Adequate storage is a must for any home, especially as many householders are choosing to stay put in light of current housing market trends. It’s easy to find yourself outgrowing your home particularly as your family grows in size and number.
We can all buy extra furniture to store our belongings, but if you’re beyond bursting point, read our tips for improving your home storage.
Walk-in Wow!
If you simply haven’t got room for one more pair of shoes or this season’s must-have bag, it’s time to take action. When storage woes affect your right to shop, something must be done!
We’ve all marvelled at the luxury of the celebrity walk-in wardrobe but you might be pleasantly surprised to know it’s not difficult to make your own. This project demands a large space so if you’re lucky enough to have a big boudoir why not simply erect a partition wall to create another, smaller room?
With a little creativity you’ll have made a great-looking walk-in wardrobe with room for all your future fashion finds.
Lofty Ideas
Boarding a loft is one of the easiest and cheapest DIY tasks. For little effort you’ll have effectively created a whole new room and you can say goodbye to precariously balancing your bits and bobs across beams.
Shop-bought loft panels won’t look particularly pretty, but who’s going to see them in your loft? This is a fantastic, quick way to improve your home storage and you’ll be surprised how much a well-organised loft space will conceal.
Out of Sight…
Following the same premise it’s possible to board your garage roof space, too. For items that you won’t want to use much and that can withstand cold and damp, the garage is the perfect storage place.
In a typical garage it pays think upwards when improving storage, leaving you space to park and get in and out of your car without needing to breathe in.
There are now a number of ‘grid’ systems that are perfect for the garage or shed. With these a grid, usually metal, is attached to the wall and you can then buy all sorts of customised fitting that clip onto the grid, like bicycle racks, ladder hooks, tool racks and baskets.
These are particularly useful in the garage as it helps to store everything against the wall, and that increases the chances of the rest of the garage staying clear for the car!
Basic Shelves
The most basic storage solutions are shelves or shelving units, freestanding or attached to the wall. There are many different types available, from those knocked up with old planks and other bits of wood, to full-sized units with adjustable shelves and customised cupboards that attach to a framework.
The most basic shelving is probably planks supported by piles of old bricks at either end. This doesn’t need any tools and can probably be put together for nothing with a bit of diligent scrounging.
Wooden or chipboard shelves screwed to the walls with purpose built brackets are usually the next step for most people, but this can’t be done in rented properties and probably isn’t a good idea if you aren’t settled yet and tend to move a lot.
Storage Boxes
Add to that the fact that many people can’t, or don’t want to, screw things into walls and it’s not surprising that the market for plastic storage boxes has gone through the roof. There are many different sizes, with lids, without lids, interlocking and just plain boxes.
If you’re looking at some of these, consider how you’re going to use them before you buy. If you are going to use them for transporting items, you are probably better off with ones that nest inside each other, and so take up less space, when they are empty.
Often the lids are sold separately so you could save money if you buy the kind that nest if you have them one way round, then stack on top of each other if you turn them round the other way.
There are specialist shapes available too, such as underbed boxes or CD and DVD boxes.
Consider whether you’ll want to get things out of the boxes when they are stacked up. If so, there are boxes with angled tops and sides, so that boxes can be opened without having to lift off the boxes on top of it.
And although they can be bought in all sorts of sizes, transparent ones make it easy to see what’s inside.
Kitchen Sync
Kitchens can so easily become cluttered, making preparing and cooking food difficult and even unsafe. You’ve probably found that space above cupboards quickly turns into a graveyard for unused food processors, empty tins and other unsightly objects that you may or may not use again.
If you’ve got into the habit of opening cupboards slowly in order to catch the overflow, take a look at some of the innovative home storage solutions available for your kitchen.
Concealed storage racks and drawers occupy the smartest kitchens, swinging out to reveal double the space of a conventional cupboard. It’s even possible to store your ironing board away in its own drawer – now that’s great home storage.
There are many innovative ideas for home storage, some you can buy and some you can create. Which you choose depends on your level of DIY skill – and willingness to get your hands dirty.
With many people not moving house, and tiny apartments being built in what little space there is left, designers are thinking up new ways to improve home storage all the time.
The important thing to realise is that you don’t have to put up with living in a cluttered space. If you’ve discarded everything you don’t want and still need more room, it might be time to get creative.
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