Shelving Archives - Keystone Home Products

The Benefits of Using Wire Pantry Shelving

If you want to improve your pantry, you should consider using wire pantry shelving. You may be wondering what wire pantry shelving could possibly have on shelving made of wood. However, you may be surprised at the benefits it comes with. Here are a few reasons why wire shelving is the better option.

Wire Pantry Shelving Stays Clean

Have you ever noticed how gross pantry shelving can get over time? Little bits of flour and sugar escape their bags after being rolled down. Oil that runs down the side of the bottle leaves a dark ring on the wood. Crumbs from who-knows-where collect between ingredients.

With wire shelving, none of these things is an issue. Loose crumbs and such will simply fall to the floor, making it easy to sweep and mop up each time you clean the kitchen floors. Therefore, there’s no need to make a special task of cleaning out the pantry.

Wire Is Pest Resistant

Wire isn’t just great at keeping crumbs off your shelves, it’s also great at keeping pests off of them. As you might imagine, it’s much easier for bugs and mice to walk around on a flat surface. Wire shelving makes it much harder for them to get to your food. Therefore, they’re less likely to stick around due to the inhospitable environment.

Better Airflow

Airflow is important in shelving for a number of reasons. For one thing, better airflow means moisture and dust don’t have a place to settle. Keeping moisture and dust away from your food is always a good thing. Keep your shelved goods tasting better for longer.

Shallow Shelving for Walk-In Pantries

Another reason to consider wire pantry shelving is if you have a walk-in pantry. Walk-in pantries require shallower shelving to allow for walking space. Instead of creating a deep shelf on one wall, using shallow shelving on all of the walls means easier access to pantry goods without having to dig through the shelf contents.

Wire shelving is great for walk-in pantries. It allows light-flow, is easy to see through, and fits perfectly into the limited space. Wire shelving from Keystone Home Products can be bought in varying dimensions to fit any pantry size.

Quality Wire Pantry Shelving in Toronto

If you’re looking for high quality, wire shelving in Toronto, Keystone Home Products is the place to go. We offer wire shelving, among many other much-needed home goods. Stop by our store to see our products in person, or just give us a call to ask about them. We look forward to helping you outfit your pantry with the best quality wire shelving available.

Spice Up Your Bar with Glass Shelving and Mirrors

Everyone loves going out for a drink now and then – or maybe every other night. Because drinks are in such high demand, bars can be a dime a dozen. There’s one or two on every city street, so it’s important to stand out. If you want your bar to stand out from the rest and pull in some very comfortable regulars, we have a tip for you. Spice up your bar with some glass shelving and mirrors.

Why a Bar Needs Glass Shelving

Glass shelving does a lot for a bar space. First, if you don’t have enough shelving as it is, this addition will make storing liquor bottles much easier. They’ll all be accessible and close-by for bartenders to grab as they need.

In addition to accessibility improvements, shelving that’s specifically made of glass has an added bonus. It allows a lot of light flow, making the space behind the bar feel bigger. Plus, the glass matches all of your fancy liquor bottles, making the whole area feel cohesive.

One more feature of glass shelving that we can’t ignore: it’s easy to clean. Spilling liquor on a wooden shelf is likely to damage it or strip it of its stain or sealant. Glass is easy to wipe down. Any sticky residue left from dried up alcohol can be wiped down with a cloth or with cleaners without worrying about it damaging the shelving.

Why a Bar Needs Mirrors

Glass shelving may seem like a more obvious addition, but what about mirrors? Mirrors placed behind the glass shelving in a bar add a lot of improvements.

They reflect light, keeping the bar space lit up and visible
Liquor bottles are reflected back on themselves, making the stash, visually, double in size
Mirrors also reflect the entire room back on itself, making it feel more spacious
Mirrors are also easy to clean, just like the glass shelving.

The Atmosphere Improvement

Convenience isn’t the only thing that matters when outfitting a bar with new shelving or backsplash. A lot of why people have a favorite bar is because of atmosphere. The ambience can be everything. If you’re going out for a night with friends, you don’t want to go somewhere where you feel depressed. Say goodbye to dingy, dark shelving and behind-the-bar storage. Make your bar lighter-weight, flashier, and more contemporary in appearance.

Buy Quality Glass Shelving and Mirrors in Toronto

If you’re interested in upgrading to high quality glass bar shelving and mirror backsplash, Keystone Home Products is the place to go. We offer high quality glass shelving with metal mounting brackets. We also offer beautiful mirrors for use as backsplash, vanities, and more.

If you need your glass or mirrors in custom sizes, just give us a call and let us know. We specialize in glass and mirrors, so we can help you no matter what sizes you’re after. We look forward to hearing from you.

Creative Benefits to Using Wire Shelving

Wire shelving is an oft-overlooked fixture in any functional home. It doesn’t usually have the sleek appearance many modern homeowners are looking for. Most would prefer glass shelving, or even cheap, black-coated particleboard. However, we’re hoping to change your mind. Because, wire shelving has some creative benefits that you may have never considered. Here are just a few of them.

Water and Dirt Resistant

Wooden bookshelves may look great when you first put them together, but they don’t always stay that way. If you set a cold glass of water on your wooden shelf, it takes only a couple hours of forgetfulness to leave you with a big, ugly warp spot.

It’s easy enough to avoid putting down cold glasses on your wooden shelves. However, some of our favorite things require shelf space and water – our plants! If you value a little green in your home, the best place to store your indoor plants is on a wire shelf. The coated metal is completely water resistant. However, it’s also dirt resistant!

Keeping potted plants looking their best can be a messy task. Fortunately, wire shelving will allow loose dirt to fall directly through to the floor below. From there, it’s easily swept or wiped up, along with whatever water droplets your watering can or spray bottle drips on its way to and from each plant.

Perfect for Lights and Vines

Another of the creative benefits to using wire shelving is the ability to wrap things around the wires. For lovers of string lights, that can mean lining your shelves with a magical little light source.

On the other hand, if you’re one of our plant lovers, you may find your wire shelving is better used catering to creeping vines. Creeping vines make some very beautiful houseplants, especially if they have something to creep along. Vines will naturally wind around whatever is nearby. If they’re growing from the bottom level of a wire shelf, they’ll find their way up the side and all over the open spaces in those wire shelves. With a little direction, you can have them wrap neatly along the fronts of the shelves.

Great Airflow

The creative benefits of wire shelving don’t start and end with plants. Another of their great perks is their great airflow. The high airflow of wire shelving is great for a number of crafts. Crafts that need to dry will do so faster when placed somewhere with higher airflow.

Wet pottery can be supported with a piece of cardboard on the wire shelves. Once hardened, the support can be removed to allow airflow directly to the bottom. Likewise, glaze will dry much faster with increased airflow.

Pottery isn’t the only craft that requires dry-time. Wire shelving is also great for storing wet paintings, painted figurines, stained wood, dyed shirts, and more.

Curtain Friendly

Enjoy the practical uses of wire shelving but don’t care for the appearance? Fortunately, they have a built-in solution to that as well: curtains. Wire shelving has the added creative benefit of supporting the use of curtains. So, buy yourself something ready-made, or pull out the sewing machine and some cute, patterned fabric, and make yourself some curtains. Wire shelving provides plenty of places to hook some curtain rings. Ready for some sturdy shelving in your own home? You can get it today at Keystone Home Products.

Tips for Organizing a Hall Linen Closet

Keeping a linen closet from becoming completely overrun is a great way to reduce stress in your everyday life. You might be surprised by the kind of impact your hall linen closet can have on your mood. However, most of us use our linen closet every day – often multiple times – to get towels, cloths, and more. If you have to fight with your closet every time you get into it, it’s going to cause stress. Fortunately, Keystone Home Products has the organization know-how and the products you need to keep your closet in check. Without further ado, here are our tips for organizing a hall linen closet.

Remove Unnecessary Contents

If you’re like most people, you probably have a backstock of towels and such that you never really use. If you find yourself struggling to fit your freshly folded towels into your hall linen closet, it might be because you need to remove some things.

Consider saying goodbye to the old towels that no one in the house ever uses. Move rags you need for other crafts or messy projects to a different part of the house. If you’ve got a tool setup in your garage, this might be a good place for storing rags. Cleaning rags can be kept under your kitchen sink or wherever you store cleaning products. Save your linen closet space for towels and cloths you use in the bathroom.

Keep Things Folded and Adjust Folding Method

Once you’ve removed things taking up unnecessary space, it’s time to consider your folding method. Many people grow up folding their towels a certain way and continue using that method once they move into their own home. However, every home has different closet sizes. Your folding method might leave you with towels that are too wide to sit side by side comfortably. Experiment with folding methods to create folded towels that coexist more peacefully.

Increase Airflow for Fresher Laundry

If your towels and sheets come out of the closet smelling dusty or stale, it might be because of the shelving you have installed. If your home is on the older side, wooden shelving in closets can obtain a musty or dusty smell that they then pass on to your laundry.

