Tell me about your small-space storage successes

October 4, 2018 1:12 PM

What's the best way to add storage capacity to an apartment without spending a fortune? DIY-ish solutions are preferred.

We have a fair bit of space in our apartment, but not a lot of places to put things away. For long-term storage, we have space in the basement, but I want to tidy things up and put them away daily. I'd rather have closed storage because everything gets dusty in the house very quickly.

I see a lot of "cube storage" things on Pinterest et al. Are those practical? I want to hear from you.

Challenges:
- narrow doorways. We can't bring a big piece of furniture into the house easily. Assembling something would be OK as long as it can be easily disassembled for a move.
- no wall mounting. We can't hang anything on the walls or mount anything easily because the walls are made of 100-year-old undrillable steel lath and horsehair plaster.
- no workbench/tools for building something custom.

posted by overeducated_alligator to Home & Garden (21 answers total)

The IKEA KALLAX series is very customizable. I have three in my one bedroom apartment: a 2x4 in the living room with doors on the bottom 4 cubes, a 2x4 on its side in the bedroom with doors in the bottom 4 cubes, and a 2x2 by the front door set up with two doors and four drawers. The drawers and doored cubes hide things that need to be put away, while the open cubes display books, art, and tchotchkes. My apartment is cubby heaven.
posted by ejs at 1:31 PM on October 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Do you have space above your kitchen cabinets? I got some lidded bins from Ikea and put them above my kitchen cabinets. Inside one of the lower cabinet doors I taped up a directory of what's in each high bin, so when I need something, I can go straight to the correct bin. These bins are about 12" high, so they fit things like extra lightbulbs, spices, specialty kitchen stuff that's only used occasionally like a pasta maker, etc.
posted by xo at 1:32 PM on October 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I currently have 2 of the medium sized Kallax units in my bedroom; when I was living in an apartment I had 4 throughout the place. I used one in the living room as a combination storage and TV stand, and the other 3 were in bedrooms as bookshelves/storage combos. I also used one as a room divider for a really long time.

The fact that you can add drawers or doors, and not just the pull-out baskets, makes them endlessly customizable, and you can also switch them from horizontal to vertical depending on your wall space.
posted by assenav at 1:41 PM on October 4, 2018

There are a lot of storage possibilities in tables, sofas, benches, shelves etc. Don't just look for storage-only shelving systems etc, also look at parson's benches, coffee tables with lift-off lids, blanket chests with padded tops you can sit on, sofas with flip-up storage, beds with mattresses that lift up, or have sliding drawers underneath. Rolling cabinets you can push into closets and pull out when you need what's in them. Rubbermaid makes an adjustable metal shelf that bolts to the back of a closet door; we've got one in our pantry. Look for dead space in kitchen cabinets you can tuck infrequently used things in.

If a room is slightly larger than you need, you can fill up a wall with e.g. KALLAX or its relatives, taking about a foot off the floor dimensions, and you won't notice the missing floor space after a while but can end up with a hundred cubic feet of extra storage.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:43 PM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Barrister bookcases would be perfect for you as they keep dust out and fill all of your criteria. I love mine, and they were a huge game-changer for me.

I essentially have 10 boxes that each have a glass door, and six pieces of wood that make up two matching four-stack oak sets and one two-stack walnut set. They were easy to get in the tiny back entry area of my building, and you just put the base on the floor, add the boxes, add the top, and you're set.
posted by jgirl at 1:49 PM on October 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

1. Above the kitchen cabinets, if not boxed in (xo beat me to it, above) But you need to be sure the cabinets can hold the load, I.e., they are screwed to studs with appropriately sized anchors.)
2. Shelves above the inswing of doors. (These can be secured by screwing into the header of the door jamb and the top plate of the wall.)
3. Underneath the beds. (Either a shallow box or a bed frame with built in drawers.)
4. Use armoires for clothes and bedroom closets for additional storage.
posted by sudogeek at 1:49 PM on October 4, 2018

For small-space cred, I will note that I have been living in a theoretically 425 square feet apartment for 32 years. Really.

I absolutely wanted glass to keep dust out, provide display, and keep my late boy snowshoe cat from pulling my books down over and and over over again (and then shredding them) while I worked at my desk.
A large glass bookcase or cabinet would be really hard to get in here and barristers were ideal.

As a bonus, the cat calmed down significantly because he couldn't get the books. I think all of my used volumes must have had tantalizing scents for him. A copy of John Donne's work was his particular target.

And you don't have to use barristers for books. If I ever have a bedroom (pipe dream at this point) I'd want a set for my bags. They could be good in a kitchen, too.
posted by jgirl at 1:55 PM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Loft the bed so you can put big bins of stuff under there. I lofted mine so high I could barely get in it, but I could fit nearly all of my worldly possessions under there.
posted by little king trashmouth at 2:05 PM on October 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Consider this another vote for lofting your bed - that's a lot of floor space to hide things!

My wife and use an ottoman as a coffee table, both because it's a more reasonable size for our living room... and because it's basically an upholstered box to hide things. Under the couch works well too.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 2:11 PM on October 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

I used these tall-ass bed risers to be able to put a ton of stuff under my bed, and have been happy with them.

