Organizing Tools to Buy at the Thrift Store

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Have you noticed how expensive it can be to buy items to organize your house? Pro-tip: shop at the thrift store for items for organizing tools—I’m sharing five of my favorites with you in this post.

I like to have a neat and tidy home, but I also love “stuff”, which can be a tough combo to pull off. I learned a long time ago that in order to keep all my things organized and under control, I was going to need a way to store them, arrange them collectively, and be able to enjoy them without feeling overwhelmed.

This realization was great until I also learned that buying things to put your things in can be expensive!! Places like The Container Store and Bed, Bath, and Beyond have all the newest and shiniest organizing tools that will surely make your home a beautiful and well-oiled machine. (No offense to either of those stores. I love them, but just can’t afford to outfit my home with things from them.) Plus, I’ve also found, that unless you go whole-hog on buying the organizing systems, trying to just use one or two of the pieces doesn’t really cut it and you end up with more of a mess than when you began.

You know that I already love to thrift for home decor, so it’s only natural that I looked there for organizing tools as well. Guess what?!? There are so many items at the thrift store to help get you organized. There are the stand-out organizing items like totes, baskets + bins, and dividers, but there are also smaller, less obvious things, that you can use to make your home more functional, while still looking great! Plus, you’ll be able to stay on budget—more money for thrifting the fun stuff!

I’m going to share five of my favorite (less-obvious) organizing tools from the thrift store with you, but know that there are so many more options, if you just open your mind a bit and get creative!

I’m always on the lookout for glass items that I can decant into, think laundry and dish soap, dried food items, bath salts, etc. Glass bottles and jars with pretty lids are perfect for this and I’m always amazed (I shouldn’t be) at how I can find similar items at different thrift stores. I found all of these bottles with cork stoppers in our laundry room at different thrift stores! They are perfect for all the laundry items that aren’t pretty in their original containers, but look so much better decanted!

Putting them into the bottles allows me to corral and display them all together on the shelf, instead of trying to find room to hide them out of sight in a cabinet. Since our laundry room/mudroom also serves as the entry from our garage (where most people come in), I want the space to look organized and pleasant to look at, instead of having unsightly packaging on the pretty shelves. You could also use these bottles for bath products, craft supplies, or storing dry goods in your pantry.

Okay, hear me out…

A friend of mine on Instagram actually shared this idea first and I thought it was brilliant!! Layne shared a tart pan she found at the thrift store and spray painted to use as a catchall in her bathroom. The best part about this project is that these ceramic tart pans are plentiful at the thrift store. They normally have a very 1990’s design on them, making them hard to look modern without paint, rendering them useless for baking. They do, however, make a really pretty tray, looking fresh and current with the fluted edges.

I know when to run with good inspiration, so I took Layne’s idea and used my thrifted pan in the bathroom as well. It looks so pretty on the counter and makes me feel better about having clutter out on display—now it’s good-looking clutter. I think the tart pans would also make a great tray for a candle and small piece of decor on the counter or a coffee table. Also, they can be customized to match your home’s color scheme—your only limit is what spray paints the hardware has!

Thrifting baskets is always a good idea. They’re perfect for storing lots of different things, look stylish, and add texture to your space. Want to take the idea of decorating and organizing with baskets to the next level? Add hanging baskets! They come in lots of different sizes and allow you to make use of the vertical space in your home.

I have a couple of these small hanging baskets shown above that I use in our mudroom and bathroom. They were a very dated dusty pink and tan before, but look great with a fresh coat of black paint. Since the baskets can be found in lots of sizes and shapes, they have endless uses! A few that I’ve used them for are craft supplies, plastic grocery bags, keys + sunglasses, kitchen utensils…and the list goes on! How would you use a hanging basket?

I found several plastic lazy susans at the thrift store last year and decided to grab them. They were all kind of yellowed and looked pretty gross, to be honest, but the price was right and I knew that I’d find a way to use them.

Fast forward to when I did a refresh in our kitchen, creating faux open shelving by removing cabinet doors, and I had the perfect use for them! Our kitchen cabinets are way taller than I can easily reach. I tried several ways to arrange our dishes, but the only way everything worked together to be displayed was to have the salad plates and bowls on the bottom shelf, leaving drinking glasses to be stored on the second shelf up. I am able to reach the front of that shelf, but not the back.

I put the drinking glasses on one of the lazy susans, so I’m able to reach the glass in the front and turn the lazy susan to reach the others. Jason still has to help with the top shelf, even though they’re on a lazy susan, but no amount of organizing tools is going to help that.

To make the thrift store lazy susans look better, I added a strip of pink electrical tape to the edge. I didn’t do anything to the tops, since they’re not really seen. Other options for giving them a makeover would be painting or decoupaging them—so many ways you could improve their appearance! Lazy susans can also be used in cabinets for smaller items, the refrigerator for condiments, or the bathroom for toiletries.

The option of glass canisters is kind of similar to the glass bottles and jars, but is better suited for larger items and dry goods. I look for glass canisters every time I’m at the thrift store. They’re not outrageous to buy new from the store, but if you’re reading this, you must love thrifting as much as I do, so your goal is to buy secondhand if you can.

I’ve used glass canisters for just about anything you can imagine—laundry supplies, dry food goods, craft supplies, out of season decorations. I love items that can be used multiple ways. Glass canisters are great for organizing and storage, but also look great as decor. I fill them with my vintage Shiny Brite ornaments at Christmas and then just store them away in the canister. I feel fine about doing this because I have room to store them and have so many to use since I thrift them!

Have you found some baskets at the thrift store (or maybe you have a stash in your basement) that aren’t so cute? Give them a makeover! I gave some plastic bins a quick and easy facelift for our mudroom with thrift store fabric!

I found a plain belly basket at the Goodwill Outlet a couple of years ago and decided that it needed a colorful makeover to match our home’s eclectic design. I used Colorshot acrylic paint I had on hand to give it a bit of color and added some large pompoms I thrifted. It’s easy to transform thrift store baskets without spending a lot of money, making them even better to use in your home!

Hopefully you’ve found this post inspirational to help get your home organized without going over your budget. Shopping the thrift store for organizing tools is smart, eco-friendly, and makes good use of your money!

If you use any of these ideas to organize in your home or have some additional ideas for thrift store organizing tools, share a picture in your Instagram stories and tag me when you do! You can find me on Instagram at @hilaryprall.