep and also how I went about setting up an efficient system. (A system that I can keep maintained moving forward.) With two goals in mind – organization and accessibility. (If you don’t have a hope chest, it can be any spot or space that you store your memories.)

Managing Memories – Hope Chest

1-Take everything out, sort and purge.

When I went to tackle my hope chest (something I was dreading) I pulled EVERYTHING out and placed all of the contents into two laundry baskets. Then I took the TIME and went through every single piece. I sorted what I wanted to keep into different piles (mine and my hubby’s) and then I purged all of the things that I needed to let go of. I was very realistic. Much of what I was holding on to I hadn’t looked at in YEARS!

I recommend that if you take this project on that you give yourself a lot of time and that you put on your hat of reality. Only keep the best of the best. The precious memories. Another person to help you is also a good idea. They can help to be your sounding board!

2-Designate exactly what your hope chest will store.

I re-assigned my hope chest so that it is now much more focused! It is now assigned to hold only a few specific categories. No more “catch all” here! It will now only store my hubby and my memories along with a few things of the kiddos. Sooo…what about the other memories??? I’m sooo glad you asked! (See the other posts in this series.)

3-Evaluate your storage space.

Determine what will best house your memories in your chest (or whatever spot you are using) and be sure to measure before you go shopping! Here is what I used…

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I chose these from Ikea because they worked really well to store large items (like yearbooks). In addition, I wanted storage pieces that would allow me to keep things separate and that I could pull out and have access to as needed.

The larger sized boxes have great handles on either end that make it easy to lift in and out of a chest. The two different sizes I purchased allowed me to comfortably put a total of four boxes into the hope chest in a stacked system. I used the large boxes for my hubby and I (we each got one).

Then one small box was created for “us” (love letters and the like – swoon) and the other small box was assigned for our kid’s (sentimental) items (the baby outfit each of them wore home from the hospital etc…). Look how beautifully they stacked and I only spent @$20 total for all four of them!!!

Memories are priceless. I loved looking through everything. I got swept back into time and was reminded of so many wonderful experience and events. However, I was also reminded that I was holding onto too many things. By keeping the number of things that I was, I wasn’t taking the time to actually ever go and look through them. My hope chest had become a place where I couldn’t have found something if I wanted to. (Or at least not in a quick fashion.) But now it is!

*KISS – Limit what memories you save & designate what is saved in an organized fashion.

Happy Organizing!!!