small house, little storage, plan?

[perSue]

the "stockpile" thread inspired this.

i would love to stockpile bunches of household goods and food and stuff, but we simply do not have the space (or storage!).

we do have some storage bins, but how "decorative" are they? seriously!

for instance, the kitchen, my favourite place (outside of my own little craft corner), has NO storage. Except for the fridge, the cabinets are filled with dishes I use regularly, and the few canned goods and dry goods.

I've thought of buying a 'china cabinet' and other pieces of furniture, but we have a small house. and every inch is pretty well used up as far as I can see.

So what practices and recommendations do you have for living in a small house, though we are minimalists, sometimes it feels "crowded" having the stuff we need and/or use.

thanks

[FrugalWitch]

I sometimes store canned goods under the bed. You can also "stack and drape", make a stack then cover it with a small tablecloth or throw.

[Lady_V]

When you own a house, you have a little more fiddle room than with a condo, I have already day dreamed on how to stash things in a house

Above the cabinets, under the bed, in a trunk-table, build shelves above the bar in the coat closet, take down a wallboard and have inlaid shelving and of course the cargo shelves that suspend from the ceilings.

Can you tell I have been thinking about this a while?

[wulong32]

I live in a small apartment and have the same problem. I just figured out the other week that I can store things behind my couch. My couch is set up to where each end is at a different wall, with a big space in the back where the two walls meet at the corner of the room. I probably have about 15 boxes of cereal, 6 gallons of water, juice, soda, with room to spare. I figure noones gonna be looking behind my couch, and I finally have space on my kitchen counters freed up.

[Daisygirl]

I store some things in a trunk at the foot of my bed. In a pinch I can put things under our beds.

I am lucky, I have a ton of storage. Is there any tiny space you could install a shelving unit and then put a decorative screen in front of it?

[zakity]

Under the beds

Under chest of drawers or under nightstands

What about your closet? Any extra room in there? Can you fit a tub or box of something in the bottom under some shoes?

over or around the washing machine and dryer

any extra room in the linen closet or hall closet

Any extra room in the bathroom for toiletries? Any room for a small cabinet that hangs on the wall? What about room for a small cabinet that sits on the floor or a small plastic drawer unit (think I have seen Sterlite brand plastic drawer units)?

shelf or cabinet in the garage

behind the couch (you can fit a row or two of canned goods between the bottom of the couch and the wall)

What about a shelf above the hot water heater?

Or the near the furnace? This would be ideal for extra tp or paper products. It isn't so great for food products unless it is short term storage because of the warming and cooling.

bookshelf in the hallway

[perSue]

wow... great ideas.

i think i need to open my eyes...

i was thinking of doing some kind of shelving in the kitchen...

the sizing is the hard part...

i'm thinking i might hit a few thrift stores and look for something i can fix or convert before actually buying something from a store.

i don't want to buy something that can't be moved around (like a china hutch).

thanks again.

[Grandma Lewis]

How about a trash can topped with a table cloth and glass table top?

[jamie79]

You can get a "pantry" at Walmart or K-Mart for like $50. They are either white or wood color 4 shelf cabinets. I bought one many yrs ago and it has been used for a pantry, linen closet and now its downstairs in the laundry area and holds my detergent and cat supplies. Well worth the money

[perSue]

jamie79 - i'll have to check that out...

thanks!

[HisDaisy]

When we lived a small apartment, I stored items on a shelving unit in the office (2nd bedroom). I wasn't pretty, but it worked.
I also stored things in boxes and bins that I could keep in the kitchen, but move into the office when company came over.
Now we live in a small house, but it has lots of storage in the basement.

[Marie78]

You can get a "pantry" at Walmart or K-Mart for like $50. They are either white or wood color 4 shelf cabinets. I bought one many yrs ago and it has been used for a pantry, linen closet and now its downstairs in the laundry area and holds my detergent and cat supplies. Well worth the money

We have something like this, it was a yard sale find by my mother when I was very little. It's actually served many purposes throughout my life: bookshelf, linen cabinet, and most recently in my apt. it holds our canned/boxed goods since space is limited in our kitchen too .

[brenda67]

I store stuff under my bed..

[acidcookie]

Under the bed is a very under-utilized area! You could even buy those bed risers that raises the height of the bed so you have even more space. In fact, if you leave near a college there are probably plenty of college students ditching these from their dorm rooms come late spring/early summer.

Also, if you have wall space, you have shelf space. Maybe you won't store stuff on shelves, but you could put certain things (like items in the kitchen) on shelves to make room in concealed areas for storage.

[zakity]

We have two of those stand alone pantry things in the garage to hold things.

Oh no... Come to think of it, I have four of them. One is a gift cabinet (shhh... don't tell the boys), one is for little used appliances and rubbermaid/sterlite-type containers of random kitchen utensils and extra cookbooks, one is actually used as a pantry, and the other is stuff like canning jars/supplies and other random kitchen items.