To increase airflow and prevent your closet shelves from making your towels and other linens smell dusty, opt for wire shelving. Getting wire shelving for a closet will keep things from smelling like old wood, prevent things from growing dusty, and discourage pests from being able to make a home there.

Implement Drawers for Non-Linen Contents

If you keep things in your linen closet that aren’t linen, you can also benefit from adding drawers to the closet. Many people use their hall linen closet to store spare toiletries, like soap and shampoo. Keep these things in order by putting some organizer drawers onto one of the shelves. This will keep your closet looking more orderly and prevent you from knocking things over when removing or replacing towels or sheets.

Prevent a Messy Closet by Avoiding These Storage Mistakes

It’s easy for a closet to get messy and unmanageable. However, you can prevent a messy closet with a little help from Keystone Home Products. We excel in home organization and want to help you get your closet in order by avoiding these storage mistakes that almost everyone falls victim to.

Using Your Closet as General Storage

This is a relatively simple mistake to make. Growing up, as kids and teens, most of us only had our room and closet to keep our things. We got used to putting everything in this space. However, carrying that practice into adulthood when you have more space at your disposal can cause problems.

As adults, we usually have more clothing. After all, now we have work clothes and formal clothes, workout clothes, etc. We can’t afford to waste space in our closets for boxes of old notebooks. But, there’s also no reason to throw out old things that are important to you. Instead, you need to find a place for these items that reflects the infrequency of their use.

Buying some shallow, under-bed storage drawers is a fantastic use of space. These allow you access, but can be a bother to get into for items you use regularly. Use the space for non-clothing items you want to keep but rarely use.

Using Closed Boxes

People underestimate the power of a lid or some tape on their willingness to access something. Almost everyone, at some point, has stored something in a box, closed it up, and put it on a shelf only to find it 6 years later, not even realizing they still had it anymore. One of the biggest storage mistakes is putting things in closed, unlabeled boxes.

Instead of packing things away, closed off and hard to access, store things in open-top boxes with labels. Invest in some nice, square storage baskets/drawers that can slide onto a top closet shelf with ease. If you aren’t interested in paying for more storage, you can also just cut the flaps off some cardboard boxes so that they’re open on top.

If you want them to look a bit nicer, consider covering them with a nice design using wrapping paper or some old fabric. And, don’t forget to label them. Use a small slip of paper, list the items in the box, and use some clear tape to stick the list to the front of the box. Now, every time you go into the closet, you’ll glance at your storage boxes and their content lists and store that information away in your brain for later.

Leaving Things on the Closet Floor

This is an easy mistake to make. From dirty clothes to discarded shoes, people leave things on their closet floor all the time. This is a huge storage mistake. These things will begin to pile up, blocking the closet door and making accessing the closet harder. With each added layer of difficulty to get into the closet, you’re more likely to make the problem worse by putting things somewhere they don’t belong. Get yourself a hamper for laundry and make sure you take the extra ten seconds to put things back where they go. You’ll thank me later.

Having No Storage Shelving

Finally, one of the biggest storage mistakes is having no storage shelving. If your closet has nothing but a hanger bar, of course it’s going to end up messy. Getting some shelving or a closet organizer will change your life and make storage so much easier. Keeping things clean is way easier when everything has a place.

Replace Damaged Closet Shelving in Toronto

Our closets are such important parts of our homes. However, it’s easy to forget just how important they are until something goes wrong. Fortunately, if you need to replace damaged closet shelving in the Toronto area, Keystone Home Products has just what you need.

Damaged Closet Shelving

In old homes, especially, old shelves can sometimes break. This is common with thinner shelves that have had something big and heavy stored on them. Maybe you had a lot of heavy ingredients stored on a pantry shelf. Or, perhaps you put a heavy box full of old school papers onto the shelf in a bedroom closet. Regardless, you’re down a shelf, and we have plenty.

Additionally, shelves can be damaged from liquids spilling. This is especially common kitchen pantries. If a bottle of oil spills and isn’t noticed for many hours, your shelf can be completely destroyed after soaking up the oil. Hall closets are equally susceptible to things like spare shampoo or acetone nail polish remover. When accidents happen, you need a reliable home goods store to help you out of a jam. Keystone Home Products is exactly that for the people of Toronto.

Replace Damaged Closet Shelving

When you need to replace damaged closet shelving, Keystone provides you with options.

We have wooden shelves that are typically part of closet organizers. However, these can also come in narrower sizes, as all of our wooden organizers are custom built with basic organizer parts. Therefore, if you need to replace some wooden shelves in a closet, we can provide you with the shelving to do so. Either buy individual, custom shelves to mount on existing side bars, or simply place a narrow organizer shelf into the closet.

Additionally, we have a lot of wire shelving. Wire shelving is a favorite, as it minimizes pest access, is spill-proof, and may bend under great pressure, but won’t break like wood. Wire shelving can also be bought in pieces or placed into a closet as a system.

Closet Organizers for Walk-Ins

If you’re struggling with shelving and organization in a walk-in closet, the solution is almost always a wooden closet organizer. These systems are completely customizable and will change your life.

They come with ample shelving for boxes, bins, shoes, books, and whatever else you want to store on them. However, you can also opt for many hanger bars for storing clothes. Give yourself the room you need to hang clothes without wrestling just to hang a shirt back up. And, that’s not all. Our wooden closet organizers can also come with drawer space. This is essential for storing small accessories, or even other knick-knacks.

No matter what your shelving needs, Keystone Home Products can help you replace damaged closet shelving with ease. We assure you, you’ll leave Keystone with confidence. Give us a call if you have questions about our products or how you can custom order them.

Professional Uses for Wire Shelving

We recently wrote a bit about the best uses for wire shelving at home. However, we know that a lot of the things considered home goods are also used in professional spaces. That’s why Keystone Home Products is here again to cover the best professional uses for wire shelving as well. Don’t worry, we didn’t forget those of you trying to improve your shop or work environment!

1. Folded Apparel Shelving

If you run a clothing shop, one of the best ways you can improve the shop is by storing folded apparel on wire shelving. Everyone has to go into a clothing shop now and again. If that shop includes folded apparel, getting it from a wooden shelf that hasn’t been cleaned in ages is really unsavory. More surface area means more germs, more dust, more dirt, and less appeal.

However, when you store folded apparel on wire shelving, you allow that clothing to breathe and remain fresh longer. The clothing is less likely to take on the smell of the shop. It’s also less likely to get dusty. The last thing you want is to trigger a customer’s allergies when they pull a dusty shirt on in the changing room.

2. Office Supply Shelving

If you work in an office, you know there’s no shortage of storage needs. Offices come with a lot of supplies. From paper to pens, ink cartridges and sticky notes, there’s a lot that needs somewhere to go. Putting up some wire shelving in a copy room or along a back wall gives you somewhere to store these things where they’re easily accessible. Employees can easily find what they need and knowing when something is running low is as easy as a glance.

3. Supply Closet Shelving

No matter what kind of business you work for or run, you almost certainly have a supply closet. If your supply closet is in need of a boost, if you’re moving your business to a new space, or if you’re renovating an old coat closet, you need wire shelving. One of the best professional uses for wire shelving is mounting it across an empty closet space. Then, your empty old coat closet can be used for storing all kinds of things.

Dental and medical offices can use supply closet wire shelving for storing backstock of packaged supplies. Or, if you’re in a medical environment where patients stay for surgery or overnight observation, you can also use it for storing blankets, pillows, and gowns in more sanitary conditions.

4. Cubicle Shelving

Finally, the last of our favorite professional uses for wire shelving: cubicle shelving. Cubicles have a marked lack of storage space in them aside from the surface of your desk. If you need somewhere to store notebooks, binders, stationery, or boxes of small supplies, wire shelving is here for you. Wire shelving is lightweight, making it great for mounting on a cubicle wall. If your cubicle wall isn’t made for screws, you can also buy or create a wire rig that hooks over the top edge of the cubicle. This is especially stable and lacks the risk of screws coming loose.

Take your cubicle to the next level and reduce crowding your desk space with wire shelving from Keystone Home Products.

Top Uses for Wire Shelving at Home

There are a lot of uses for wire shelving at home, but some of these uses are more practical than others. Keystone Home Products offers wire shelving to all of our lovely customers in Toronto and the GTA. We want you to make the most of them. Therefore, we’ve put together a short list of the best ways you can utilize these shelves at home. Let’s start with-

1. Kitchen Overflow Shelving

One of the top uses for wire shelving at home is in the kitchen as overflow shelving. Are you struggling to fit everything into your cupboards? Wire shelving is the solution.

You can use these shelves to store snacks, cereals, boxed goods, and more. The best part about the shelves being made of wire is that they’re pest resistant. Pests have a harder time traversing wire than solid surfaces and are less likely to get into your things or try making a home in them.

