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Your family grows each year, but regrettably, your home stays the same size.
The kids take on more sports and extracurricular activities, while you try on new hobbies, and maybe even contemplate a home gym.
It’s all good stuff, but how do you keep your house from being overrun with clutter?
It’s an interesting problem, and it takes an entirely new analysis of your space.
Of course, the best thing you can do to get started is to spend the weekend managing a massive declutter project.
Get rid of the baby clothes, the tossed aside toys, and yes, the size six dresses that don’t quite fit anymore.
If you’ve done all that and still find yourself lacking storage, it may just be a case of missing the opportunities that are right under your nose.
Here are a few easy ways to create more storage in your home right now.
Easy Ways to Create More Storage Space in Your Home
First off, consider the stairwells.
Unless you live in a ranch-style home, you’ve got at least one or two stairwells.
These are hidden treasure troves of underutilized storage.
The space beneath the stairs is a bit odd-shaped, but it can be used with the right organizational assistance.
Buy stackable plastic containers to fill this space, and pack them with seasonal clothes, extra toys, or even dry food that can’t fit in your kitchen cabinet.
You can hang a curtain from the stairs if you don’t like the look of the boxes, but this space could save your bacon if your home is bursting at the seams.
Next, look up.
You often think about storage on the walls, in furniture and closets, but what about above your kitchen cabinets?
Most cabinets don’t go all the way to the ceiling, creating a high shelf you can use to increase your kitchen storage vastly.
Hop on the stepladder and store your infrequently used ultimate kitchen appliances up there, as well as table settings you don’t have room to store anywhere else and don’t use that often.
The space above the cabinets is also a great place to put large servers or vases.
Once you’re done looking up, go the other extreme and check out the spaces under all of your furniture.
You may not want to pack the room under your china cabinet or coffee table unless they are low enough that a few items can slide under and be hidden.
But other furniture, such as beds and cribs offer prime real estate for storage.
Buy baskets or plastic rolling bins and pack those spaces tight with rarely-worn clothing, wrapping paper, your extra bed linens, or anything else that’s short and relatively flat.
Make sure the bins you get are clear, so you can roll them out and easily look through their contents.
Learn creative ways to get more storage space in small bedrooms.
Filling the low spots should open up a bit more space in the closets, which means it’s time to address your closet shelves.
Chances are if you’re hard up for storage space, you might not be using your closets as well as you can.
Check to see if you can add another, a higher shelf in the closet, to double accessibility.
If not, buy crates to fill up the shelving space.
You’ll vastly increase the amount of stuff you can fit in there, not to mention making it all much easier to keep organized.
Adding crates or extra shelves to every closet in your home should make a profound difference.
If you’ve done that and still find yourself struggling, it may be time to consider public storage.
If you can’t make home storage work out, you probably have to add some more square footage.
That, or reconsider the amount of stuff you’re hanging on to.