What to Put in Canisters

Canisters come in a virtually unlimited variety of shapes, sizes, materials, and uses. You can get them in an old-fashioned stonewear design, or a modern, stainless steel minimalistic look. And while many people simply buy the ones that are on sale to use, if you're feeling more creative, you can actually use them to add to the decor of your home, and turn them into an eye-catching addition to your kitchen, bathroom, or living room.

This Hub will give no fewer than 3 different ideas on how to use canisters to make an excellent effect in the home. It will cover a variety of rooms, and hopefully will give you some ideas on what to do for your own unique situation.

Let's get started!

Most canisters will come in canister sets, all of varying sizes, which will help when you are decorating your home. The canisters will either match, or will have similar design patterns on each of them. You can keep them all grouped together, or may want to experiment with setting them up around the counter or living room, to get a different effect.

Another use for sets could potentially be putting separate canisters in different rooms of the home, to help with a potential overall theme for your home.

This is the most logical place to arrange canisters in. Kitchen canister sets come in a wide variety of styles and designs, everything from traditional, old fashioned canisters, to more modern, minimal models, to wacky designs (like the cat pictured here). These canisters will match any motif in your home.

Suggestions for choosing the best canister for you: start by looking at the overall theme of the kitchen. If it's a cute, traditional kitchen, then get the canisters to match that look. If it has a dominant color, that may be a clue to get a canister that either matches or complements the color. Another theme may be animal based (my grandmother loves owls, and would love some owl canisters on her counter), or a custom canister - perhaps one with a family photo englossed on the side.

To be honest, it's hard to go wrong here. Even canisters that are out of place aren't going to be too distracting - it's a kitchen after all. People usually have food on the mind when they're out there.

Another option would be bathroom canisters, which are designed and sized for bathroom supplies, like soap, Q-tips, tissues, and lotions. These canisters also come in matching sets, and will look cute when arranged on the counter, or the back of the toilet, or perhaps on some shelving you may have in the bathroom.

For a man's bathroom, since he probably doesn't want his bathroom looking too cute, there are also transparent canisters that simply show what's being stored inside. They're pretty basic, made of either plastic or glass, but they certainly get the job done - and in a more modern bathroom they'd look pretty good anyway.

In my opinion, matching colors is the best way to choose canisters for the bathroom.  I don't know exactly why that is, but bathroom canisters that have similar coloring to the sink, or the walls, or even the towels hanging on the doors, adds a strong effect to the overall look.  This isn't a rule of course, it's just the conclusion I've come to.

Finally, though it's not as often seen as the other rooms, having different canisters in your pantry will help keep your food organized a bit better, and makes for a great place to keep extra canisters that you don't want out in the more public rooms.

The possibilities here are practically endless.  Do you have a coffee canister that you don't want out on your counter?  Hide it away in your closet - oh, and make sure it has a tight seal so your coffee doesn't get stale.  Perhaps you have cereal and you don't want it to get stale in its original packaging - a few glass canisters (again with tight sealing lids) will do wonders.

These canisters need to be more functional than decorative, but they still serve the same purpose your other canisters do - keeping food fresh.

Overall, storage canisters will add style and decoration to your home, while keeping your food fresh at the same time.  You may have different goals in different rooms, but canisters will be effective in the kitchen, bathroom, or pantry regardless.