For that reason, and due to the shortage of space, wire shelving is especially useful in apartment kitchens. Without a full pantry, apartment kitchens often leave you with cramped cupboards. Storing some of your things on wire overflow shelving is a great way to give yourself more wiggle room when unloading groceries.

2. Garage Shoe Shelving

There are as many ways to store shoes as there are people to wear them. Everyone does it differently. However, one of the best uses for wire shelving at home is for just this.

Setting up some wire shelves in the garage, beside the door to the house, is the perfect way to store shoes. The shelves offer a clear view of their contents because they’re not solid, like wood. Plus, because of those gaps between the wire bars, any dirt on your shoes will simply fall through instead of gathering on the shelf. That means a neater appearance in the long-run.

3. Supplementary Closet Shelving

Closets are made for storing things, but isn’t it curious how they so frequently lack the necessary storage fixtures? If your closet has plenty of extra space and you’re struggling to make use of it, put in some wire shelving. These shelves can be used for storing dress shoes, boxes of seasonal clothes, decorative baskets of accessories like scarves, and more.

Plus, if you have no built-in shelf above your clothing bar, you can use wire shelving there instead. The space above your clothing bars is extremely useful and would be terrible to let go to waste. A long stretch of wire shelving would be just the thing to salvage it. Use this shelving to store boxes of knickknacks, accessories, notebooks you need semi-regularly, hats, and more.

4. Patio Plant Shelving

Finally, one of our favorite uses for wire shelving at home is as patio plant shelving. So many of us love keeping plants. They add a bit of life to our homes and give us something to do in our free time. If you enjoy keeping plants on your patio, wire shelving is the ideal display solution for them.

Wire bars allow loose soil to fall through instead of gathering on a surface. This open design also means watering them is no stress, as you won’t have to worry about warped wood or pooling. Plus, because plants will drain excess water, you can even set up your shelf so that you only need to water the plants on top. They’ll then drip unneeded water to the plants below, creating a wonderful trickle-down system that’s both practical and relaxing.

Tricks for Organizing Your Kitchen Cupboards

Keeping your kitchen cupboards organized is the first step to enjoying using your kitchen. However, it’s not an easy step for everyone. Organization is a skill that takes practice. Furthermore, kitchen cupboards involve fitting many differently-shaped items, all with different uses and levels of importance. It’s not as straightforward as packing things into a box for later; the contents of your cupboards need to remain accessible by priority. So, here are some tricks for organizing your kitchen cupboards.

Keeping Useful Backstock Only

The first step in organizing your kitchen cupboards is to only keep backstock that’s useful. What is backstock? It’s all of that food you keep around because you’ll use it one day, but not all today. Canned veggies and bags of rice are great backstock for when you want to make soup one rainy day.

However, a huge chunk of people’s cupboard space is often overtaken by backstock food items. If you can never seem to make room for new groceries, and you can’t really figure out why, there’s a good chance it’s that you simply have too much backstock.

To cut down on how much space is taken up by backstock, start by checking expiration dates. You’ll be surprised how many things have been sitting untouched for 5 years.Yes – even when you swear you didn’t buy them that long ago.

After removing expired foods, if you still have quite a few boxes of instant food or canned items, pull some of it out for use this week. Make 3 recipe piles on your counter and pile some backstock food into them. This week, you can surely use some of it up by making soup, chili, a rice dish, or some other food that uses lots of preserved food.

Separating Spices

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their cupboard space is keeping their spices with everything else. Separate your spices. No matter how you cut it, spices do not stack well. Trying to find what you’re looking for will lead to knocking over stacks and making an organizational disaster.

Instead, opt for a wire spice rack that can be mounted on the pantry well. Another option is a countertop spice rack – maybe one that swivels. But, perhaps our favorite method of storage: use a drawer. A shallow drawer that isn’t big enough for much else is great for storing spices. Lay them down so their labels face up and line them up in your drawer. Finding spices will become easy as pie and they won’t fall all over while you look.

Storing Appliances Outside the Pantry

Another mistake that’s commonly made is storing appliances in the pantry. Organizing your kitchen cupboards becomes way easier when you don’t have to navigate around a crockpot. If you have a tall pantry as well as cabinets, store appliances in lower cabinets or on a wire rack instead of in the pantry. The pantry is easier to access than lower cupboards, so it should be used for food, which you need more often.

Why You Should Use Wire Shelving for Clothing Stores

Clothing stores have a lot of unique needs when it comes to storage and hardware. For one thing, they need storage that people won’t see, but also additional storage that displays products visibly. One of the most invaluable solutions is wire shelving for clothing stores. Let’s take a look at why.

Lets Fabric Breathe

One of the #1 reasons to opt for wire shelving is that it’s so breathable. A lot of boutiques and clothing stores go for wooden shelving because it’s sturdier and looks high quality. However, the way it treats clothing doesn’t make those perks worthwhile.

Wooden shelving allows little breathability. The clothes on the bottom of a stack will absorb that wood smell, pick up dust from the shelf surface, and can even grow mildew if in a humid shop or environment.

Wire shelving, on the other hand, allows lots of air flow. Moisture and smells won’t get trapped in your clothing fabrics. Plus, wire shelving has minimal surface area for collecting dust, which means your clothes won’t pick it all up when stacked atop it.

Prevents Pests

Clothing stores don’t always change stock frequently, which means a stack of shirts may remain in the same place for many months. New shirts may be added to the stack, but they may not be fully removed for a while.

Solid surfaces, like those of wooden shelving, offer a great place for pests to hide or make their home. If you have a row of clothing stacks with a solid surface up against the wall behind it, you’re making pest real estate. Bugs that eat fabric, mice looking for a warm place to build a nest, and more can make home behind your clothing. This may be easy to notice on lower shelves, but higher up, you can’t see what’s going on without deliberately checking.

Constantly checking for signs of pests (which are pretty good at not being seen) takes more time than a clothing store owner wants to spend on such a task. A better, easier, and quicker solution is to opt for wire shelving. Without a solid surface to hide them from view, from light, and from falling through, most pests will steer clear.

Allows Stacking and Hanging

Wire shelving isn’t just better for the longevity of your clothing products, it’s also better for display practicality. Wire shelving can accommodate stacks of clothes as well as hangers. This presents 3 great options for displays:

You can display more clothing variety by stacking shirts above hung shirts of a different type.
Stacked clothes can provide quick stock for the hangers below. This makes it easy for customers to see the shirt without unfolding it. If they take the product on the hanger, staff can quickly put a new one in its place.
Outfits can be paired vertically. Shirts that go well with a set of jeans can be hung below that stack of jeans. This is great when you have an outfit on display. When someone falls in love with it, they can get the whole thing in one place.

Affordable from Keystone Home Products

If you need wire shelving for clothing stores in Toronto, Keystone Home Products is the place to get it. We offer high quality, affordable wire shelving for clothing stores. Buy storage and display solutions that will last. Contact us if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help.

Home Goods for Your Basement Renovation

If you’re planning to renovate your basement, there are some things you’ll need. While many department stores offer the cushy furnishings you’ll need, or the bathroom towels, Keystone offers something different. We have less thrilling, but incredibly vital, parts, like shelving, mirrors, and closet doors. Here’s a little bit about what we offer in terms of home goods for your basement renovation.

Shelving

Every basement needs some shelving. Well, any room needs some shelving, really. Your basement is no different. And, after you’ve renovated it, it will be completely bare and in need of some vital shelving additions.

Display

First off, you’ll need display shelving. Most basements have some need for display. Whether you need shelves for books, video games, decor, or something else, we’ve got you covered.

Our wooden organizers are great for these purposes. While they’re usually marketed toward closet storage, there’s nothing about them that dictates they’re strictly for closet use. Our wooden organizers are great for visible storage and displays as well.

In fact, they can even be used as entertainment centers. What sets them apart from other entertainment centers is the abundance of storage. Many TV stands offer the very least in terms of storage. For someone with a movie or game collection, a set of gaming consoles, or the desire to border the TV with bookshelves, standard TV stands don’t cut it.

Storage

Display shelving is important, but storage shelving may be even more so. Home goods for your basement renovation must include shelving in places like closets and bedrooms. While the aforementioned wooden organizers are great for closets, we can’t ignore our wire shelving. This shelving is great for smaller closets that don’t have room to accommodate an entire organizer. It allows fabric to breathe, preventing mildew, closet smell, and pests.

Closet Doors

Once the structure is built, you may come to realize your closet is a bit… open concept. That is to say, you’ll need some closet doors. Keystone Home Products has a variety of closet doors. We offer sliding doors as well as bifold doors. Either style can be bought covered with mirrors as well. Mirror closet doors allow comfort while dressing and help to make a space feel bigger. This is vital if your basement bedroom is a small guest room.

