Low-effort inventory system
Not so long ago I moved places and did some decluttering in the process. What remained needed to be organized in some way. This is a method which ultimately worked well enough for me. I am sure I did not invent it though, you can find tons of similar stuff online.
The shelf
You might know IKEA's Ivar already. It comes in 50 cm and 30 cm depths and 42 cm and 83 cm widths and different heights. Of the width of the 83 cm board, 80 cm is the space between the sides, so this is the space usable for containers you want to be able to pull out. The shelf boards click in at variable positions which are all 32 mm apart over the entire height of the shelf.
Euro containers / Euro boxes are mostly standardized, stackable and durable plastic containers. The sizes go down from the size of one EPAL by factors of two of the longer side, so two boxes stack on top of one of the next larger size and boxes always stack with boxes of the same size. To my limited knowledge, heights are not standardized, but there are some similar sizes you will commonly find. Now, the trick is to match up Euro box sizes with Ivar sizes. For instance, two of the 40×30 cm² boxes fit on the 83×30 cm² Ivar boards between the shelf sides, which are spaced 80 cm apart.
Bill of materials
- 3 Ivar sides, 30 cm deep, 226 cm high
- 20 Ivar boards, 30 cm deep, 83 cm wide
- 64 containers each 30 cm long, 12 cm high
- 32 containers each 40 cm long, 17 cm high
The shelf boards for the 30 cm containers, I spaced 8 holes apart and the ones for the 40 cm containers are 6 holes apart. I stack two of the 30 cm containers on top of each other. This leaves each row with just enough wriggle room, so containers can be taken in and out.
The inventory system
Each box is labeled with a letter for the row and a number the column. I have a spreadsheet where I just add the name of the thing in the box into the cell with the same label. So to search for anything, I can just Ctrl+F the name of the thing.