Triangle Area Real Estate News & Information

This blog was written by a friend and one of the local resources I turn to when clients need some help either organizing their lives or more commonly getting their homes ready for sale. Deanne Morgan is a professional organizer and owner of Durham, NC-based Central Carolina Organizing LLC. You’ll find more organizing information and tips at Central Carolina Organizing. I asked her to prepare a piece specifically designed to help you maximize your own home's space so you can enjoy it even more.

No matter your home’s age or size, chances are you want and/or need more storage space. You can create that space yourself without spending a fortune or waiting for months and months on a contractor. Here are five tips to get started on making a home for everything in your house.

Ask Yourself: Do You Really Need More Storage?

Before you head out to buy plastic bins, wicker baskets, hooks, filing cabinets and shelving, ask yourself why you feel you need more storage space. If you got rid of the things you no longer need or want as well as all the things that are expired, the wrong size, or broken with no hope of repair, would you still need more storage space? Find out.

Go ahead and get rid of everything you do not need or want and things you haven’t used in years and are not likely to use again. If something has been in a box in your attic since you moved in ten years ago chances are you haven’t missed it and you don’t need it. If your baby is now in second grade and you won’t be having more children, it’s time to part with the stroller in the garage.

Caution: Avoid hurt feelings and arguments — don’t get rid of anything that doesn’t belong to you without asking permission first.

Purge and Reassess
So, now that that’s done do you still need more storage space in your home? If so, you need a clear picture of where you need more space and the sizes and kinds of things that need homes. Start by looking at where you need space Do you need more storage throughout the house or are you lacking space only in certain areas or rooms? Next, make a list of the kinds of things that still don’t have permanent storage locations in your home .These might be clothing, shoes, sports equipment, papers, office supplies and so on. Finally, look at the quantity of each kind of item so you can roughly calculate the size or amount of storage space you need to create.

Choose Storage Containers That Are Right For You

If you need more containers for storing various things, think about what kinds of containers you want, how easy they are to use and whether they’re really functional. Most of my clients are happy with practical, simple storage that’s easy for everyone in the family to use. They don’t care whether containers are made of plastic, metal, wood, wicker, or fabric. On the other hand, some of my clients feel strongly that they do not want plastic or painted wood, particularly if they have young children. Talk with your family about preferences they may have regarding containers. Find out, too, whether it’s important to have containers that match. For some, aesthetics are as important as being organized.

Additionally, think about what’s practical. For example, if you have cats who like to sharpen their claws on whatever’s handy, wicker baskets are probably not a good option for you. Another example: If you forget about things you cannot see (such as file folders in a filing cabinet) then you probably want to get clear plastic bins and open shelving. Final example: Toy boxes are not a good option for storing toys because everything ends up in a jumble and the kids have to pull out everything to find what they want.

Take Your Storage Vertical

Vertical spaces are the most overlooked places for creating more storage. Vertical spaces include walls, shelves, the backs of doors (including cabinet doors), ceilings, the spaces between attic rafters, and certain types of furniture.

Walls: Get the clutter off your garage floor by hanging garden tools, snow shovels, and recreation equipment on the walls. There are all sorts of hooks, racks, bags and other devices designed to hang on the garage wall to store everything from tennis rackets to basket and soccer balls to fishing poles to rakes, hoes and hoses.

Shelves: Most closets have a single shelf over the rod used to hang clothing or a large gap between the top shelf and the ceiling. Use that wasted space by installing more shelves and/or by putting in vertical spacers so that, for example, folded linens won’t topple over to one side or the other. Alternatively, don’t add shelving but instead store tall things on the top shelf such as luggage or comforters. Also, you can use that empty luggage to store things you don’t need often such as out-of-season clothing, bedding or holiday linens.

Backs of Doors: You’ll find many products that hang on the backs of doors designed to hold a myriad of things, including canned goods, paperback books, shoes, purses, hats, craft items, and more. Wire shelving units are best for things like canned goods, books and DVDs. If you’re concerned about things falling through the wire shelving you can buy heavy plastic lining made specifically for wire shelves.

Get creative — just because the manufacturer designed the product to hold shoes doesn’t mean you can’t use it for other purposes. I’ve been in homes where shoe storage hung on the back of a door (fabric back with clear plastic holders) store art supplies, Matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, Barbie clothes, office supplies such as paper clips, pens and pencils, and even cleaning supplies.

Ceilings: Pot racks in the kitchen are one example of using ceiling space for storage. Another is to create a rope and pulley system in your garage to hang bicycles, ladders and other large, bulky items. Several of my clients suspended shelves from their garage ceilings over the space where the garage door opens. They use the shelving to store camping equipment and beach toys, things they use only a few times each year.

Attic Rafters: Don’t try to store anything in your attic if it doesn’t have flooring you can safely walk on. If you’re lucky enough to have flooring, utilize rafters themselves and the space between the rafters. You can cover and then hang wreaths on nails hammered into rafters. Hooks of various sizes will let you store fishing and flag poles horizontally. Finally, there is a North Carolina company that sells shelving designed specifically to fit between attic rafters. That vertical shelf space lets you store more than you could on the attic floor.

Furniture: You can buy foot stools and benches with built-in storage, etageres to go over toilets, end tables with drawers and shelves, dining room tables that have the extra leaves stored under them, and many other kinds of furniture with obvious and not-so-obvious built-in storage.

Get creative with how you use furniture. In my home office I removed the pole for hanging clothes in the closet and put a tall bookcase into the closet. That gave me more space for storing binders, books, extra office supplies and other things.

Keep It Simple

As you store the things in your home, group similar things together. Doing so will save space. For example, put all the boxes of pancake mix together, stack canned goods together and put bags of chips and cookies together. They’ll take up less space than they would if you mixed them up on a shelf. Plus, you can easily determine when it’s time to buy more of something.

Before you bring anything else into your home ask whether you really need it. If it’s not something you need then it’s more likely to end up as clutter. That’s true even if the item (pen, notepad, tote bag, coaster, Frisbee) is free.

If you need help parting with things and/or getting organized, call a professional organizer. You can find an organizer in your area at www.napo.net, or get in touch with our team and we'll be happy to refer you to one of our favorites.