Mirrors

While mirrors on the backs of closet doors are one way to offer you or your guests a reflection, we can’t forget the vanity. If you’ve added a bathroom during your basement renovation, a vanity mirror is one of the home goods you can’t do without.

Here at Keystone, you can get a mirror in any size or dimensions. Check out our handy installation guide to see how you can install it yourself.

Shop Keystone Home Products

If you’re shopping for home goods for a basement renovation in Toronto, Keystone is the local home goods store for you. We’re right next door and offer everything you need to turn an empty, finished basement into part of your home. Give us a call if you need help or have questions about our products.

Affordable Glass Shelves in Toronto

Many houses simply don’t have enough storage space, while others need a boost in design. Trying to add storage space without cluttering up a room can be difficult. If you want more storage space as well as a design statement piece, it’s time to buy affordable glass shelves in Toronto. Keystone Home Products’ affordable glass shelves in Toronto are the perfect way to improve storage and design aesthetic.

A Sleek and Beautiful Design

It can be hard to find the right balance between light and heavy interior design pieces. Too many heavy, bulky pieces of furniture, like bookshelves, can make a room feel cramped. Glass shelving helps keep things in the balance. Their transparency helps maintain light flow even after you’ve installed them. Keystone’s affordable glass shelves are perfect for a few books, statues, plants, and more.

While glass is a great way to avoid weight in your design, your shelves still need to hold up under the weight of their contents. That makes cheap glass shelving a nightmare. One too many books and they could shatter. This is why quality is so important when buying glass shelving. Keystone’s affordable glass shelves are durable and made to stand up to all of the usual shelf contents. When buying Keystone quality, there’s no reason to worry about shelves breaking.

Glass Shelving Light flow

As we mentioned, one of the great features of glass shelving is the maintenance of light flow. If you have a small home, you won’t have to worry about your new shelves blocking the light. In fact, you can even place them in front of a window to improve privacy, or use up otherwise difficult-to-use space. Plus, with the addition of sunlight and the light flow quality of glass, you’ll be able to see shelf contents easily.

Have you ever tried displaying something on a wooden book shelf? To get the necessary lighting on a wooden bookshelf to make viewing decor or displays easily, the shelves must be far apart and there must be plenty of light in the room, ideally, directed at the shelf. Glass shelving can be placed closer together and requires less direct light to adequately show off its contents. This makes glass shelving great for small homes.

Easy to Clean

There’s another benefit to affordable glass shelving. It’s easy to clean! Many types of wooden bookshelves require wood-safe cleaners so that the finish isn’t ruined. Glass shelving, on the other hand, does not. You can use virtually any cleaner you like to wipe down your glass shelving. It won’t be easily damaged by the wrong choice.

Plus, glass can stand up to water a whole lot better than wood can. This makes glass shelving a great place for displaying a vase of flowers or a fish bowl, or a lot of small, potted plants. When moving any of these things or making changes to them, a little spilled water won’t damage your shelf.

If you’re interested in purchasing affordable glass shelves for your home in Toronto, come to Keystone Home Products. If you have questions about our products, give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to help answer your questions.

Black Closet Organizers for Modern Homes

Struggling to keep your home organized and looking great? You’re not alone! One of the biggest challenges in any living space is finding the right balance between organized and attractive. That’s why we at Keystone Home Products want to tell you about the benefits of black closet organizers for modern homes.

Modern Black Closet Organizers

What are modern black closet organizers, really? You’ve probably seen all kinds of cheap furniture called closet organizers. What exactly are the closet organizers from Keystone Home Products? They’re beautiful, wooden shelving modules that can be put together for various types of storage.

Black closet organizers for modern homes come with many ways to store things. There are regular shelves, wire shelves, hanger bars, and drawers. This makes them perfectly suited to storing anything you can think of. Therefore, you can use them in your walk-in or anywhere else in the house.

Organizing Beautifully

One of the best tips we can give you, when it comes to organizing, is to use baskets. Whether you prefer wicker, solid wood, plastic, or fabric-framed baskets is completely irrelevant. Find a style that suits your home interior, buy a bunch of them, and go wild.

The thing that makes baskets such a fantastic organizational tool is that they turn any flat surface into a drawer. Each basket’s contents are contained and can be looked through without having to move them all around to reach the back. Plus, when you use baskets to sort and store things, you don’t have to look at the contents of your shelves. Instead, you can see only the crisp, clean faces of each basket.

When you pair basket use with black closet organizers for modern homes, you get a wide storage space, with a dynamic appearance. Instead of the entire system looking repetitive and lifeless, like a set of cabinet doors would be, you get something with variety that’s still pleasing to look at.

Use Them Wherever

Black closet organizers for modern homes aren’t just for the closet. These units can be used anywhere in the house. For example, they make great entertainment centers. Instead of using a large hanging area for clothing, display your TV there. Store game consoles or your old DVD player on the shelves beside it. Store electronics, cords, DVDs, and remotes in the drawers nearby.

That’s not the only additional use of our black closer organizers. You can also use one in an office, to store papers, books, and supplies. They can be put to work in the garage, storing tools, work clothes, shoes, and storage bins. The possibilities are endless. Anywhere you could use extra storage, these units will change your life.

Get Yours Today

If you’re interested in one of our modern black closet organizers, drop by Keystone Home Products today, or give us a call with your questions. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you to improve storage in your home.

6 Unique Clothing Organization Methods: Part 2

In Part 1, we applied our clothing organization methods to shirts, pants, and formalwear. Now, let’s talk accessory storage.

Underwear Drawer

The underwear drawer is one of the messiest drawers in almost anyone’s closet. For many, taking the time to fold and pair socks is simply not worth it. However, for those looking for that elusive, neat closet, organizing your underwear drawer is worth it. Plus, it’s easy with our clothing organization methods.

To start, stop pairing socks by folding one over the other. Storing them in this way stretches and weakens the elastic on the outer sock. Plus, they’re hard to manage within the drawer when they’re stored this way. Instead, lay them together, one on top of the other, and fold them twice. When you have your square of sock, you can line them up, upright, just like your shirts.

Boxers and boxer briefs can be folded in half twice one way and then in thirds or quarters the other way. This will also give you a more easily storable square. For briefs or women’s underwear, you can achieve the same small square by folding twice in half and then in half again the other way. If you’re organizing very small underwear, instead of stacking upright, you can lay them flat, starting in the back of the drawer, and then overlap further pairs, moving toward the front of the drawer. This will make them much easier to pick through.

Accessories

Accessories can be really tricky to store without some help from experienced organizers. They’re usually oddly shaped and can be awkward to keep in order. Fortunately there are tried and true methods for storing most accessories that the average person just hasn’t considered.

Scarves are frequently misunderstood. Some people try to fold them, others hang them from a hanger. However, the most convenient – and even cute – way to store them is in ‘donuts’. Simply hold one end of a scarf in your hand and wrap the rest around your hand until you have a round ball of fabric. Then, simply tuck the remaining end into the center. This little scarf donut can be stored in a basket along with the rest of your scarves.

If you don’t have a mounted bar for accessories, you’re missing out. Having a small bar mounted on a wall can accommodate many kinds of accessories. Necklaces can be clasped onto it, keeping them from getting bunched up or tangled. Watches and bracelets can be slid onto an open end of the bar. Not only does a mounted bar keep things from getting messy, it also makes it much easier to find the accessory you want, as they’re all displayed.

Shoes

There’s very little secret to properly storing shoes. They’re tricky, especially if you have a lot of them. Flip-flops are the exception. These can be easily stored on a small shelf or in a drawer. By placing pairs top-to-top, you can set them in a row on their sides, and fit tons of them in one drawer or on one shelf.

Boots, tennis shoes, and even formal shoes are all best stored on a shelf, on display. Many people’s clothing organization methods frequently involve buying shoe shelves with two horizontal bars. These aim to tilt shoes outward so that you can see them, but are largely unnecessary for most people. Their tilted bars tend to allow shoes to slide off the shelf, and their open design is terrible for storing things like heels. Flat, wooden shelving allows you to display shoes with little fuss and are easy to wipe down, should they get dirty.

6 Unique Clothing Organization Methods: Part 1

Tired of a messy closet? It’s time to take some advice from the professionals on organizing your clothing. Beat the hard-to-maintain methods you were taught growing up and check out these 6 unique clothing organization methods. Let’s start with the big things.

Seasonal Clothing

Let’s talk about one of the biggest pains in the clothing organization world: seasonal clothing. Whether you’re dealing with ten sundresses that take up space during ten months of the year or bulky parkas that you only use in January, there’s a solution for you.

One of the best clothing organization methods of storing seasonal clothing is tired and true: Vacuum sealing. Large jackets with a lot of insulation take up significantly more room than they really need to. Folding them up and packing them into a vacuum sealed storage bag can shrink them down to a tenth of their original size.

Did you think vacuum sealing was only for large items? Think again! Not only do smaller pieces of clothing waste space to a smaller degree, vacuum sealing helps protect clothing from dust, bugs, and other pests.

