Storage Ideas for a simpler life
Home is supposed to be a sanctuary, somewhere to recharge spent emotional and physical batteries. Sometimes, though, possessions pile up and then everywhere you look, there’s ‘stuff’ that doesn’t belong. Then home stops being a sanctuary and it becomes hard to relax.
If you’re trying to simplify your life and create a homely harmonised and organised living space, these tips might help.
It’s the first step, and nothing to do with throwing out stuff you love. We’ve all got possessions that mean a lot, but that we don’t use all the time. Maybe it’s family photos going back decades, treasured music collections, inherited items that don’t match today’s decor… there are all kinds of things and just as many reasons to hold onto them.
Except maybe not at home.
Renting a self storage unit could help streamline your living space. Choose your size of room and self storage location, decide how to organise the space, then safely stow your precious items so you can simplify your home setup.
Once you figure out how self storage works*, there’s lots of leeway for organising your storage unit. As long as you don’t drill into the walls, it’s up to you. Bring in drawers or dress rails, shelving, or stacks of boxes. Do whatever works best for your items in storage.
Possession Detoxing Tips
- Go room by room, rather than do it all at once.
- Make lists, starting with obvious things like items you love but never use.
- Create piles of stuff when you're clearing cupboards or closets: one for broken things to toss, one for things to store and a third for those items that stay in place.
- Try your hardest not to just move things from room to room. So, throw out the trash, make a same-day trip to the storage room, and put keepers back neatly.
Staying Organised
Once you’ve purged the items kept at home, the next task is keeping things neat and organised. The key idea here is having a place for everything. It’s an oldie but goodie, because when you know where something lives, it’s a small task to keep it there.
- Use storage furniture everywhere. In living rooms, you can have multiple storage pieces in the form of tables with shelves or drawers, footstools or ottomans, sideboards, or dressers. They’re great for stashing all the little things, like pens, spare batteries, charging cables, magazines… all the stuff that clutters up surfaces.
- In bedrooms, extend the storage beyond the wardrobe with storage divan or ottoman beds.
- In the wardrobe itself, install an extra rail or fit hooks inside the door to hold accessories. A craft drawer tower works well in the bottom for smalls, shoes, or extra folded items.
- Use shelving everywhere. If you think you have no space for a shelf, look again. Put one over the door to hold books in the living room or towels in the bathroom, fit one under the stairs to help keep stuff off the floor, or run one high up around a room for wrap-around display storage. Here are some tips on shelf styling.
- In kitchens, tubs and cannisters are more stackable than packets and bags, so it may help to decant foodstuffs when you bring them home. A few hooks for mugs under the wall cabinets can free up space in the tableware cabinet, and you could fit a rail or narrow shelf on the end of a cabinet to hold spice bottles or keep tea towels, aprons, or oven gloves tidy.
Deal With the Little Storage Annoyances
Once you’ve sorted out the bigger things like storage furniture for everyday items, it’s the little things that get super annoying. Things like always losing your keys or having the junk mail piling up in the hall.
Simple solutions such as having a bowl to drop keys in when you come home, or a letter rack to neatly hold leaflets and mail ‘til you have time to glance at them.
Try and notice how and where frustrations start and see if you can find a solution for them. It could be kids always arguing about who own what (maybe get them individual toy boxes), or you’re fed up with muddy trainers blocking the doorway (maybe install a shoe rack to hold them).
You don’t have to put up with those low-level frustrations as there’s nearly always a way to resolve them, whether through local self storage, storage furnishings or simply changing how you do things.
One thing that can really help is to bring everyone at home onboard, so you’re all making an equal effort in the quest for a streamlined and simplified life
What's your top storage tip?
