When it comes to storage, many people feel a little lost. Our homes are full of clutter that doesn’t seem to have a home – so why not add some extra storage? Here are some ways you can do that without letting containers and closets take over your house.
Reconsider Your Ideas About Storage
First of all, you need to change your ideas about what storage actually is. A lot of us tend to fling items into drawers and cupboards before slamming the doors shut after them and breathing a sigh of relief, but the truth is that those closets and drawers also need to be organized. A lot of people recommend clear plastic storage boxes – they enable you to see what’s inside them so nothing will ever get lost or under-used. Remember to store things by category – you may have a closet for winter clothes and items, for example. You should also bear in mind that each object should have a home where it belongs, rather than being stuffed into another space to get it out of sight.
Get Multi-Use Furniture
A great way to increase storage space in your home is to get furniture that also has storage space inside it. This might mean using a chest instead of a coffee table in your living room – you can keep your kids’ toys in there out of sight, or even some sentimental possessions like photo albums and mementos. If you have an island in your kitchen, make sure that you get one that has shelves or drawers rather than one that’s a solid block. This means that you can store recipe books in there along with other items.
Think Vertically
It’s important to think vertically. A lot of the time, there’s plenty of space on the walls that you simply aren’t using, and that can be great for storage. You can add shelves that stretch right up to the ceiling, and on the top shelves, you can store items that you don’t need all the time – summer clothes during the winter, for example. You just need to make sure that you don’t store anything too heavy up there. They may be hard and potentially dangerous to get down – going for small, light containers is the best way to go.
Add A Garage
If you don’t have a garage already, it may just be time to add one to your home. A metal garage can be customized to be exactly what you want it to be, whether that entails a workshop outside so you can work on your DIY projects out there instead of in the house, a place where you can keep your vehicles so you can work on them any time of year without having to worry about getting rained on, or simply a place where you can keep possessions that you don’t need in the house. This might be your kids’ old keepsakes from their childhoods or items that belonged to deceased relatives that you haven’t quite managed to sort through yet. A lot of items have sentimental value and it’s okay to take a while to figure them out.
Storage is the best way to make sure your home looks neat and tidy – clean up that clutter and make sure that everything has a home.