Pack all of your seasonal clothes into a few vacuum sealed storage bags and tuck them into a drawer or onto a top shelf in the closet.

Shirts and Pants

Since most of us were small, we’ve been taught one of two simple clothing organization methods for pants and shirts. Fold them in half where they’re symmetrical and then again the other way. Then, stack them in your drawers. This method is all wrong! While it’s simple to do quickly, you pay for it with the immediate mess it causes. The only way to find the shirt you’re looking for is to lift up the top shirts and peak underneath them. Repeatedly doing this on the daily is both annoying and leads to a disheveled drawer.

Pants are a bit more compact, so folding them this way frequently leaves big gaps on either side of your stack while the stack sits too tall for the drawer. There’s a better way.

Popularized by Marie Kondo, the best way to store your shirts and pants is by placing them upright. Nothing should be under something else. When stored upright, clothes become like books with the spines facing outward. You can see exactly what you have and find what you’re looking for.

Start by hanging all of the shirts you want to keep wrinkle free or that you use extremely often. The shirts left – perhaps casual t-shirts – should be folded in thirds the long way and then in quarters the other. This will leave you with a small square of shirt. If you plan ahead, you can make sure any recognizable parts of the shirt are visible on the outside. This will make finding your shirts easy. Plus, when you do this with pants, it makes using up all of the drawer space without overtaking the height of the drawer much easier.

Dresses and Suits

Storing dresses and suits can be really tricky. On one hand, you don’t want to wrinkle them if you may be wearing them soon. On the other, if you have many options, you may be running low on space.

To start, make the suits and dresses you need hung up easy to store. If you don’t have a hanger that accommodates each part of a suit, they’re easy to find online. Being able to keep all pieces of a suit hung up and in one place is a huge time saver.

Dresses should always be stored on padded hangers. Their typically delicate straps or sleeves are not meant to withstand pulling and stretching. Plastic or metal hangers – especially ones with built in hooks along the top – can do a number on expensive fabric.

If you don’t plan on wearing a dress for a long time or only for a super special occasion, storing it in a vacuum sealed bag might be the solution. Many people avoid folding dresses, but unless the fabric of the dress is specifically not meant to be folded, it doesn’t hurt. The biggest reason why people don’t fold dresses is that it wrinkles them and they’re hard to contain. If you use a vacuum sealed storage bag, containment is no big deal. When it’s time to wear your dress again, a little bit of steam will take out any wrinkles from storage.

Continue Reading to Cover Accessory Storage

Broken Wire Shelving Replacement in Toronto

If you have wire shelving in your home, you know how inconvenient it is for it to break. Even one bar breaking on wire shelving can make storing things more difficult. Plus, it really decreases the attractiveness of the shelving. Keystone Home Products is here to help you with your wire shelving replacement needs. Let’s check out what Keystone has to offer in terms of replacement.

Wire Shelving

Tired of your outdated, damaged, wire shelving? Keystone Home Products has quality, wire shelving to replace it with. What sets Keystone’s wire shelving apart from other brands is that our wire shelving is quality. If you want wire shelving that won’t break down after a few years of use, you can count on our products.

Keystone’s wire shelving is not just simple wire racks. They’re created with the intention of providing closet or room storage. There are wide shelves with hanger bars beneath them as well as smaller shelves which sit closer together.

Wire Shelving Modules

Wire shelving isn’t always in one piece. Often, it comes in modules that can be put together in any way you like. Of course, if a wire shelving module breaks, you can’t just buy a whole new wire shelf to fix that. Keystone Home Products offers wire shelving modules that are used in our closet organizers. If you need to replace a single module, you can do so by buying from us.

Or, if you have a standard wire shelf and would prefer something more modular, replace it with one of our modular shelves. You’ll have a more personalized shelving unit, made to hold whatever you’re looking to store.

Wooden Shelving

Wire shelving is not everyone’s cup of tea. Therefore, if you have a wire shelf that’s recently kicked the bucket, it’s a great opportunity to move on from wire shelving. If wooden shelving is more your style, you’ll be happy to learn that Keystone Home Products has modular wooden shelving.

Keystone primarily markets wooden shelving as closet organizers. However, our wooden shelving is great for anywhere in the house. Choose how many shelves, how spaced apart they are, and additional features as well. Our wooden shelving is a great upgrade if you’re looking for something a bit sturdier than wire.

Our wooden closet organizers are not just shelves. They also come with drawers and hanger bars. One of their benefits is that they can be mounted to the wall. This makes cleaning the floors under them easy and keeps stored belongings away from the dusty floor.

Shop Keystone

If you need help with wire shelving replacement in Toronto, Keystone Home Product is your one-stop shop for getting exactly what you need. Therefore, contact us today if you have questions about our products. Or, if you like to see products in person, come visit our store. We look forward to seeing you!

Wire Shelving and How It Can Improve Your Kitchen

If your kitchen feels crowded or messy, Keystone Home Products has exactly what you need to improve it. For most kitchens, the answer is simply the need for more storage space. However, not just any storage space works for a kitchen. Here’s how Keystone can help improve your kitchen.

Organizational Dilemmas

One of the most common problems in any kitchen is the lack of organization. This isn’t always user error and is, more often than not, caused by inadequate space. So, how can you make the most of the space you do have?

Well, the first step is more storage space. While there might not be enough storage space for all of the food and appliances you own, there is likely some empty space to spare. If you have any free space in or adjacent to your kitchen, you have the potential for more storage space. If you’ve never considered that before, you’re probably feeling a spark of hope, and for good reason.

Storage Space

The problem that many people face when struggling with kitchen storage is that they overthink things. For many, if they run out of cabinet or pantry space, that’s the end of the road. They think the only solution would be adding more cabinets, which would involve renovating.

Not so! There is an affordable and simple alternative: shelving. Having some additional shelving along an empty wall can be life changing for someone with a crowded kitchen. The extra surface space can be used for any number of kitchen objects. However, not just any shelving will work ideally in a kitchen. Here’s why wire shelving is the superior choice.

Wire Shelving to Improve Your Kitchen

Wooden shelves may seem the easier choice, especially if you have a wooden shelf somewhere else in the house that you could commandeer. However, there are drawbacks to wooden shelves that aren’t present with wire ones.

Wooden shelving, having solid surfaces, corners, and, in most cases, a gap underneath, can contribute to pest problems and unsanitary food conditions from dust and the like. Wire shelving, on the other hand, has, as you guessed it, wire surfaces. These wire surfaces are difficult for bugs or mice to traverse, making it harder for them to access food. Plus, without adequate hiding places, they’re unable to make nests.

Function and Appearance

While many might opt for wooden shelves because it’s easier to store smaller things on them than wires, there’s a solution for that. Store smaller things, like cans, in a cupboard or pantry. This keeps them on a stable, wooden surface while also hiding the mess of cans from sight.

Focus your wire shelf storage on larger items, like cereal boxes, instant foods, bags of rice, and so on. The larger the items, the easier the shelf is to keep orderly, which is important if it’s always visible.

If you want to expand your kitchen storage, visit us at Keystone Home Products in Toronto. Or, call us with questions and concerns and we’ll be happy to help.

How to Improve Storage Accessibility in Your Home

Are you having trouble with storage accessibility in your home? You’re not the only one. If you’re tired of not being able to find what you’re looking for or not being able to reach the boxes you’re storing, it’s time to learn the Keystone method to improve storage in your home. Here’s how it’s done.

Shelving

The first step when you want to improve storage in your home is installing adequate shelving. Too often, people attempt to store things in a closet or storage room by just stacking boxes in whatever space is available. This is a huge faux pas when it comes to storage. If you stack boxes, you’ll have a lot of difficulty getting to all of the boxes that aren’t right on top or in front. This makes finding things a nightmare.

By installing shelving, you’re then able to line boxes up on the shelves by themselves or in stacks of two, depending on the shelf. Keystone’s wooden organizers are great for this if ordered with mainly shelves and drawers.

Labels

The next mistake people make is storing things in unmarked boxes. Whether you use cardboard boxes, plastic bins, or storage drawers, labeling their contents will change your life. If you don’t feel like buying a label maker, try these three methods:

Direct action. If you’re using old cardboard boxes, you might be happy to mark directly on the box. Go ahead! Pull out a Sharpie and write a list of its contents on the side. Make sure to be specific enough that you won’t have to open it and dig through it to figure out if what you’re looking for is inside.
Masking tape. Masking tape is that tan tape that’s frequently used to tape off an area being painted. This tape is easy to remove if it’s not exposed to extreme heat and holds permanent marker ink very well. Just tear or cut a piece of this off the roll and stick it to your box of choice, writing on the tape.
Strapping tape and paper. Strapping tape is the wide, clear tape used to seal cardboard boxes, typically. If you don’t have some already, a roll is only a couple dollars in most stores’ office supplies section. If you don’t want to hand write your labels, you can print off labels on computer paper. Then, cut out the labels and use strapping tape to attach them to the bin or box you’re using. This will make your labels easy to spot, easy to read, and easy to rip off and throw away later. Plus, if you cover the entire label in tape, it will also be fairly water proof.

