Storage ideas, planned properly
Every room has more storage in it than you think
Sometimes Storage is a storage ideas library for real homes. Kitchen storage, closet storage, garage storage, small space storage. Every idea with the measurement, clearance or load limit that decides whether it will actually work in your space.
Four ways in
Start from wherever your storage problem actually is
Some people have a room that has run out of space. Some have a pile of things with nowhere to go. Some have a home that will not take another cupboard. The library is organized all four ways.
By space
Storage ideas by room and space
The rooms and gaps that run out of space first.
Closets, Halls & Garages
The rooms that exist purely to store things. Closets, wardrobes, hallways, understairs, garages, sheds, lofts and basements.
13 guides
Room Storage
Storage ideas for the rooms you live in. Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms.
11 guides
Outdoor & Garden
Weatherproof storage for gardens, patios, balconies and yards. Tools, bikes, firewood, cushions and bins.
5 guides
Utility & Work Rooms
Storage for the rooms that do the work. Laundry, utility, home office, workshop, craft room and playroom.
3 guides
Awkward Spaces
The gaps most people write off. Under the sink, above the fridge, behind the door, in the corner, along the wall.
1 guide
Most asked
The storage problems people search for most
Closets, Halls & GaragesIdeas for closet storage: how to double what yours holds
Most closets I open are one rail with a big pocket of wasted air underneath. Measure the drop your clothes actually need and you can usually fit a second rail, which roughly doubles what hangs.
10 min read
Closets, Halls & GaragesGarage storage ideas: how I get the floor back
A garage never runs out of space. It runs out of walls being used. Nearly every one I walk into stores everything on the one surface you also have to walk across.
9 min read
Closets, Halls & GaragesUnder the stairs storage ideas: how I use the whole wedge
The space under a staircase is a triangle running from about 2m down to a few hundred millimetres. I treat it as three separate storage problems, because that is what it is.
8 min read
Clothes & Personal ItemsShoe storage ideas: what actually fits a narrow hallway
A pair of adult shoes lying flat needs about 320mm of depth. Tilt them and it drops to about 170mm. That one number decides whether your hallway can take shoe storage at all.
7 min read
Room StorageBathroom storage ideas for a room with no spare wall
A bathroom is usually the smallest room in the house with the most small bottles in it. It is also the only room where getting the material wrong will destroy your storage within two years.
8 min read
Room StorageKitchen storage ideas: how I get more out of the cabinets you have
Most kitchens I look at do not need more cabinets. They need the ones they have divided properly, because a deep fixed shelf wastes about half the space it appears to offer.
8 min read
Storage guides
Plan it before you buy it
Full-length walkthroughs for the parts of storage that come before choosing a shelf.
PlanningHow to plan storage for a whole home
Most people buy storage first and plan second. Reversing that order is what turns a house full of boxes into a house that works.
11 min read
MeasuringHow to measure a space before you buy storage
Almost every returned storage purchase is a measuring failure, and almost always it is one of the same four measurements.
9 min read
PreservationHow to store things long term without ruining them
Most damage to stored possessions happens in storage, not in use. Damp, heat and crushing account for nearly all of it.
10 min read
From the blog
Latest storage writing
OpinionNine storage mistakes that quietly cost you space
These are not aesthetic complaints. Each of these mistakes measurably reduces how much your home can hold.
8 min read
RentingNo-drill storage ideas for rented homes
A tenancy agreement that forbids drilling rules out most storage advice. It does not rule out most storage.
7 min read
SeasonalThe twice-yearly storage reset that keeps a house working
Storage decays gradually and invisibly. Two sessions a year is enough to stop it, and considerably less work than one big annual purge.
6 min read
Our approach
Storage advice with the numbers left in
Most storage articles are galleries. They show you a beautiful pantry and leave out the one fact you needed: that round jars waste about a fifth of the shelf, or that a 600mm-deep cabinet has 300mm you will never reach.
We write the other kind. Every storage idea here comes with the dimension, clearance, load limit or material constraint that determines whether it works, and where something is a safety matter, we say so plainly rather than leaving it to assumption.
Measurements, not mood boards
Hanging drops, cabinet depths, clearances and load ratings on every relevant idea.
Published written, or not at all
Topics still being written are listed as plain text on their category page, never as an empty page.
Safety called out explicitly
Where storage involves fixings, fuel, gas, chemicals or lithium batteries, we say what the rules are.
Renting taken seriously
Ideas are flagged renter-friendly where they need no drilling, because most advice assumes you own the walls.
Got a storage problem we have not covered?
Tell us which one you need next, or what we have got wrong. Both are genuinely useful.