Living in a busy family home can present a lot of challenges, especially when it comes to storage. We moved in to our home when we were a family of 3 with just one toddler - back then we thought this house had tons of storage space! But 8 years later as a family of 2 adults and 3 children between the ages of 6 - 10, we feel very differently.
The fact is that kids tend to have a lot of stuff, and as a home educating family who use a lot of educational resources - we really do find ourselves struggling for inventive storage solutions to help us get the most out of our living space while keeping it as clutter-free and aesthetically pleasing as possible.
Thank goodness for the internet and its array of home storage hacks which have helped us to make our space work for us. I'm going to share some of my favourites with you today.
Opt For Freestanding Clothes Storage
If your bedrooms are small, or if you'd just rather not splurge on expensive furniture right now - a freestanding clothes rail can be an ideal solution.
Not only does it take up less space in your room, but you can also use baskets and hooks to store as many items on it as possible making it super versatile. We also find that having our clothing out on display helps to encourage us to keep it tidy, organised and under control too - meaning fewer impulse purchases and less clutter.
Utilise Storage Drawers & Boxes
When you're struggling for cupboard space in rooms like the kitchen and bathroom, but find yourself with lots of small products to store - tiered storage drawers can be an ideal solution!
We unfortunately don't have the cupboard, counter or wall space in our kitchen to store a spice rack but we do have available floor space - so we use tiered storage drawers for our spices instead. We also use these drawers to store the childrens art & craft supplies in our playroom too.
Another option is to use storage boxes - whether its smaller ones to better organize shelf space in your cupboards, or large ones to keep your garage clutter-free - storage boxes can be an ideal solution for home organisation.
Use Wall Space
Walls are often a forgotten area of the home when it comes to maximising the storage potential available to you, but they can provide huge amounts of extra space.
You can use hooks to store large, bulky items on walls as part of your home decor such as bicycles and musical instruments - my sons guitars and nerf gun collection are all stored on his bedroom walls which means that his floor space is kept clutter-free, whilst his collections add to the overall aesthetic of his room.
Another way to utilise wall space is to ensure that you have adequate shelving - whether it's book shelves and magazine racks in childrens bedrooms, or utility shelves for DIY items in the garage.
Make Use Of Cubby Holes
Our home is full of lots of little nooks and crannies which can seem a little irritating, as they're not big enough to hold white goods or pieces of furniture...but actually with a little outside-the-box thinking, there is usually a way to make use of even the smallest of spaces.
For example, our spare square of space halfway up our staircase has now been used for our cats climbing tree - keeping it out of the way of the rest of the house and providing the cat with its own little area which wasn't
used for anything else. We also have a small cubby hole under our kitchen sink which isn't big enough for a dishwasher or similar - we now use this as extra storage space, and use a small curtain to keep it covered so as not to make the space look cluttered.
Don't Forget Above The Doors
The space above the doors are rarely used, but as this image shoes - they can actually be used in a way that's both efficient and aesthetically pleasing. How adorable is the little swing shelf?! Definitely an idea I'll be borrowing for our home.
Pinterest Hacks Can Be Priceless
There are some super simple ideas to be found on Pinterest which cost pennies to implement, but really help to solve a storage problem. One of my favourites is the tissue box hack for storing carrier bags - we often found our cupboards overrun with them, but attaching a tissue box to the inside of a cupboard door was so simple to do and means that the bags are easy to store and easy to grab on our way to the shops. We also keep one in the boot of the car too, Ideal!
I hope that some of these ideas have been helpful in making the most of the space within your family home. I'd love to hear your own storage solutions in the comments below.
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