Large water bottle storage furniture needed!

February 5, 2011 11:48 AM

Help me to hide my 5 gallon Arrowhead bottles!

Ok, so I love my Arrowhead delivery, but the bottles are not adding that special something to my decor. I'd like to hide them in some sort of chest or cabinet or ??? I would have thought there would be lots of clever accessories at places like IKEA for this, but Google is failing me. What do you do with yours?

Boundary conditions: I don't have any available closet space or garage space. They've basically got to be in my entryway or living room, which I like to keep very uncluttered and open. I usually have about 4 at a time, full + empty.

What would be completely awesome would be some sort of vertical cabinet where 4 bottles could go, on their sides, one on top of the other. You could put one in (on the bottom), then turn a crank or something to lift it up and make room for the next one. Kind of like those vertical car storage things I've started seeing around where you drive one car in and it goes up in the air on a hoist thing, and they drive another in underneath it.

Anybody ever seen anything like that for water bottles?

posted by bluesky78987 to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

I've seen people stack milk crates on their sides and slide the jugs inside of those. I've also seen people use the Expedit shelving from Ikea for them (square shelving). Expedit would look nicer but milk crates are usually free. Also, googling for "5 gallon water storage" turns up a lot of results.
posted by msbutah at 11:53 AM on February 5, 2011

Find an enterprising tailor on Etsy to make you attractive outfits for them, perhaps something with snaps or velcro for ease of changing them out. I know that is not the direction you were going but it seemed entertaining so I thought I would share. :D
posted by Glinn at 12:08 PM on February 5, 2011

Thanks all.

Using msbutah's google string, I found a couple of racks (they seem to call them "racks"). This one is a decent price:

http://www.amazon.com/Polder-7178-90-3-Tier-Water-Bottle/dp/B0007IQJY6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1296937777&sr=8-2

I like Glinn's idea, actually . . . how could I make a cute dress or something to surround that rack? Maybe one of those Japanese style screens?
posted by bluesky78987 at 12:32 PM on February 5, 2011

I have lately been contemplating the ease with which corrogated cardboard (inexpensive, or might already be lying around), spray paint and stencils could be converted into Japanese style screens, should the storage space be far from any sort of heating source.

Likewise, the old-fashioned way: wood and ricepaper, with precut balsa, dollar-store popsicle sticks, or some such substituting if you have no woodworking space.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 12:50 PM on February 5, 2011

Put them under a side table with a floor length table cloth.
posted by anaelith at 1:10 PM on February 5, 2011

My workplace stores the water bottles in plastic racks, which look a lot like milk crates but were obviously designed for the purpose of storing water bottles. They're not very attractive but a plastic rack plus a decorative screen, maybe? I also like anaelith's idea.

Some other google hits for water racks: Tailor Made, ProStack.
posted by hattifattener at 1:30 PM on February 5, 2011