Shop Keystone

If you’re looking for shelving, Keystone Home Products has an abundance of it. We have wooden organizers and wire shelving. Plus, you can buy exactly what you need for either. Therefore, your custom shelving needs are welcomed here. Give us a call if you have any questions about our products or visit us in-store to see for yourself!

Make Your Basement Storage Pest Resistant

If you store things in your basement, you might have noticed that pests have an easy time making their homes among your belongings. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you use certain storage methods, even your basement storage can become pest resistant. What are these special storage methods? They’re not as tricky as you might think.

Chew-Proof

The first thing you’ll want to do is make your containers chew-proof. The contents of cardboard boxes can easily become ruined when mice chew through the box and make it their home. Any fabric or papers inside will get torn to pieces for their nest. It will also all be contaminated by droppings. In the case of bugs, the contents of a cardboard box can get eaten, chewed on, and molted skins may be left behind for you to deal with.

Because of these reasons, it’s better to opt for the chew-proof option of plastic bins. If you buy decent quality plastic bins to store things in, pests won’t be able to chew holes in them so easily. Even if some mice made a home in the corner of the basement, at least your stored belongings would be unaffected.

Wire Shelving

One of the best ways to avoid pests making a home in your stored belongings is by storing them on wire shelving. While individual items should always be stored in a container of some kind, placing those containers on wire shelving make your basement less appealing overall. When boxes or bins are stacked and lined up on the floor, it allows a kind of maze for mice or rats to run through. They can make their nest anywhere between bins and finding the nest to get rid of it is even harder.

However, if you keep your boxes and bins on wire shelving, the floor remains mostly clear. That means less space for rodents to hide and, therefore, a less appealing space for them to live.

In the case of bugs, wire shelving isn’t an ideal place to lay eggs either. Instead of climbing up a tricky surface like wire shelving, they’re more likely to lay their eggs on the floor. That’s a lot easier to clean up!

Natural Predators

The last point might be kind of surprising. If you have cats, let them have access to the basement. So long as there’s nothing in the basement that can harm them, allowing cats to roam the basement is a great way to keep it clear of pests. They’re likely to kill any mice or rats that wander in, preventing an entire colony from moving in. Not only that, but their scent alone can deter mice and rats from even considering your home.

Rats have specific scent receptors in their noses that allow them to recognize predator scents, even if they’ve never crossed paths with one before. As soon as a rat smells your cat, it will know this is a less than ideal home and will carry on looking elsewhere.

For more organization tips from Keystone Home Products, take a look through our blog. Or, if you have questions about what we carry and how to order, give us a call. We look forward to hearing from you.

Tips for an Excellent and Effective Storage Room: Part 2

In our last article, we covered the first two steps to an effective storage room. However, it doesn’t end there. After you’ve sorted through each box and made sure to store things in proper spaces, there’s still the storing to do. However, the hardest part is over. Going through your old things and then organizing them into bins is a huge pain. It’s all easier from here on out.

3. Label Label Label

Next up is labeling. One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to storage room functionality is not labeling things effectively. “I’ll remember what’s in this bin.” No, you won’t! You might remember one or two things in a bin, but rarely will you remember all of the things.

Every bin or box should have a label on it. The label should cover all of the groups in the bin.

For instance, if you have a box filled with home video tapes, graduation paraphernalia, and baby photos, don’t label it “Memories” unless it is the only box with memory items in it in the entire storage room. Instead, label it “Videos, Graduation, Baby Photos.” This takes a little more writing space and an extra three seconds to write. That’s a great deal in exchange for the time and effort you would waste looking for things without them.

If you don’t want to use permanent marker on your storage bins and you don’t have any fancy label stickers, you can even just use a strip of masking tape. Masking tape is your best friend for making labels. It’s easy to write on in Sharpie without smudging and it can be torn off later with ease. As long as it’s not left in high temperatures, it will even come off without leaving tape residue.

4. Prioritize

If you have a lot of bins in your storage room, your next step is prioritizing. This prioritization process isn’t about what’s most valuable. Right now, you should be figuring out what things you’re most likely to want to open. If you don’t frequently look at memory items, put your memory box in the back, on the bottom. However, if you have a box of seasonal clothes that you’re going to want in six months, put them at the front and on top. The more thought you put into your box positions, the less you’ll have to move around bins later to get to what you want.

5. Storage Day

Last, but not least, is choosing a storage day. Inevitably, new additions to the storage room will get taken there throughout the year. For some, putting them where they go in the storage room right away will be easy. For most, it will not.

Most people will find themselves making a pile of things that need to be sorted and stored somewhere near the entrance to the storage room. This is fine, actually. The important thing is setting aside a day – perhaps once a month – to go through it all and actually put it away. It might not feel worth the effort to dig around bins to put one thing away, but when you’ve accumulated a small pile, it’s time.

For more great organization tips for other rooms in the house, check out our blog. Keystone Home Products is here, not only to help you make an effective storage room, but to keep a functional home. Give us a call if you have questions and we’ll be more than happy to help.

Tips for an Excellent and Effective Storage Room: Part 1

Keeping a storage room is difficult for most people. It’s a slippery slope to what’s actually just a junk room. If you don’t have enough storage space in other rooms and closets, we understand. But, as the organization experts of Toronto, Keystone Home Products wants to give you some tips so that you can have a truly effective storage room.

1. Sort Before You Store

The most important tip we can give you is to always sort through things before you commit them to storage. A lot of times, when people move a box into storage, they just take a peak inside, determine it’s a storage box, and then store it. Don’t do this.

Before any box goes into the storage room, it should be looked through in its entirety. You may see some old home movies on the top that you want to keep, but the entire bottom half of the box’s contents might be old junk that you don’t want anymore. If you aren’t certain of the contents of a box, go through it. Do this with every box you want to put in storage. Otherwise, you’ll end up wasting storage space on things you don’t even need.

2. Avoid Pests

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when storing things is storing them badly. Yes, we’re talking about those beat-up, old, cardboard boxes that you don’t know the contents of. This is a great way to get pests.

A lot of people associate bugs with food only. The thing is, what is food to bugs is not always the same as what’s food to you and me. For instance, moths and carpet beetles enjoy eating fabric. If even one or two of these bugs find a way into that old, cardboard box of baby clothes from 1970, the next time you open it, all you’re going to find is larvae sheddings and more bugs. Not to mention, if they find a place to nest, they can spread to the rest of your house.

To avoid bugs and the mice that would love to nest in your cardboard boxes, store things nicely. The first thing is to use plastic bins over cardboard boxes. Square, easy-to-stack, plastic bins are only about 5 bucks each. Invest in some of them and use them for storage. These bins will keep out bugs, mice, mold, and dust.

For those things that don’t get stored in bins, you’ll want to store them on wire shelving. Keystone Home Products has all kinds of wire shelving available to choose from. The reason wire shelving is so important in storage rooms is that it’s harder for pests to navigate and also allows air flow. Having enough air flow in your storage room prevents musty smells, dust buildup, and mold growth.

More Tips

If you’re just getting started and are ready for more tips, check out our next article. You can also give us a call if you have questions. Sorting and pest prevention are only the first two steps to an effective storage room.

Keeping an Apartment Kitchen Organized: Part 2

In our last article, we talked about sorting through the food in our cupboards and how best to cut down on the quantity of food you’re storing. However, having less in your cupboards won’t do a whole lot if you don’t know how to keep it organized. So, without further ado, let’s get your apartment kitchen organized!

Prioritize Appliances

After going through your food, it’s time to go through your kitchen appliances. Everything from a food processor to your plastic containers is subject to scrutiny when organizing your kitchen. If you don’t remember the last time you used an appliance, it might not be worth keeping around. Of course, some small tools are useful enough when you do need them to make it worth the drawer space. However, if you hate using your blender because taking it apart to clean it never seems worth the effort, it might not be worth the shelf space either.

If you have a lot of miscellaneous containers that you use to store food, you might have trouble storing them. Keeping plastic containers in order when they’re all mismatched tupperware you’ve collected over the years is really difficult. If you have the money to buy a set of matching containers, Rubbermaid locking lid containers are the best choice on the market. The lids lock on to each other, making them easy to stack and store on a cupboard shelf. If you don’t have the money for that, pull out your containers and look through them, only keeping the ones you use regularly and that have lids.

When you’re done looking through your appliances, you should feel confident about the appliances you own. If you see things you don’t use and that you don’t feel will be used regularly in the future, they might take some more consideration.

Buy Sorting Tools

One of the best tricks to keeping an apartment kitchen organized is by buying sorting tools. These tools can vary depending on your needs, but the basics tend to stay the same.

