Supersize your space – 8 tips to maximise storage

Most people need more space at home. Regardless of whether you have a small flat or a six-bedroom house; it’s often a challenge trying to maximise storage.

Everyone needs more space

The simple answer would be: move to a bigger house. But not everyone can do that just because they have more stuff than cupboards. So, what can you do to supersize your space and maximise the storage space that's available in the house you’re already in?

Putting things in the right place and decluttering are two things that will help you make a good start, but there are tricks to getting this right.

Take a look at our top tips and see how you can make the most of the space available in your house.

Modular furniture

It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to organise – it could be a shoe collection, it could be books, it could be they trail of destruction left in the wake of your kids – a modular storage system, comprised of drawers, cupboards and shelves that you can piece together yourself and add to on an ad-hoc basis can be a great addition to a room where you’re trying to save space. Modular systems can help you save floor space by stacking vertically. They’re pretty much available to suit any budget, as well.

Use all the available space

By this, we don’t mean turn your floor into a labyrinthine black hole that you need to brush up your hop-scotch skills to bravely traverse. What we mean is, if you have an unused loft space, or room under the stairs – make the most of it. Spaces under your stairs can be great for housing your desk and computer, or a seating area, perhaps. Fitted furniture is good for these types of space, it can create the extra storage you need in places that off-the-shelf pieces wouldn’t be able to fit in.

Multi-purpose furniture

If you can get multiple functions from your furniture, it can save you both money and space. You don’t need to buy two items, and the one you do buy could, for example, be both a coffee table and a shelving unit. Your desk could also be your filing cabinet. Your dining table could have drawers built in. There are myriad bits of furniture you can get that will serve not only their primary function but provide you with hidden storage space, too.

Get your drawers in order

Clever multi-purpose storage units are all well and good, but if when you open them it looks like there has been some sort of controlled explosion, they’re next to worthless. Organise your drawers and cupboards to make the most of the storage space they provide you with. Get drawer organisers, for drawers all the way from cutlery to the bottom of your wardrobes – and never be subjected to needing to root for something again.

Make everything a storage space

Something else that can really help you to make the most of the space in your kids’ rooms is investing in a cabin bed. Doing this can give you and your children a desk, shelving, cabinets, drawers and a bed, all within one piece of furniture, and more importantly, one piece of floor space – giving you the most storage for your space and your money.

See-through furniture

A little bit of the wall, perhaps, this can work well when space is at a premium. If you can see through a piece of furniture, your eye moves over it more easily. Lessening the visual impact of your furniture creates the illusion of more space, whilst still providing you with the storage you need.

Use your height to maximise storage

Perhaps this is advice more commonly heard being given to Premier League centre backs, but, it’s true for making the most of the space in your house, too.

Low ceilings can make rooms feel small. If your ceilings are lower than the average, then full-length curtains can create the illusion of more height and space. And whether you’re lucky enough to have cathedral-like ceilings or not, using furniture that reaches the ceiling optimises your floor space, whilst giving you the most space possible for storing your possessions at the same time.

Compact your collections

Music, Films, photo albums: they all have one thing in common, they take up loads of space as CDs, DVDs and albums.

Get them all on a couple of memory sticks, an external hard-drive or some other sort of home storage/entertainment system.

This will help you to create space you can use to store other things, or leave empty to create more room, and it will also give you the opportunity to make a few quid by selling all of your CDs and DVDs.

How Store First can help

If you’ve used all of our tips to maximise storage in your home, and you still have too much stuff, or not enough space – whichever way you prefer to look at it – Store First can help. We can keep your things safe for as little as £3.50 a week*, we’ll even pick your things up for you if you need us to.

Take a look at our locations and prices to find out more.

* Based on a 25sq ft locker at our Blackburn storage centre. Price accurate at time of writing.