This Old House Reviews Team

Having storage containers can help you organize and locate your spare items while also reducing clutter around your home. Here are our picks for the best totes for storage.

If you have extra clothes, tools, toys, blankets, or other miscellaneous items around the house, organizing them will help you get rid of clutter. Storage containers are designed for this, giving you a range of size, color, quantity, and design options to put away items of your choosing. The This Old House Reviews Team researched several products on Amazon to help you find the best totes for storage. Learn more about our findings below.

 

Buying Guide

Concerned about overrunning your home with loose items? Consider storage bins to organize your space. From durable composite containers to soft fabric totes, we’re here to help with insights into what to look for.

• Size and weight: As you’re considering the size and weight of your bins, think about what you need to store in them and where you want to keep them. For instance, if you’re storing seldom-used items in the attic, heavy bins are fine because they rarely need to be moved. Conversely, frequently used belongings should be easy to locate and move around the house, so small, lightweight bins make more sense.

• Open or closed: Most storage totes come with lids, with some of the lids creating an airtight seal to keep out dust and moisture. However, items you use on a daily basis store better in an open container. For example, if you’re organizing your child’s playroom with bins, opt for open ones so that they can access their toys easily the next time they want to play.

• Material and durability: Rubber, composite, fabric, and plastic are common materials used to build totes because of their versatility and durability. However, some of these materials are more durable than others, with composite being the strongest option and fabric being the weakest.

• Carrying handle: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a storage tote without some type of carrying handle. Fabric loop handles are comfortable, but they break easier than plastic handles built into lids.

• Stackability: Lidless storage totes don’t stack, but closed storage containers do. You should be able to stack several bins on top of each other without fear of them falling. The thicker and heavier the material, the more reliably your bins will stack. 

• Transparency: Seeing what’s inside your storage containers can save you time by helping you identify which one has the item you need without unstacking and looking in all of them. However, transparency comes at a price because it shows the clutter in your bins. If you want the best of both worlds, you can get opaque containers and label them with a label maker or a permanent marker and tape.

 

Household Organization Tips

No one enjoys a cluttered household scattered with toys, clothes, utensils, tools, and other miscellaneous items. Here are several ways you can optimize storage to keep an organized home: 

• Create an inventory for your storage room or closet. If you have a singular, dedicated space for most of your stored items, create a working document that outlines everything in it. Make sure to update the inventory if you remove or add something.

• Use labels. Whether you’re using clear or opaque containers to hold your items, having large-print labels makes it easy to identify what’s in each bin. This saves you time and hassle by allowing you to choose the right bin every time you need to access something. 

• Install shelving. These shelves can be used to hold your storage totes. Utilizing otherwise empty wall space will help free up room on your floor and make your home feel less cluttered. 

• Store indoor-use items indoors and outdoor-use items in a garage or shed. Storing your belongings close to where they’re used will save you time when you go to access them.

 

 

FAQs

• Is there anything that I shouldn’t keep in a storage tote? 

Though they can be placed in totes, perishable and fragile items should be stored with caution. Bins for perishable items need airtight lids to prevent spoilage, and fragile items should be surrounded by newspaper, bubble wrap, or another filler to prevent breakage. 

• How do I keep bugs out of my storage totes? 

Basements make for great storage spaces, but spiders, cockroaches, centipedes, and other insects tend to roam these parts. If you’re concerned about bugs breaching your totes, choose a model with an airtight lid. Stacking containers on an elevated surface, such as a shelf, will also help distance your items from crawling bugs on the floor. 

• Are insulated totes available for cold-weather storage? 

Insulated totes exist, but because many storage containers are designed for indoor use, it’s more common to come across non-insulated ones. If you’re looking for containers to place in your garage during the chillier months of the year, you can always use a standard indoor storage tote and line the inside with a separate insulating material. 

• Can I use storage totes to organize food in my pantry? 

Yes. Open ones work better on the lower shelves where you keep frequently used items, such as snacks. Closed ones can be used on the higher shelves where you keep disposable paperware or other infrequently needed items.

• How do I keep my pets or children from tampering with my storage totes? 

We recommend using storage totes with airtight lids to prevent curious pets or children from accessing the contents within. Placing the storage totes in a locked room or on a high shelf is another solution. 

 

Why Trust The This Old House Reviews Team

This Old House has empowered homeowners for more than four decades with top-notch home improvement content in the form of television programs, print media, and digital content on its website and social media platforms. The This Old House Reviews Team focuses on creating in-depth product and service review content to help inform your purchasing decision for just about any item or resource that you might need for your home. The This Old House Reviews Team has written over 1,000 reviews on products in the home space, from cordless drills to kitchen trash cans, lawn mowers, and dining room decorations. 

We recommend products in each review using an intensive research process, spending hours combing through the best available models on Amazon. For a product to make our list of top picks, it must hold a solid sales record on Amazon, have consistently positive customer reviews, and offer unique features, among other factors. After narrowing down our list of recommendations, we conduct additional research and sometimes in-person testing to ensure that the products meet our standards. Once we conclude the research phase, we craft a well-rounded, user-friendly article that includes our recommended products and additional information to help homeowners like you make the right purchase. 

 

 

The This Old House Reviews Team provides overviews of select products that are top-selling on Amazon and/or popular in consumer searches. Our team evaluates the products based on industry research, consumer reviews, pricing data, hands-on testing in select cases, and other objective criteria unique to a given product line. Unless otherwise noted, these product reviews are intended to help inform buying decisions for DIY or other non-pro users only. Editor’s picks are made by members of the This Old House Reviews Team.