The first thing you should do is invest in some cheap bins. These don’t have to be plain, clear containers that are usually used with lids. You can find decorative, plastic bins for sale at home goods stores all over. Getting these in a size that will fit neatly onto cupboard or fridge shelves will change your life.

You can also buy wire shelf racks or a can riser. A can riser is a small set of what basically amounts to plastic stairs. This gets set on your cupboard shelf and allows you to place cans in rows on the stairs, making them visible from the front, without having to dig through them all. Similarly useful are wire shelf racks. These can be placed on a cupboard shelf and effectively divide the shelf in two. Two sets of plates can be placed on one shelf then – some directly on the shelf and some on the wire rack.

Store Things Like a Pro

When you’re in possession of some of these sorting tools, you’ll find organization is much easier. Use a sorting bin in the fridge to store fresh deli meats or cheeses. Sort veggies into smaller containers in the crisper drawer to keep them visible and easy to take from. The possibilities are endless. Get creative and you’ll find there aren’t as many established rules to how your home has to work as you might think.

Looking for some wire shelves to give you more shelf space in your apartment kitchen? Keystone Home Products is the best place to get them. Give us a call or pay a visit to the home organization experts of Toronto.

Keeping an Apartment Kitchen Organized: Part 1

If you live in an apartment, you know how hard it is to keep organized. Apartments really only have the bare minimum in terms of storage space. They maximize on the amount of rooms they can include, cutting short the storage space allowed each individual living there. If you have roommates, the problem only increases. However, out of all of the rooms in an apartment, the apartment kitchen is the one thats the hardest to keep organized. Keystone Home Products, Toronto’s experts on storage, are here to help. In this part, we’ll talk about sorting through food.

Sort Food

The first step to getting your apartment kitchen organized is sorting through your food. If you’re like most people, you probably have a lot of food that you’ve been storing for a while and not eating. A lot of us fall victim to this space-wasting habit. Make a project of it and remove all of your food from your shelves. Stack it up on the countertop and begin going through it.

Expired Food

Throw out anything expired. You might not think it’s been on the shelf that long, but you might be surprised to find many things expired. Expiration dates are usually found on the bottom or top of an object’s packaging. If it’s in neither of these places, check on the label, near the seam or the nutrition facts.

Unwanted Food

Donate anything unopened that you don’t want. If it’s easy to pick out foods you’re uninterested in, set them aside in a cardboard box and plan to donate them next time you leave the house. Also, now’s a good time to Google your nearest food drive or shelter. Remember, if you don’t know where you’re taking it, you’ll never take it there. Therefore, note down the address on the outside of the box.

Special Ingredients

If there are items that you use infrequently, make a note of the meal you usually make with it and plan to use it up this week sometime. This will allow you to remove it from the cupboard while also making use of it.

Bad Purchases

Anything that’s been in the cupboard and hasn’t been used for over a year is suspect. If you forgot about some things you love, you’ll be happy you’ve found them. However, if you’ve found some things you’re just not that excited at the prospect of eating, add them to your donation box. Sometimes, we feel obligated to eat something we think we should like. However, it’s okay to admit you made a mistake buying something that you didn’t end up eating. Someone else will appreciate it.

In our next part – Keeping an Apartment Kitchen Organized: Part 2 – we’ll get into the nitty gritty of actually organizing things. Give us a call if you have any questions these two articles haven’t answered about how our products can help the organization process.

Other Rooms to Incorporate Closet Organizers

Want to get organized outside the closet too? It’s great news then that closet organizers from Keystone Home Products can be set up just about anywhere. The question is, where are some great places to put closet organizers elsewhere in the home? The organizational professionals are here to help you answer that question!

The Bedroom

If you’re like us, you have a lot of your personal belongings stowed away in your bedroom. Unfortunately, you can only organize a bedroom so much when there’s so much packed into it. A small space like your average bedroom can’t handle all of a person’s belongings.

That makes it a great place to introduce one of Keystone’s wooden closet organizers. Dedicating a wall to one of our organizers is one of the best organizational moves you can make. Choosing a combination of shelves and drawers will make enough room for all of your books, boxes, papers, jewelry, and knick-knacks too.

The Garage

While a closet organizer is less suitable for a garage than a metal tool shelf, it’s important to note that the latter is much more expensive. If you need some organizational help for your garage, but don’t have the funds for a name brand tool shelf, our organizers are the perfect solution.

Drawers can house drill bits, wrenches, hammers, and nails. Shelves can take on toolboxes, supply boxes, and extra building materials like plywood and sheet plastic. With one of Keystone’s organizers, you can finally get your garage into order again, giving yourself enough room to park inside once more.

Living Room

Have a lot to store in your living room? Whether your mess is caused by electronics, games, movies, books, or otherwise, an organizer would suit you well. Placing wooden drawers or shelving on either side of the TV will allow you ample space for setting up game consoles, lining up game or movie cases, or even storing books. Throw spare remotes into a drawer or use one for storing candle refills. No matter what you’ve been struggling to find a place for, an organizer from Keystone will be the perfect place.

In Storage

Have a back room dedicated to storage? Lots of people have a collection of belongings that they don’t need all the time but are too attached to to get rid of. Whether these things are seasonal clothes, memories, or antiques passed down from your grandparents, they need a place.

Unfortunately, an empty spare bedroom doesn’t make the best storage room. This is actually a great way for you to end up with heaps of belongings that you don’t know the location of. Those seasonal clothes are now useless because you don’t know which box you’ve put them in.

Say goodbye to your messy storage room and say hello to a Keystone organizer. Use clothing bars to hang seasonal items. Put memory boxes on shelves or divide things into drawers. You don’t need to pile your storage belongings in a corner when you could be organizing them.

If you want a wooden closet organizer for any room in your home, you can get one from Keystone Home Products. We’re the #1 storage and organizational store in Toronto and we’re here to help you get organized. Give us a call to get organized today.

Keep Small Shops Organized with Professional Shelving

If you own a small shop in Toronto, you’ll want to hear our advice. As the organizational professionals of the area, Keystone Home Products knows all about how to maximize organization in your shop. To start, you need professional shelving.

A Lack of Shelving

When a store is lacking in the amount of shelving they have for displaying their goods, things don’t end up getting displayed very well. When products aren’t displayed well, people are significantly less likely to buy them.

Plus, if your products are cramped on their display shelves, your shop is going to look cluttered and unattractive. We want you to maximize profits and have the most attractive shop you can achieve. That’s why we want you to consider shelving from Keystone Home Products.

Wooden Organizers

Wooden organizers are most commonly used to keep closets under control. The thing is, these organizers, which can be bought in individual parts to allow customizability, can be used anywhere. That means you can specifically buy just the shelving parts. You’re covered by Keystone if all you need is shelving.

However, why stop there when you can also include clothing racks. The thing about hanging clothes for sale on one of our wooden organizer clothing racks is that it ups the class of your entire store. Instead of hanging clothes on cheap, metal racks where they’re cramped and ugly, get an upgrade. Make your small clothing shop have the beauty of a boutique without paying a fortune for the aesthetic. Plus, the better your shop looks, the more you can get away with raising the price of your merchandise.

Wire Shelving

Even in upscale shops, there’s always a place for wire shelving. Wire shelving is great for a lot of things. You can display shoes on wire shelves. You can use them for displaying hats that are just above head level. Mount them above shoe displays and use them to store other sizes of your products.

Wire shelving is superior to wooden shelving in only a few respects. It allows airflow, for one. That’s great for keeping products from becoming dusty. It also keeps pests from setting up shop on your shelves. This is great for things like shoebox storage. If the pests can’t get to the boxes, they can’t get inside of them. Wire shelving is also great for visibility. Anything that will be above eye level in your shop could be better seen if placed on wire shelving.

Glass Shelves

If you want some really classy shelves, we also offer glass shelving. These are ideal for displaying antiques, china, jewelry, and other expensive products. The glass helps with light flow and makes it easy to see many options at once. It also draws the eye, making your expensive merchandise one of the first things customers see.

If you want your shop to have the shelf space it needs, give us a call at Keystone Home Products and we’ll set you up with the best in professional shelving. Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Pantry Organization Tips From the Professionals: Part 2

Keystone Home Products is back again with Part 2 of our pantry organization series. In Part 1, we briefly talked about how you should be categorizing shelves and where to put frequently used foods. In this part, we’re going to cover what to do with the backs of shelves.

Can Stores

While many canned foods get used regularly, sometimes we have things that just get stored indefinitely. For instance, canned beans, tomatoes, cream soups, and the like are all great for use in meal production. However, most of us won’t be needing these more than every few weeks. These staple products are best kept toward the back on the shelf that has instant foods at the front. This location makes them easy to fade into one another. Allow a little overlap when stacking your cans and boxes. Then, your pantry will be efficiently stocked, with no wasted space between sections.

