More Storage in Less Space

It can be a challenge to keep your small home or apartment from becoming overly cluttered. There’s a good chance that you’ve got some storage space that you hadn’t ever thought of, though. With a small investment and some creative thinking, you could store almost everything out of sight until you need to use it again. You don’t need a big garage or storage unit to keep your home tidy. All you really need is an organized approach toward your storage problem to make it go away.

Make a Realistic Plan

The first step is to decide what you need to pack away and what you need to give away. Consider how often you actually use an item, and sell it or donate it if you haven’t used it in at least three years. Take a quick inventory of the things that you have left, and decide how often you need to be able to get to them. When you store them, keep the items you use more often in places where you can reach them more comfortably. Things you use less often, like holiday decorations, can be stored in harder to reach areas.

Hide Things in Everyday Items

Many typical items of furniture can be easily converted to storage spaces. You could create space to keep things under coffee tables or inside footstools. End tables with doors are nice places to tuck away magazines, books, or other small items. Tall computer desks with multiple shelves are good places to stack books and knick knacks. Long benches could open up to store items inside. Look around your home and find items that have areas of empty space in them or under them. Is there some way you could alter the furniture to hold more things?

Create Extra Inches of Space

Under the bed is a natural storage area that can hide many items but keep them close at hand for when you need them. You can create a little extra space under your bed for taller items by purchasing bed extensions. These extensions fit underneath your bedposts and raise the bed by about 6 inches. The space that is created by raising the bed could accommodate a great number of things without sacrificing any additional floor or cabinet space. With the proper bed skirt, your items will be tucked out of sight until you are ready to pull them out.

Increase Existing Shelf Space

Pantry and closet shelves are usually much taller than they need to be for the things you store on them. Wire shelf dividers can give you up to three additional shelves to hold items on, effectively tripling your storage space. Make sure you store the heavier items on the bottom shelves and lighter items on the upper shelves to maintain stability. Remember to fill the shelves all the way back to the wall so that you utilize as much storage space as possible. Keep the items you use regularly on the middle shelves where you can see them right away.

Jessica Bosari writes about money and space saving topics at LowIncomeApartmentFinder.com. Renters can go to the site to find low income housing in any city.