How often have you heard the cry “this house does not have enough storage”! Storage is so important, but it depends upon what kind of storage. It is necessary to differentiate between storage meaning to store items away out of sight and storage combined with display, or to merely hide the walls. We also have the freestanding variety or bespoke built in, the latter requiring a high degree of carpentry specialist skills. It also depends on the room in which the storage is to be placed.
Whatever the storage freestanding or build-in the most important pieces of equipment are a tape measure and graph paper. For freestanding initially measure the room and draw the outline to scale on the graph paper. Then measure the footprint of the furniture already in the room and the footprint of the item of furniture, these will then need to be traced onto card and then cut out. You then have the shape of the room and the furniture all to scale. You can then start to position the furniture taking into consideration cupboard door swings.
For built-in bespoke furniture, it is really better to leave it to the specialists, they know what they are doing and if you want a minimalist bank of storage, cutting corners is just not the answer. Although if there is too much built in storage the house can end up looking like the interior of a caravan!
Below are creative ways to find storage space in the home:
Hall
Freestanding furniture in a hall could be a low level chest of drawers or a console table with drawers. Many halls are just laid out with the stairs facing and a long passage leaving not much option for any furniture at all. One of the best ideas I have found if you have conventional stairs (not open) is to have cupboards built into the ‘triangle’ part which slide out. These cupboards can be 50cm wide and saves going on hands and knees searching for items which have been shoved to the back and not seen the light of day for donkey’s years.
Kitchen
To my mind, the only cupboards in a kitchen should be wall cupboards the interiors of which should have the capacity to ‘slide down’ making the top shelf accessible to people who are shorter than 6 foot tall! The base cupboards should be made up of drawers, these can be full height storage, or within unit 3 drawers deep, some of which can be refrigerated and also conventional, again saving going on hands and knees to the back of the cupboard. There are now all sorts of storage mechanisms for corner cupboards which ‘fold out’ which again solve the problem of almost climbing into a corner cupboard! As you can see I am not a fan of conventional cupboards in a kitchen.
Living Room
Really this is not the place for much storage apart from media and books. There are many storage units for media on the market. Media are not the prettiest of electrical appliances, therefore in my opinion, they are best kept out of sight in a well ventilated, easy to access unit and left to the experts. Book storage on the other hand can look absolutely beautiful if given a little imagination. Books could be stored by a ‘curly’ shelf mounted on the wall or even in ‘diamond’ shaped built-in bookshelves. Books should be displayed behind glass to keep them from getting dusty but not too close fitting to give them ventilation. Other storage in the living room could be in the coffee table where the top is split into 2, 3 or 4 segments which can be lifted up revealing storage within.
Bathroom
Some modern bathrooms can be very small and this is where a little imagination comes into play. Even if there is only a 12cm gap between the door architrave and the wall, built-in storage can be put in with shelving to house bottles shampoo, hair conditioner, shower gel etc. Get inspiration from 5* hotel websites, look for images of the bathrooms. If a bathroom cabinet is the only answer, do your research and choose carefully, some of them look awful! If you have a wall hanging wash basin, rolled up bath towels look attractive on a shelf beneath or even if you don’t have a shelf, a shallow basket on the floor with the rolled up towels piled in a triangle shape look most attractive – but not in a wet room!
Bedroom
If you have space for a separate dressing room or closet, perhaps an adjoining boxroom, I can recommend it. Consider building a wardrobe into an alcove or if there is room a bank of wardrobes along the whole length of a wall. Within these wardrobes think of slide-out drawers, built in shelving with the clothes hung at the height which is within your reach above. Also, I find that the ‘ottoman’ style beds, meaning the ones which the whole base of the bed is given over to storage and the mattress lifts on cantilevers are the best.
For freestanding storage, think wardrobes, 5 drawer chests side by side and bedside drawers. For the more unusual try shipping trunks say small, medium and large piled on each other, these can look very attractive.
I hope you have found this information on storage helpful. It has been suggested that I write my next blog on window treatments, so if anyone has any queries please let me know.
Whatever the storage freestanding or build-in the most important pieces of equipment are a tape measure and graph paper. For freestanding initially measure the room and draw the outline to scale on the graph paper. Then measure the footprint of the furniture already in the room and the footprint of the item of furniture, these will then need to be traced onto card and then cut out. You then have the shape of the room and the furniture all to scale. You can then start to position the furniture taking into consideration cupboard door swings.
For built-in bespoke furniture, it is really better to leave it to the specialists, they know what they are doing and if you want a minimalist bank of storage, cutting corners is just not the answer. Although if there is too much built in storage the house can end up looking like the interior of a caravan!
Below are creative ways to find storage space in the home:
Hall
Freestanding furniture in a hall could be a low level chest of drawers or a console table with drawers. Many halls are just laid out with the stairs facing and a long passage leaving not much option for any furniture at all. One of the best ideas I have found if you have conventional stairs (not open) is to have cupboards built into the ‘triangle’ part which slide out. These cupboards can be 50cm wide and saves going on hands and knees searching for items which have been shoved to the back and not seen the light of day for donkey’s years.
Kitchen
To my mind, the only cupboards in a kitchen should be wall cupboards the interiors of which should have the capacity to ‘slide down’ making the top shelf accessible to people who are shorter than 6 foot tall! The base cupboards should be made up of drawers, these can be full height storage, or within unit 3 drawers deep, some of which can be refrigerated and also conventional, again saving going on hands and knees to the back of the cupboard. There are now all sorts of storage mechanisms for corner cupboards which ‘fold out’ which again solve the problem of almost climbing into a corner cupboard! As you can see I am not a fan of conventional cupboards in a kitchen.
Living Room
Really this is not the place for much storage apart from media and books. There are many storage units for media on the market. Media are not the prettiest of electrical appliances, therefore in my opinion, they are best kept out of sight in a well ventilated, easy to access unit and left to the experts. Book storage on the other hand can look absolutely beautiful if given a little imagination. Books could be stored by a ‘curly’ shelf mounted on the wall or even in ‘diamond’ shaped built-in bookshelves. Books should be displayed behind glass to keep them from getting dusty but not too close fitting to give them ventilation. Other storage in the living room could be in the coffee table where the top is split into 2, 3 or 4 segments which can be lifted up revealing storage within.
Bathroom
Some modern bathrooms can be very small and this is where a little imagination comes into play. Even if there is only a 12cm gap between the door architrave and the wall, built-in storage can be put in with shelving to house bottles shampoo, hair conditioner, shower gel etc. Get inspiration from 5* hotel websites, look for images of the bathrooms. If a bathroom cabinet is the only answer, do your research and choose carefully, some of them look awful! If you have a wall hanging wash basin, rolled up bath towels look attractive on a shelf beneath or even if you don’t have a shelf, a shallow basket on the floor with the rolled up towels piled in a triangle shape look most attractive – but not in a wet room!
Bedroom
If you have space for a separate dressing room or closet, perhaps an adjoining boxroom, I can recommend it. Consider building a wardrobe into an alcove or if there is room a bank of wardrobes along the whole length of a wall. Within these wardrobes think of slide-out drawers, built in shelving with the clothes hung at the height which is within your reach above. Also, I find that the ‘ottoman’ style beds, meaning the ones which the whole base of the bed is given over to storage and the mattress lifts on cantilevers are the best.
For freestanding storage, think wardrobes, 5 drawer chests side by side and bedside drawers. For the more unusual try shipping trunks say small, medium and large piled on each other, these can look very attractive.
I hope you have found this information on storage helpful. It has been suggested that I write my next blog on window treatments, so if anyone has any queries please let me know.
Anne Stuart
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