Actually I think she was asking for help in her decorating and use of accessories. There was an electrical panel she was wanting to cover up.

I think your stackers can be a good thing for you, but I do think you need some sort of "deep storage," and it does NOT have to be there. it might be easier if it were, but oh well. You live in the real world. So you'll need to find some other place to keep papers that are longer term, not needed for reference, but needed to access now and then. So use the file box or tote, and go get it when it's "paperwork processing time." And what goes in there is stuff you don't intend to refer to in the next four months. Stuff you *will* refer to can stay in the stackers. As I mentioned before, I think if you live with it for a while, your eyes open to what's working (which you have), you'll figure out for your own situation what's just permanently floating in the stackers and should get filed away (or tossed) You say you have more kitchen storage, which is great, but maybe spend a half a cabinet on a file box for stuff that's not in action at the moment? Insurance forms (unless you can download), etc.? I think a long-term, ONGOING project like the Girl Scout project *belongs* in the stacker. You need to look at it, put stuff with it, etc., every week or so, maybe even more often, so of course it goes in a high-profile spot. But paid bills don't go there. (some people even TOSS their paid bills) Personally I would--do--stick the report cards in deep, deep storage. "Heirlooms & Mementoes" storage, deep in the closet. I don't refer to them again, but if I needed them for some reason (not sure why--not even applying for a new school would require them), I could dig them out. I agree w/ you about your need to get tougher--I think most of us have a procrastination problem (well, mayb enot Ginger, LOL, but *most* of us). I have only JUST this year gotten good w/ schoolwork papers. I toss 'em pretty rapidly. Fortunately, my son's teacher has a "sign and return" stamp, so I know which ones she wants back; the rest go in the trash. I figure, if I haven't had time to discuss them w/ the kids in the 2 days following when the papers came home, it'll be too late to make much of a difference. I'm lucky, in that there's not usually much to say--"oh, I see you skipped over that one; watch more carefully" is about it--bcs they usually understand their schoolwork. They get sloppy, but I don't need to spend much time on that. I try to review the schoolwork briefly when I'm doing the school forms (the ones that you won't let leave the backpack? wise you! I got that concept last year, an am enjoying it this year), and try to deal w/ them the same way. It would be harder if I needed to review stuff with them--if they were struggling w/ the concepts. I used to try, to reinforce by reviewing, and finally just gave up--I never had time to, and decided that, since the kids were basically doing fine, I didn't need to be their tutor, too. It has saved me no end of time and guilt. I think if DD was having trouble w/ fractions, for example, and I wanted to sit w/ her for 15 or 20 minutes to coach, I'd have a tougher time, but I might still not want to keep the paper. Or, maybe that would be the ONE paper I kept, and the rest got tossed. I have gotten absolutely RUTHLESS about paper. I had a basket that was collecting paperwork I needed to "do something with" or "might do something with." And it just ended up really dragging down the house. Ostensibly it was for bills to pay, but other stuff went there, too, and it was just a huge mess. I went through it in early Dec. when my mom was here, and was amazed at how useless all that stuff was. I throw SO much out now. (I know what you mean about keeping your hands out of each other's paperwork, but are you SURE your DH couldn't give you one of his 4 drawers? Not for frequently used stuff--your stackers should help w/ that--but for deeper filing? You really need some place, and I bet he's got stuff that could go--4 drawers is an awful lot. Think about it, send up a trial balloon. You wouldn't have to OPEN the other drawers, so your hands would still be off his paperwork...)

1) For your budget of $300-$500 max, use the metal shelving you already have with the addition of new $20 flip-top plastic storage boxes. Closed boxes will keep the dust out. The flip tops can be easily vacuumed to keep the laundry area much cleaner than with open boxes and milk crates. Measure your shelves, then pick the right size to fit two or three per shelf at the store. https://www.amazon.com/Akro-Mils-12-Gallon-Plastic-Storage-Attached/dp/B00006IARN I 2) Add a $50-$100 simple upper cabinet with doors for spray bottles, laundry detergent and anything else used more than once a week. 3) One of your milk crates can make good storage in a car trunk. The others can be donated to avoid the temptation to reuse in the garage- they are hard to clean when they get dusty or dirty. 4) A $75 shop vac or a $30 stick vacuum can make garage laundry area cleanup easy and quick. It makes a big difference in how often the garage floor gets cleaned when you don't have to lug the house vacuum out to the garage.

Ikea food for thought: Yes, get a laser level if you're doing your own installation. A lot lighter than DH's 4' level. Getting the Sektion rail level and straight is KEY the Blankett handle is its own template. Don't bother with the $2 Fixa template if you're using Blanketts I had originally ordered all 15" Blanketts to make things easy--or so I thought. It was a much easier installation to have handles the same width as the drawers. To do over, I would first try to arrange the fronts on the floor to see if a particular order would look better. This obviously only applies to Askersund. Torham would've been a better style for our house, but it's too busy for me and I couldn't take looking at it all the time. I also almost got Kallarp because I love turquoise and our house is rustic Southwestern, but in the end I thought it would be too dark. The ceiling is almost 9' and originally I was going to try to do some trim between the cabs and ceiling, but the OC (over cabinet) lighting was a far better idea. That's the light (on the dimmest setting) we leave on when we'll be coming home after dark. Because we did the work ourselves, and we're retired, we could take our time. This ended up in putting the cabs a couple of inches lower than planned; DH had first wanted the over-sink cab higher so he would have no remote chance of head bumping but then changed his mind. Whew. We took 10 days-two weeks from start of work to the end, including the garage and laundry cabs. I made sure we did the garage cabs first so we could practice before my laundry cabs lol! We ended up doing the cover panels twice. So, please, first install the UC lighting and THEN do your cover panels! DH had to remove the panels to cut a notch for the new Stromlinje UC lights. I found that I have no patience for fine tuning the cab front looks. I got them to function and well, close enough! So a pro would have done better here, I guess. On the cabs where we knew exactly where the drawers and doors would be, we installed the slides and hinges on the cab sides BEFORE assembling the cab. That way we could have the sides laying flat on the work bench rather than crouching /reaching from odd angles after the cabs are hung. This did make the sides heavier to lift for assembly, especially the 30x90, but worth it. We used a Sears ATV jack (left over from our previous life in dirt bikes) to lift and lower the tall cabs into place. This was especially great for the 30x90 cab, which was too heavy to comfortably lift and was fit into a corner to boot. Well, that's all I can think of for now. Hope this might be helpful to someone.