There is plenty of extra room beneath a loft-style bed for cabinets and shelves.
When the cupboards are bursting, bookshelves are overflowing and the computer is sitting on the dining room table, it’s time to start finding ways to save space. Every home has a few empty nooks and crannies that can be pressed into service.
Most parts of the house have the potential to provide extra storage space, including the kitchen and family room, dining room, bedrooms, hallways and corridors. Evaluate all the potential space-saving areas that are available for extra storage before you decide how to proceed.
• Create additional storage space under a pitched roof or a sloping staircase by adding a moveable closet on casters or a custom-built cabinet door.
• Turn a nook into a cabinet by installing a rod for clothing. The space between the clothes rod and the back wall should be the width of half your widest hanger. If there’s no room for a door, install a roller blind or a curtain.
Bedrooms, especially children’s bedrooms, can be a perennial problem but are not difficult to organize effectively. Here are a few ideas for making the best possible use of the space available.
• Use the space under the bed. Tuck away extra blankets or pillows for guests in drawers, low chests or sturdy boxes that are low enough to fit under the bed. A chest of drawers with casters and handles or loops is particularly easy to move in and out. This works best with a bed on a taller frame.
• If there is no space under the bed, hang shelves above it instead. If you want to store important but not particularly attractive objects on open shelves, use a set of matching decorative boxes to hide them away while keeping them in view.
• If you have a high-ceiling bedroom, consider installing a platform for the bed to turn it into a loft-style bed. In this way you will have created more space and can put the area beneath it to good use. What works best in this case will be a chest of drawers, a trunk or a set of shelves covered with cabinet doors.
Hallways and corridors can make up a large percentage of a home, yet they are rarely used as storage spaces. Why not put every nook and corner to work with custom-fitted shelves? Storage and hardware stores offer modular, multi-use shelving systems that can stretch the available storage space without stretching your budget. But there are all sorts of other solutions as well.
• Install a shelf or shelves over the front door or along one wall in the hall, as well as some hooks. This will make it easy to organize coats, boots and shoes, scarves and sporting equipment. You can use matching pull-out baskets to make everything look tidy and attractive. Or you might want to conceal it all behind a curtain or blind.
• Alternatively, instead of hiding the shelf away, why not try showcasing it instead? If you equip the shelf with halogen spotlights, it will become a welcoming island of light in the hallway.
• Another great idea is to build a small custom-made office or chest of drawers to go beneath a staircase in the hallway. A desk made exactly to fit and one or two shelves is perfect for using this potentially dead space.
GOOD TO KNOW 
Proper storage
Pack articles of clothing in white tissue paper to protect them. A layer of blue tissue prevents white clothes from yellowing, and cedar chips between clothing help to guard against moths. Vacuum-sealed bags with vents make practical space-saving storage devices for bulky clothes and blankets—just put the items in the bag and suck out the air with a vacuum cleaner. Finally, store hats in hat boxes and stuff leather handbags with tissue paper so they keep their shape.
A cozy kitchen will quickly become the hub of a home, so it is essential that there is enough storage space to keep it neat and uncluttered.
• Store larger items such as pots, pans and small appliances in the kitchen’s floor level cabinets. For higher up, choose overhanging cabinets that are the right height. The topmost shelves, which you may only be able to reach with a stepladder, should contain any appliances or other items that you don’t use frequently.
• Alternatively, hang pans and utensils from a custom pot rack attached to the kitchen ceiling.
• Use any unused nooks or corners to accommodate the kitchen garbage and recycling bins or a rack for kitchen towels.
• Install tall cabinets with vertical slide-out drawers that are accessible from two sides. They are versatile space savers, while a corner cabinet with a carousel makes good use of a space that often goes to waste.
• Remove large, rarely used items, such as catering-size pans or dishes, and keep them in the attic or a storeroom. Keep a list of what you have put away.
Children use their rooms for playing, learning and sleeping, so miracles are needed when it comes to providing adequate storage space. Over time, most children’s bedrooms accumulate a mind-boggling assortment of toys, clothes, books and crafts that all have to be stored somewhere.
• Here, again, a loft bed can provide valuable extra space. Put a desk or seats underneath it.
• If there is no shelf space, hang a bag made from sturdy material or a mesh net from a ceiling hook for storing stuffed animals, balls and other toys.
• Use colorful baskets, boxes and chests to store toys. Make it easy for children to sort and put away their own toys at the end of the day by gluing a magazine picture of the contents (for example, cars, blocks, doll clothes) on each container.
A WHEELED cabinet AND SHELVES TURN A nook into AN OFFICE.
