Monday, December 28, 2015

No Room at the Inn; Storage Space Part One

We have not done a lot for stocking the past few weeks. We have picked up a few extra things at the store since this time of year there are a lot of baking and food items that go on sale for the holidays. We always buy water when we go to the store. We originally were buying water a gallon at a time. Then we found the 2 1/2 gallon containers. That is what we buy now. They definitely stack better.

But where to store all this water? The past couple of days I have been trying to tackle that problem. Most folks do not have any where near enough storage space to store all the things that they want to stock up on. Especially water. It is bulky, heavy and just plain hard to store out of the way. Should you skip it and look at things you can store more easily? ABSOLUTLY NOT! It should be a priority. So let's look at all the places you have and never thought about. Of course, this may mean it's time to purge your home. This is a good time of year for it anyway, what with the new gifts that you have.

My first suggestion is to think in 3-D. Don't look at the floor in a room and say that you have no space. You have walls, too, don't you? You do have a least one or two closets in your home, right? Now is the time to think outside the box, so to speak. Let's look at all the ways you can add storage in your home for all the things that you are going to start stocking up on.

Let's start with your closet, or your children's or spare room closet (if you have a spare room closet, you are already ahead of the game). What do you have in the closet and how much can you get rid of? Take a good long look at the clothes and shoes in there. Decide what you can purge. If it's in good shape, send it off to your favorite charity. Did that clear up some space? Next, think of the ways you can take advantage of that space. How much space do you have under the clothes hanging in there and the stuff you have stored under it? Could you add a small shelf under there? Put some items for storing underneath and shoes on top. If your wife doesn't like the way that looks, put it in a box or tub, closed up and put your shoes on top of that. Need to sell the idea? Look Honey, now you don't have crawl around on the floor looking for your shoes, here they are all set up together nice and neat. Now keep them that way so the idea doesn't get taken away, lol.

Let's move on to the width of your closet. When you got done purging, do you now have extra space at the end of your closet vertically? Can you stack some items in there? How about enough space to actually put some shelves? If you are going to take over a woman's closet space, I would recommend that you make this as nice and neat as possible! If you can add some shelves, put water in the back and other items in front. This way you can still see what you have stored in there. You can even take some material or an old sheet and hang on the front of it to cover it up and keep the illusion of neatness.

Now, move on to the bathroom. But the bathroom is small, I hear you now. So is ours. We have no hall closet or bathroom closet. So how to solve that problem? Shelves. Last year when we redid our bathroom, we added shelves on the wall. I put a small wooden crate on the shelves to hold washcloths and hand towels. As long as you keep your towels folded, it will look much neater that you think. If you do have a closet that you put all of your bathroom necessities, you can still add shelves. We also added shelves around the bathroom about a foot down from the ceiling. We have added baskets to the shelves to hold extra storage items. Baskets are a great way to store bandages and other medical or miscellaneous supplies. They keep everything neat and organized and look nice (have you noticed the theme of keeping it all organized and neat yet?). It doesn't have to be baskets if you or yours don't really care for baskets. Any container that will hold the items is going to work. Maybe you like old cigar boxes or pretty bowls. Although if you go with bowls, I would suggest not getting clear ones. you aren't trying to advertise here. One thing to keep in mind when adding storage to the bathroom is to keep to items that will not be harmed by the humidity in the bathroom.

Do you have a laundry room? Or just a laundry area? If you have a laundry room, lucky you. If not, I am right there with you. Again, what can you purge? Do you have 10,000 bottles of different cleaners? Why? Get rid of them or use them up and don't replace them. There is virtually nothing that you cannot clean with plain old vinegar and baking soda. And bonus, you can show your kids a science project when you mix them together! Just use common sense with that. :) Now that you have room by eliminating all those extra bottles, you can store useful items there. Think extra vinegar and baking soda, think toilet paper, paper towels, etc.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. As I will show you in future posts, you have even more space than this. Stay tuned for more ideas. If you have an idea that I didn't cover, send it along and share. Everyone could use more ideas. Who doesn't need more space?

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