The Easiest Way to Organise Screws and Nails + Free Customisable Labels!

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Even if the most DIY you do is hanging up a picture or assembling some IKEA furniture, something that you’ll inevitably come across is lots of screws, nails and other random bits of hardware.

Keeping everything organised can be a challenge which is why we’re sharing our favourite (and free!) way how to organise screws and nails (and all other random bits of hardware)!

Our toolbox is always overflowing and, even though we’ve recently added another toolbox to our collection, they are still almost impossible to keep tidy. We just have too much stuff! One thing we have managed to completely transform and organise is our screw and nail storage. 

So, what is the best way to organise screws and nails? 

Use empty takeaway boxes to store all of your nuts and bolts!

Even if you don’t have takeaways very often, the boxes accumulate surprisingly quickly as every item always seems to be in a separate box. They are the perfect size for screws and other bits and pieces. And best of all, they are free and you’re doing a tiny bit for the environment, too as you won’t be throwing the plastic containers away. 

Obviously, you could use any other old containers to use as DIY storage bins for nails and screws but old takeaway containers work so well as they are clear and stackable which makes them perfect to sort all of your nails and screws and keep all of your hardware organised.

How to organise screws and nails

Sort screws, nails and bolts by type and size

Once you’ve collected a bunch of takeaway containers, it’s just a matter of sorting all of your supplies into them. Obviously, give them a clean first! If you don’t order takeaways or are just in a rush to get your nuts and bolts organised, you can easily get really affordable packs of takeaway containers online, too. 

To make the most of your screw and nail storage, use one container per item so that you can quickly find what you are looking for. Organising screws by size will also make it much easier and quicker to find the right screw for the job.

Label the hardware organizer

Don’t forget to label the containers while you are sorting everything so that you know what’s in them!

This doesn’t have to be anything fancy! When I first started to sort our nails and screws I just used some masking tape and a black pen to label them. This worked fine but it looked a bit messy and, because of the large amount of hardware storage boxes we quickly accumalated, it wasn’t easy to keep an overview of the different materials.

That’s why I designed a label to make our nuts and bolts organisers even more efficient and easier for us to find what we are looking for.

The large letter symbolises the type of content – N is for Nail, S for Screw – you get the idea and the smaller text goes into more detail about the type of screw or nail and what size it is. 

To help you organise your screws and nails, we’re sharing the completely free hardware organisation label with you, too! 

You can completely customise it and change all of the text so that you can create the perfect labels for all of your hardware. 

Just download the PDF file and add the descriptions you need. Then print it, cut out the labels and stick them to the plastic containers! 

We all know how frustrating it can be when you’re looking for something and can’t find it. Being organised will also save you so much time that you can spend doing the things you love instead of wasting it on searching for the right sized screw!

Now that all of our nuts and bolts (and screws, nails and wall plugs) are organised, I’d better make a start on getting our tools sorted, too!

How do you keep your screws and nails organised? Do you have any tool storage tips to share? 

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