How We Organize Our Keys
It has taken us a year of living in our condo to figure out its little nuances and how we wanted it to function for our lives. One of the things that I was desperate to organize were how we stored our keys.
For Brian’s birthday last November, I gave him two bowls I’d made from records. For awhile they sat on our kitchen counter and it became a drop zone for us to place our keys. But then as time went on, the bowls became a drop zone for more than just keys. Pretty soon loose change, lightbulbs, cat treats, rubber bands and a myriad of other things collected in the bowls. Yet we still dropped our keys in there! So every morning, the hunt was on to dig into the bowls for our keys. I finally got tired of it and decided to come up with a better solution.
Enter our new key hooks!
These babies have saved our lives! And for a twoonie to boot! I don’t have any during pics for this how-to but the steps are pretty simple.
What you’ll need:
These picture frames from IKEA (or another wood picture frame)
As many screw hooks as you have keys for each person. For instance, B & I each have two sets of keys and we have two cats so we bought 6 hooks. We got ours at Dollarama (a pack of 6 white hooks was 1$) but you can also find packs of these hooks at any hardware store.- Paint (spray or acrylic) and a brush (if necessary)
- Nails
Something extra you could pick up (we didn’t) would be polyurethane (brush or spray on).
To assemble:
- Print the pictures you want to use in the size for your frame.
- Paint your frames. You might have to do a couple coats. I did two coats of white acrylic paint and left it at that.
- Mark on the frames with a pencil where you want your key hooks to be. I left 2.5″ from each end and 2″ between each hook. I eyeballed it so that they were screwed in a bit closer to the edge of the frame. (You don’t want it to come through the back of the frame where the glass sits.)
- Screw each hook into the frame at the position you marked. Be careful so the frame doesn’t split. Mine split a tiny bit but because it was at the back, I didn’t worry too much about it.
- Put the pics into the frames.
- Measure the space where you are going to hang the frames. Once the frame is in position, put two nails into the two upper corners of the frame. *Note: The IKEA RAM frames have a hole in the center of the back where you can hang it on a nail. We originally did that but because we each have two sets of keys, if we took one set off, the frame would lean to one side.
- Hang your keys on the frame and admire your awesome work!
The dollars and cents:
- IKEA RAM frames – 0$ (we already owned ours but they’re 1.99$/3 pack!)
- Screw hooks – 1$
- Paint & brush – already owned
- Nails – already had on hand
- Pics – 0.60$
- Total Cost: 2$ (roughly with tax)
If you don’t already own picture frames, paint, a brush or nails and went to IKEA and Dollarama, a three frame project like ours would only run you 7$!
One thing I love about the frames is that we can easily pull the frame off the wall, replace the picture with a different one and slide it back into place. And at 0.19$ for a 4×6 from Wal-Mart, we can swap them out whenever we like! I forsee us taking pictures in Halloween costumes so we can have those pics up for October. And dressing up in reindeer sweaters for December.
Here’s a pic to show the wall in relation to the rest of the space. We’re planning to hang something above the key hooks, so stayed tuned to see what we end up putting there!
Images courtesy of IKEA & Home Hardware.
Tags: DIY, Dollarama, IKEA, organization, spray paint