Housing is getting smaller and more expensive—which means many of us are putting our mental energy into making our existing homes work for us even if they’re bursting their seams with stuff. From storage unit strategies to time-honored ideas like making sure every stick of furniture comes with bonus storage capabilities, we’re all trying to cram two houses’ worth of stuff into one house.
Interior walls
No matter what kind of house you live in, or what size it is, you have walls. And the interior, non-load-bearing walls in your house are probably framed with 2x4 studs and clad in drywall. If you remove the drywall, it will look something like this:
Credit: sockagphoto/ShutterstockUse a stud finder that also detects wiring and plumbing, like this one. You want a section of wall free from clutter that also doesn’t threaten to electrocute you or flood your house if you slip with the drill. Use the stud finder to map out where your studs are—they should be either 16 or 24 inches apart, but you can run into weird exceptions, especially in older homes or homes where a DIY maniac did a lot of their own work.
Paint the exposed back of the other side of the wall, or cover it with wallpaper or whatever else you want.
Cut 1x4s or 2x4s to size to act as your shelves and set in place.
Voila! Viable storage set into the wall. You can add one or more of these storage options anywhere in the house, and if you don’t need them any more you can just remove the trim, drywall over the opening, and forget it was ever there.
If the stairs are closed (meaning the empty space below is covered by drywall), you can get more ambitious and create built-in storage under there. This could be as simple as replicating the in-wall storage described above—cutting out some drywall between studs to gain access to the void under the stairs, then adding a small door for access—or getting fancy with a set of pull-out shelves (this might be a project worth hiring a carpenter for). As long as you don’t mess with the support structure of the stairs there’s no reason you can use that void underneath.
Toe-kicks
You can buy kitchen cabinets with toe-kick drawers already included, but if don't have those, you can add toe-kick storage to existing cabinetry—but it requires custom-built drawers. You can find folks to make them for you on Etsy, or hire a local carpenter to build them for you. Then it’s just a matter of removing the existing toe-kick cover, installing the drawer slides, and then inserting the drawer itself.
Floors
Like walls, your floor is a system of joists spaced 16 or 24 inches apart, and you can cut a section out of your floor between joists, build in some storage, then re-attach the floor section with a hinge and a handle to create storage under the floor. This is a surprisingly simple project, though you’ll have to get comfortable with cutting up your floor:
Mark a section of the floor that’s about a half-inch wider. This will create a “lip” of joist that the section will rest on when closed.
Build a simple plywood box and insert it into the space you’ve created, attached to the joists.
Fill up your new storage box and drop the door into place. If you take care with your build, it will be nearly invisible.
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