Like the rest of the world, you’re probably spending more time at home right now than ever. Before the pandemic, your home might have been where you slept, ate, and occasionally entertained. Now, our homes have to double as our offices, our classrooms for online courses, and our main social space. With this shift in usage comes a need for more space. Houses that previously felt cute and homey are starting to feel crowded and claustrophobic. So how do you make the best use of the space that you have? One way to transform your space is to create more efficient storage in your house. By finding creative ways to store your stuff, you can free up more of your home to use as you please. Read on for 4 ways to create more storage in your home.
Pare down
The first thing that you should do when you realize you need more space in your home is take stock of everything you own. Most people skip this step and jump immediately to buying or installing more storage, without realizing that they are storing items that they don’t need or care about. Avoid this mistake by going through everything from house appliances to clothes, and getting rid of what you don’t need or no longer use. You can then donate or recycle these goods (both sustainable options), leaving you with more space to store the things you actually use. Bonus, your space will feel cleaner and less cluttered, which has been shown to help people manage stress!
Use “dead space” to your advantage
After you’ve pared down to things you actually want to store, it’s time to take advantage of those unused and sometimes ignored spaces in your home. These spaces, sometimes called “dead spaces”, are great places to store objects that you don’t need to access very often. Under the bed, for example, is a good place to put seasonal clothes or extra bedding. Plus, with so many companies making elegant specialized storage, you won’t have to sacrifice style for utility.
Shrink your stuff (literally)
Another often forgotten strategy to free up more storage in your home is to make your stuff smaller by investing in a vacuum sealer. This might sound crazy, but it’s actually really straight forward: Anything soft—like sleeping bags or pillows—can be compressed to a fraction of its size with a vacuum and a vacuum storage bag. It won’t damage your items, but it will allow you to store them in a much more efficient way. You can use this to maximize closet space (or the underbed space we just talked about), freeing up more space for sometimes hard-to-store bulkier items.
Bring the storage unit to you
Sometimes, needing more storage isn’t a matter of organizing or being more efficient. Sometimes, you just need more space, which is where an at-home storage unit can help. While traditional storage companies are easily found in most cities, it can be inconvenient to store your stuff away from your home, especially if you want easy or frequent access to your items. This is part of what makes home storage units so useful. There’s no travel involved, no dealing with open hours or coordinating property managers. Your stuff is stored right on your property, as if you added a small room just for the purpose of storing your items. This is great for items that you may use occasionally or seasonally, like bikes, snowboards, or camping gear. In your at-home unit, they’ll be safe and secure, close by, and no longer taking up valuable garage space.
Whether you’re maximizing a small space, or just hoping to find better ways to keep your stuff organized, these four tips will help you create the storage space that you need for your lifestyle.