Also n'thing KALLAX, they're especially great as room dividers. I live in a bachelor, so I have my bed behind one, and books/trinkets/etc on the "living room side" and misc. bed-related personal effects on the "bedroom" side. They're wide enough that you can have a row of paperbacks facing each way. Mine is at a right angle to the wall, is not anchored, and seems quite sturdy (YMMV if your floors are tilty, you have kids, etc.)
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:17 PM on October 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Raised floor storage in the bedroom is very common in Hong Kong and works a treat. We have companies here who will custom build this for you for not too much money, but I don’t know if it’s available where you are.

Also, my bed lifts for storage, which is pretty ideal. I have the IKEA MALM which works fine for me. I keep all my exercise clothes and camping gear in there.
posted by frumiousb at 3:50 PM on October 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Shelving inside closets added a lot of space for me.

Also just decluttering as a whole has really "produced" a lot of space. You dont have to go minimalist but most people have more than they need. (I am a believer of the konmari method though, the life changing magic of tidying up and the sequel spark joy was really life changing)
posted by vespertinism at 4:19 PM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Even though you said your walls are undrillable, I just wanted to add two cents - i have out up a lot of shelves in apartments in/around both nyc and boston, including ones with plaster like you described, and trust me with the right drill bits and anchors, as well as as some patience to locate studs, you can definitely hang shelves if you want to. I use the rubbermaid or kv single track standards and brackets from home depot, and for the shelves i use 10 or 12 inch wide boards cut to length (they will do this for you at most home depots)... Its best to have a majority of your standards going into a stud, ie drill round till you see saw dust, then measure out from there. Then if you have a thick layer of plaster/lathe bt you and the stud, use a sufficiently long screw (sometimes 3"! Bc the standard will stick up about a half inch from wall surface) to get through to the stud.

I know this is perhaps still not up your alley, but just so you know it is possible.. Or i suppose in case any future mefites stumble upon this thread and despair of their shelving options, perhaps this can give them hope. Making use of vertical space this way (with cheapo tracks plus boards) has always been best bang for my buck so far.

When you vacate the space, you can cut the wall anchors flush to the wall with a razor blade, then fill holes with some spackle.. Depends on the finish on your walls whether the spackle job will be barely visible and no big deal or a big issue. If they're satin or flat white ive done this spackle routine and landlords havent even noticed. Any marks from the standards can be removed using magic eraser.
posted by elgee at 7:30 PM on October 4, 2018

This is a smaller scale than most of the other suggestions, but boxes like these have helped me pack a lot more into my drawers without sacrificing accessibility.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:10 PM on October 4, 2018

About 75% of our stuff as a 4-person family was (until our recent move) stored in 5 Ikea PAX wardrobes - the tall, deep ones: 59x26x93 inches. No wall-mounting was necessary. The plain, white doors look very minimalistic and you can store a LOT of stuff in there.
posted by gakiko at 1:23 AM on October 5, 2018

1) We Konmaried the crap out of the flat recently. Questioning everything we had put into long term storage. Did really need to have it or were we holding onto it "just in case"? We got rid of a LOT of the latter stuff.

2) Vacuum seal bags for off season clothes allowed me to use less storage boxes.

3) Replaced our bed with an ottoman style bed . I hate having individual storage boxes under the bed as they just collect dust on top of the boxes and it's a pain to dust under there. This is working much better for us already.
posted by like_neon at 3:37 AM on October 5, 2018

I see a lot of "cube storage" things on Pinterest et al. Are those practical? I want to hear from you.

Yes. I've been decluttering my house and simply putting like things in boxes of all kinds makes them easier to see and locate. I recommend you label the boxes though. This is great in drawers as well.
posted by xammerboy at 7:40 AM on October 5, 2018

Ikea Ivar and Elvarli systems are customizable, cheap and work very well. The other benefit is they are infinitely expandable as you move to a new space or outgrow the space.

Most of small solutions require creative solutions on heights and width which makes boxes waste of precious space. When apartments are small then try to go vertical . Be honest on which items you use the most and keep them at eye/hand level. Everything else goes higher or lower.

Apartment Therapy or Ikea Hacker are my goto for inspirations for ideas.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/bedroom/11466/
posted by radsqd at 11:12 AM on October 5, 2018

This Ikea table rules. Six storage drawers and it collapses to 9 inches wide.
posted by clavicle at 11:13 AM on October 5, 2018

Storage racks on inside of cabinet door.

Here's a page with many examples.

We do this in our kitchen, with spice racks on the inside of two kitchen cabinets similar to these, and plastic wrap/tin foil/parchment inside another cabinet. Using that inside-door space frees up drawer space. For the spice racks, I found the single shelf options were better for us than a 3-shelf model, because we could space them properly to not hit shelves inside the cabinet door.
posted by quinoa at 6:25 PM on October 6, 2018

Just about every pantry and closet door in our house has a door rack like this one on it. They're customizable, so the one on the Mr's closet holds CDs and cables, the one on mine holds sewing and craft supplies, the pantry holds spices and chili powders (we, er, have a lot of different kinds of chili powder), the one in the laundry room holds cleaning supplies, etc.
posted by telophase at 1:35 PM on October 10, 2018