Ingredients

We haven’t forgotten the foods that get in the way most frequently. Did you think we wouldn’t notice you’ve been wrestling with a bag of flour every time you’re trying to find that can of green beans? Create a section at the back of your bottom shelf for all of your baking ingredients. Very infrequent things should go near the back. Things like flour, sugar, and other staples should go in front of them.

If you’re taking our advice from Part 1 and putting your cereal at the front of the bottom shelf, great! You can now ignore your baking ingredients most of the time. When it comes time to make a batch of cookies, all you have to do is remove your cereal boxes. Simply set them aside temporarily and you can access all of your ingredients. When you’re done baking, lining the cereal back up on the shelf is an easy task.

Kitchen Storage

If, like many pantries, you have four shelves, you may be wondering what to do with the top shelf. It’s hard to reach, tends to collect junk, and isn’t very useful. The good new is, it actually is useful if you know the secret to using it effectively. Grab a stepstool and pull down whatever expired food you have hiding up there. It’s time to make good use of your highest shelf.

This shelf is specifically useful for kitchen storage. No, that doesn’t mean just food. If you have a countertop mixer or a crockpot that you don’t use more than once every month or two, this is the place for them. A lot of people leave appliances lined up on the kitchen counters but, the truth is, most of us really can’t afford to lose the counter space.

Putting appliances that you don’t use very much on the top shelf in the pantry allows you to actually use y our counters when cooking. The extra counter space is well worth an extra step in making crockpot chili every three months.

Of course, if you use your appliances pretty often, this isn’t the best use of your storage space. People who spend a lot of their time making food from scratch are, conveniently, more likely to have more stored goods. Instead of putting your crockpot on the top shelf, this is a great place for big bottles of oil, large bags of rice, dried beans, and many more. Owning a stepstool will make this style of pantry organization more accessible and it will serve a great purpose, keeping your bulk goods from piling up on the pantry floor.

Pantry organization is important, but so is space. If you want to maximize storage space, check out the shelving and storage equipment available from Keystone Home Products. Give us a call if you have any questions or need help starting your order.

Pantry Organization Tips From the Professionals: Part 1

Keeping your pantry functional can be quite difficult. More often than not, people will organize their pantry only to find it a mess again within a few weeks. All of the work put into their pantry organization has been lost in favor of functionality. Unfortunately, a messy pantry isn’t functional. Pulling things out and then putting them back in a space that’s easier to reach may seem functional while doing it, but it leads to disaster. What if we at Keystone Home Products told you that you can organize your pantry in a way that’s both functional and easily accessible?

Order of Frequency

For many, the compulsion to put larger items in the back is a hard one to combat. After all, smaller things should be easy to see and look through, right? The fact is, size rarely has anything to do with how you should organize your pantry. You should actually be organizing things by how frequently you use them.

If you put all of the things you use most often toward the front of the shelves, you won’t find your entire pantry in disarray shortly after organizing it. That’s because most of the pantry hasn’t been affected by your daily rummaging.

Frontrunners

Some items that should be put near the front of the shelves include:

Cereal, if you or your kids eat it regularly. Lining cereal up along, perhaps, the bottom shelf makes it easy to retrieve and replace on the daily without disrupting your shelves.
Frequently used cans or boxes. If you tend to eat a lot of canned or boxed foods, pick a shelf to dedicate to them. Put those that you like to have on hand, that you don’t use much, toward the back of the shelf. Reserve the front of the shelf for things that you use frequently and restock when going shopping.
This is a great place for things like canned fruit, canned ravioli, or boxes of instant rice dinners. Putting these things on, maybe, the second lowest shelf would make them easy to look through and access.
Snacks should also go toward the front. Because snacks tend to get eaten and replenished often, they should go toward the front. Because snacks tend to come in medium or large sized boxes, these go great on a shelf slightly above eye level. This makes them easy to grab and replace without giving you the visibility that’s better reserved for small things.

Spices

One thing that definitely needs to be easily accessed but that tends to get in the way is spices. For these, we recommend buying a wire spice rack that can be mounted on the inside wall of the pantry. Trying to keep spices from falling over and becoming chaos on the expanse of a regular shelf is nigh impossible. However, giving them their own little place where they support each other and stay out of the way works great.

If you’re looking for wire shelving or other organizational products, Keystone is the best place in Toronto to find them. Give us a call or come visit our shop to see if we have what you’re looking for. Join us again for Part 2 to learn more about pantry organization.

Boost Closet Organization with Wire Shelving

Tired of your closet being a mess all the time? The truth is, it can be hard to keep your closet organized without the right organizational tools. That’s especially true if you have a lot of stuff or not a lot of closet. If you want to know how to improve your closet organization, you should start with wire shelving from Keystone Home Products.

There are a lot of ways that wire shelving can improve your closet organization. Unfortunately, we can’t cover every single method, as you could go on forever, with enough creativity. However, we will cover the most effective methods of using wire shelving to boost closet organization.

Adaptability

The first thing that makes wire shelving better than many of the shelving alternatives is that it’s adaptable. Because wire shelving is assembled in a way that’s impermanent, you can adjust it later if you need it to function differently. However, at the time of installation, you can choose exactly how you want it to function to begin with. That means you get a fully customized set of wire shelving, including any combination of shelf sizes that you want.

Not only is our wire shelving customizable, you can also further adapt it by introducing other variables. For instance, having a long shelf across the top of your wire organizer allows you plenty of space for bins and boxes used for storage. You can even use open-topped bins or baskets like drawers. Decorative fabric and wire baskets can be bought from most stores that sell household goods. These look great and add a lot of functionality. Use these to store socks, underwear, hats, or anything else that’s hard to store by folding.

Hanging Bars

Wire shelving is great because it functions as both shelving and as a place to hang clothing. Keystone’s wire shelving has a bar across the front that’s specifically included for hanging clothing. Consider storing jewelry boxes or other cases on the shelf while hanging shirts beneath it.

Combine Storage Methods

You don’t have to use only wire shelves. Consider combining storage methods to maximize storage efficiency.

Use a hanging shoe holder, hanging it from the hanger bar.
Use a high or low shelf to hold vacuum-sealable bags of out-of-season clothing or blankets.
Place organizer drawers on or under shelves.

Take Advantage of Wire Shelving

Wire shelving has a bonus feature just by virtue of being wire. You can use wire shelving as its own storage method. For instance, you can use one of the hanger bars to store necklaces or bracelets. Clasp necklaces on one of the bars that’s least disturbed by frequently used belongings. This makes them easy to look through and less likely to tangle.

Safer Storage

One of the least recognized benefits of wire shelving is that it provides safer storage. Because wire shelving allows better air flow, your belongings are less likely to experience mold, mildew, dust, or nesting by bugs or rodents, even if you have them in your home.

If you’re ready to upgrade your closet, give us a call at Keystone Home Products or visit our Toronto store. We want to help Toronto improve its organization, one closet at a time.

Add Glass Shelving to Your Contemporary Home

Having enough storage space can be a difficult feat in many homes. This is especially true in contemporary homes. Trying to add storage space without cluttering up a room can be difficult, but keeping things somewhat pristine is a mark of contemporary interiors. That’s why Keystone Home Products is here today to suggest glass shelving as a solution. Here’s how glass shelving can save the day.

Avoiding Weight in Design

One of the things that you should try to avoid in contemporary interiors is having weight in your design. Weighty fixtures don’t match with the design style. Instead, the goal is to find balance in light and dark colors while maintaining a kind of lightweight appearance. This is why contemporary design makes use of such things as glass and metal. You can use little of each of those materials while having much more strength than you would get out of the same amount of wood. To have enough strength in a wood shelf, you need it to be thick enough to bear the weight of its contents.

Glass is a great way to avoid weight in your design. Glass shelves don’t have to be very thick to hold up books or decorations. The thinness of the glass, coupled with its transparency, makes it a fantastic, lightweight addition to your interior. This is why glass is used so much in contemporary design.

Glass Shelving Lightflow

An additional feature of glass, which makes it so popular in contemporary homes, is its ability to aid in lightflow. Because glass is transparent and won’t block light, it allows you to see the contents of a shelf very easily. This is why glass is such a popular choice for display cases and decor shelves.

Easy to Clean

Glass shelving has another benefit. It’s easy to clean! Many types of wooden bookshelves require wood-safe cleaners so that the finish isn’t ruined. Glass shelving, on the other hand, does not. You can use virtually any cleaner you like to wipe down your glass shelving. It won’t be easily damaged by the wrong choice.

Plus, glass can stand up to water a whole lot better than wood can. This makes glass shelving a great place for displaying a vase of flowers or a fish bowl. When moving either of these things or making changes to them, a little spilled water won’t damage your shelf.

If you’re interested in purchasing glass shelving for your home in Toronto, come to Keystone Home Products. If you have questions about our products, give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to help answer your questions.