#Collaborative post
Trying to create more space in the family home can be incredibly difficult. If you sometimes feel as though your possessions are crowding you out, we have some tips to help you get back in control.
Start With a Good Declutter
We all have things lying around that we don’t use anymore. Sometimes these are things we’ve simply discarded, other times they’re things we love and want to keep but we don’t use them very often.
Decluttering can be a little overwhelming when you first start so It’s best to take it in small bites. You could start with just one cupboard or go a little larger and tackle a whole room.
Grab a few cardboard boxes and maybe one or two bin bags. Every item you come across, decide if you want to keep it or not.
Throw broken stuff away but consider moving good things into self storage. Making use of a self storage room is a great way to clear the home decks.
Strategic Storage
Lots of people these days are using self storage on a rotational basis to help them conjure up more space at home all year round.
It’s a simple idea but one that’s not necessarily obvious until someone mentions it.
- During summer, you put all your winter things into self storage including heavy clothing you won’t need for a few months.
- During the winter, you can pop all your summer gear into self storage. It’s a great way to preserve and extend the life of expensive garden furnishings and machinery or tools. Left in the shed over winter these could quickly rust, and the moving parts seize up.
You can also rent large lockers if those would be more suitable. You might find you have lots of old photograph albums or important paper documents you need to store and keep secure. They take up lots of cupboard space so are ideal candidates for locker self storage.
They’re also handy for students to keep expensive textbooks or coursework safe through longer holidays or between academic years. Storage unit prices may be lower than you expect, and the handy locations make putting things away or retrieving them quick and easy.
Put Your Furniture to Work
Include as many storage furnishings as possible. They really help you stay on top of daily muddles so you can keep surfaces clear. It’s surprising how a clear surface, especially a polished one, helps to make a room look more airy and spacious. As a bonus, you’ll feel more motivated to keep the surfaces polished when you don’t have move a load of stuff first.
Include things like tables drawers or shelves, ottomans and chests or footstools with storage. These items are great in the living room, but you can extend the idea upstairs too.
In bedrooms, swap out bed frames for divans or Ottoman styles to gain storage space beneath the mattress. it’s a very handy cavity for spare linens, towels, or blankets. In kids’ rooms, use them for large toys, sports equipment, board games or anything else that needs tucking away.
Use The Walls
There’s nearly always room for an extra shelf or two, or maybe a rail or hook. Use the walls of furniture as well as your structural walls.
- In kitchens, use shelves to store and display favourite cups, mugs, or glasses. Have a narrow shelf on the end of a cabinet run to house herb and spice jars. Use hanging shelves inside cabinets to provide an extra storage area.
- In bathrooms, put a shelf over the bathroom door so there’s somewhere out of the way to store baskets or tubs of beauty or hygiene products.
- In bedrooms, fit extra rails in wardrobes to create more hanging space, or add hooks inside the door to hang light items like beads, scarves or ties.
Often, conjuring up more space at home is simply a matter of organising stuff.
If you can, have a place for everything so you can tidy up without thinking too much about it. While it can be a challenge, try and get everyone who shares your space to help by putting things back where they belong. Hopefully when they see how nice it is to have more space, and how much better they feel, they’ll want to help with keeping it that way.
