Summer, if it is spent well, is awfully messy and terribly wet.

No other season provides so many options for immersing oneself in water, soaking one’s garments, wetting toys and playthings of all sorts. If you don’t have a pool, you make it your business to know someone who does. And if they’re out of town, there’s sure to be a lake or ocean or kiddie wading pool somewhere nearby. And a little further, a waterpark (which are usually only mildly horrific, what with the collective and simultaneous tantrums, the terribly unhealthy snack and beverage options available for purchase, but I digress). And if all else fails, and you can’t get it or them together enough to venture beyond the boundaries of your lot, there is always, always, the garden hose.

In any of these scenarios, one is guaranteed to end up with very wet swim suits and towels, and we haven’t even gotten to the matter of the accessories, yet. That list might be endless, but certainly includes: goggles and flippers, water guns and water balloons. There are pool rafts and noodles and boogie boards–water wings and lifejackets and diving toys. And listen, I don’t even have small humans of my own to know the kids are into these days.

There are wet, sandy, dirty things worn home, and there are soaked things never meant to have gotten wet. There is a to-ing and fro-ing of the wettest kind, and this is precisely the magic of the season.

Only, no mom wants to meet the towel her son forgot about out in his backpack a week ago, now pleasantly growing mold. No dad wants the family sofa soaked by an uncooperative water gun absentmindedly placed upon the cushion between popsicle breaks. And no one, I mean no one, wants to find sand anyplace other than where it belongs, which is squarely, resolutely, on the beach.

So, how to make the distinction between water play zones and the dry indoors? How to smartly transport all those small people (and possibly pets) and their water toys? How to ensure wet, sandy towels get given a good shaking out and a chance to dry (until you get to the laundry)?

Here’s how:

1. Pool accessory storage bin

2. Outdoor baskets

3. Storage tub

4. Outdoor collapsible towel rack

5. Toy tote

6. 3-tier metal market basket

7. nestbasket by Reisenthel

8. toy barrel