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Home organization: 8 storage solutions

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Home organization: 8 storage solutions

By
Kathleen Dore

How to find hidden storage spaces, and use them to their full potential when organizing your home.

We grow accustomed to our furnishings and how they're arranged, which can limit our perception of the architecture of a room. Imagine your room empty, or move furniture to another space for a day or two. The radically new perspective will reveal existing niches or areas where built-ins could improve the storage capacity and aesthetics of a room.

Make it made-to-order
In a small space, decreasing the square footage of a room may sound like heresy, but sometimes shaving off a few feet by building a wall of closets or cabinets can solve your storage dilemmas and improve the proportions of a room. Though expensive, custom built-ins utilize space efficiently.

A designer can provide invaluable help in adding a cabinet to a bathroom or building in an entire room, like a den/home office/guest room. Common built-in solutions: closet organizers, entertainment centres, home office workstations, bookshelves, and shelf niches between wall studs in tub and shower areas.

Pick furnishings that hide
Murphy beds, chairs, tables, cots -- anything that folds up and can be stored away, hung on a hook or slid under a bed saves space. From a low-tech drop-leaf table to a high-end, built-in pop-up countertop that conceals small appliances in a kitchen island, your imagination and budget are the only limits to creating double-duty furnishings.

Look up
Wall space is an organizer's best friend. Go to great heights with floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves and cabinets (stash a stepladder nearby for easy access), or opt for a sleeping loft in a bedroom. In the kitchen, mount a second bank of cabinets above existing cabinets, or use the space to stash seldom-used oversize items.

2 Comments

  • by
    Jonathan m
    on 2008-11-13
    Reply to this comment

    oops the site is http://www.1stchoicegarage.com/

  • by
    Jonathan m
    on 2008-11-13
    Reply to this comment

    The most commenly neglected room in the house, that is great for storage is the garage. so much can be done to this huge room, but few do it. want some good ideas for your garae go to this site. my friend told me about these guys and they really have lots of great ideas to get your garage organized. Jonathan

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