When life’s circumstances mean you need to be spending more time at home, you start to notice things that wouldn’t have bothered you before but can be difficult to look past when it’s staring you in the face. Clutter and untidiness is one of these aspects of home-living that if you are spending a lot of time outside the house, can be easy to overlook, ignore and brush off for another day. When you have no other option but to face the mess, it’s time to consider some more practical, stylish storage solutions for your home.
Adding Storage
Adding additional storage areas to your property isn’t always easy, for instance, you can’t just add an extra room to an apartment or flat outside of the existing floor space. When it comes to adding storage, you need to be creative and work with space that is already available to you. Creative doesn’t mean boring however and if you haven’t got the floor space to be adding bookshelves or display units, you’ll need to think ‘outside the box’ for where in your home you can add hidden storage compartments.
Using Space That You Often Overlook
There are many areas in the home that can be easily considered ‘useless’ as they are awkwardly shaped or difficult to reach, that doesn’t mean the space is unusable though.
Consider under the stairs, this area is often low-hanging, dark or has previously been walled off for a cleaner finish. Under the stairs provides an excellent place for nick-nacks, shoes, even a pantry space and can be fitted with a cupboard, drawers or even a tailored shelf unit that is customised to perfectly fit the area. Some people have even used this space for bespoke wall-mounted wine racks as it’s an area perfect for storing fancy bottles and favourite tipples and is usually not a great distance from the kitchen and dining rooms.
Under wall-mounted shelves also provide opportunities for hanging items, such as keys, utensils or bathroom caddies, depending on the area you have shelves mounted and can be easily adapted with screw hooks or command strip hooks that prevent damage to painted walls and wallpaper coverings.
Custom Built Storage
Storage built to suit a specific space doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact with the resources available online such as YouTube and various DIY Blog sites, you can learn basic woodworking tips and build your own custom storage from recycled materials. This is ideal when you have oddly shaped gaps between kitchen cupboards or large furniture items and with some additional wheels, can be built for easy access for when you need to get to your storage items often. Inspiration for custom storage solutions includes slim spice-racks that slot between kitchen cupboards, storage boxes to slide under the bed and cupboards built under sloped ceilings where floorspace is normally lost.
Custom built storage also allows you greater control over the organisation of pre-built cupboards and wardrobes which can often just be open spaces you fill with boxes or clutter. By installing shelves on the inside of doors and a bookshelf or fabric hanging pockets to the inside of cupboards you have easier access to any stored items and have a better idea of the things you own and what can be cleared out, donated or recycled for something else. This helps prevent clutter, even when it’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and can be a fantastic solution for kid’s bedrooms, cleaning cupboards or hallway storage.
Whether you are spending more time at home right now or have more freedom to be out and about, your home is one of your greatest assets and if you take care of it and keep it free of clutter you will feel more comfortable and relaxed during your time there.
Image Credits
Main image: Shutterstock – Royalty-free stock photo ID: 618810107, by Gaf_Lila
Image showing under-stair storage: Shutterstock – Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1611240169, by Bilanol.
We’re very proud to bring you this feature in association with Cranville Wine Racks. For more inspiration for your home, please pay a visit to our interiors page.