Finding clever or alternative ways to store possessions makes living spaces seem bigger, lighter and more spacious. If your possessions are crowding you out of house and home, here are some ideas to take back control.
Make Friends with Shelving
With so many creative and stylish shelving types around, there’s something to fit every decor, and they’re functional in every room in the house, including the hallway.
- Floating shelves can blend in with existing colour schemes, becoming almost invisible.
- Wall fitted shelf units can look either modern or rustic.
- Shelves fitted to the ends of kitchen cabinets make handy recipe book holders.
- Low shelves in children’s rooms encourage them to keep their books and toys tidy.
- Shelves in bathrooms can hold decorative jars and bottles, or provide space for spare, rolled up towels like you see in hotels.
You can even create drama and interest around boring doorways with fitted shelves. By fitting a narrow vertical run on both sides of the door and a corresponding shelf across the top, the door takes on a recessed look. It’s a way of transforming a space you wouldn’t ordinarily think of using for storage.
Find Hidden Corners
There are actually lots of hidden places where you can find room for storage. There’s lots of unused space beneath kitchen cabinets, for instance, which you can get at by changing kickboards for hinged doors, or you could incorporate drawers into the risers of a staircase.
If you have an awkward space under the stairs, consider opening it up and installing fitted cupboards or, if it’s large enough, transforming it into a study or desk area.
Inside closets is another area where more functional storage works well. If you need extra drawer space, an inexpensive hobby drawer tower would do the job. As it’s inside the closet it doesn’t need to be fancy, just functional so you can clear some clutter and make the areas that are on show tidier.
Self Storage for Valuables
We tend to think of self storage as a long term solution for people with acres of storage needs: maybe those moving house or people with business stock to store. In truth, there’s such a wide range of room sizes that this type of storage is an ideal ‘home extension’ for anyone with any kind of overflow:
Say, for instance, you’ve inherited an antique piece of furniture that’s been in the family for generations and you don’t want to break the chain but have no room for it. Or you’d rather keep your winter sports gear in the garage during the winter months but garden furniture and machinery is taking up the space.
Renting a self storage room gives you the freedom to keep items not in use away from the house, leaving space to store seasonal things at home and keep them handy.
The best thing is the short term contracts, so if you change your mind or you underestimated how much space you need, you can swap things around within a week.
Clutter can make the prettiest house seem cramped and ugly. Finding ways to safely keep possessions handy but controlled just takes a little imagination and a few storage know-hows.