More Places to Store Odds and Ends

Having enough storage space is a struggle that many homeowners face. Even when you have plenty of closets and cabinets, there are often additional odds and ends that don’t really seem to belong anywhere. The resulting clutter can be frustrating, and often results in things like unorganized junk drawers or a desk that becomes something of a cluttered catch-all for things that don’t have anywhere else to go in the house.

There are ways to get around some of this clutter, though. You’re likely already familiar with some spaces where you can store some of your odds and ends, but there may be options that you haven’t considered yet. Here are a few more areas that you might consider to help declutter your home and find a place for everything.

Under, Over, and Behind

When you look in your cabinets or closets and see the clutter there, you might actually be missing one possible solution to your problem. There’s usually some empty space around the clutter that you can take advantage of with relatively little effort, provided you recognize it for what it is. Instead of focusing on what’s on the shelves or in your existing storage areas, start looking under, over, and behind those areas. Options include:

• Hang a shoe holder on the back of a closet door and place various small items into its pockets to better organize the space
• Install under-cabinet hardware to mount can openers, paper towels, sliding drawers, or even things like your microwave to free up counter space
• Place hooks on the backs of cabinet doors or on cabinet walls to hold measuring cups or other small items, organizing them for easy access
• Add shelves or an over-the-toilet organizer to your bathroom to hold towels, soaps, makeup, and other items that might otherwise sit around your sink or crowd your bath area
• Install hooks near entrances, in bathrooms, in the laundry room, and in other locations where you might need to hang up coats, towels, or other items

There are a lot of other options available as well, and you can find a wide range of racks, storage solutions, and modular shelving kits that will help you to take advantage of this otherwise unused space.

Making More Storage

If you need a bit more storage than a shoe rack or a bin can provide, there are a few slightly larger projects that can give you a lot more space for your odds and ends. While some of these require a bit of construction, others focus on replacing some furniture pieces to make them more functional. Just a few of these projects include:

• Make better use of the space under beds by adding bed frames with built-in drawers that slide out for easy access
• Install a shelving system in your attic or garage and use it to hold storage bins, organizing the contents of each bin and labeling them for easy reference
• Add a small set of shelves to your broom closet, laundry room, or other out-of-the-way area, cutting out an area between studs so that you can add recessed shelving if necessary
• Replace ottomans, nightstands, coffee tables, or other furniture pieces that are purely decorative and opt for versions that contain more storage

Depending on the layout of your home, there may be other options available to you as well. If you do a lot outdoors, you might also consider adding a shed or other outdoor storage solution to get the items you regularly use out of the house and where you actually need them.