Chennai

Are all your closets and drawers already way too occupied? Irrespective of how big your home is, some extra space is always a boon. Most homes overlook spaces that would be ideal for storage. Here’s how you can find that space in your home.

While growing up, weren’t you enticed by stories of secret nooks and hidden compartments in homes and attics mentioned in your favourite mystery books and movies?

These days, however, with living spaces in the city getting smaller, hidden spaces have become a necessity. They take care of the extra stuff and make your home appear clutter-free. Here are a few ways through which you can incorporate some secret storage spaces in your home. The target here is to utilise your visible space for storage without making it look like a storage space.

Raghav Kapur, Region Head – South India, SILA gives us a few hidden storage ideas:

Under the bed and headboard – With rolling bin and drawers, the area under the bed can be utilised for off-season clothes and footwear. The headboard too can be used for multi-storage purposes; above the toilet – Install a traditional medical cabinet or hang a wicker basket to store your towels or toiletries. Hang it right above the toilet seat;

Inside the cabinet doors – Install hooks on the inside of your cabinet doors, which can be used to hang utensils and measuring cups in the kitchens, cleaning supplies in the bathrooms and clothes in the bedroom;

Corner of the walls – The corners of walls are spaces that are usually overlooked. They can be capitalised on by adding a shoe rack, book table, or a cabinet for electronics. This can be done for every room in the house.

Gita Ramanan, Co-founder and Designer of Design Café helps us with the pros and cons of hidden storage spaces

Pros:

You can hide valuables and important documents; an intelligent way to organise spaces and give the illusion of a clutter-free home; for families with children it helps store their toys and can also be utilised to keep a few things out of their reach.

Cons:

Hidden spaces have to be customised into your furniture and may not meet the space expectations; they tend to be a bit unwieldy and might not be very handy in an emergency; you may end up cluttering the home in order to store more. Make a design plan and follow it to make your home look organised as well as attractive.

DIY ideas to create storage spaces

Staircase

Use removable ply or drawers to make storage spaces under each step;

Tuck-into innovations

Use pullouts and pushaway furniture for those units, which don’t have high utility;

Furniture storage

Opt for storage ottomans and closet cradles to turn your functional items into storage spaces. You can also build a drawer under your dining table; this way all your cutlery items would be where you require them. You can also do this under you coffee/ centre-table and use it to store remote controls, magazines, etc;

Floating shelves

Incorporate floating shelves with drawers under them on one of the walls of the room. You can utilise the shelf to display books, artifacts or plants;

Wall cavities

Make sure you have all the permission required to make cavities in your wall. These cavities can be used to store a variety of things. Just add a photo frame over it to cover up the hole in the wall.

Slides next to the kitchen counter

A sliding vertical drawer next to the kitchen counter or kitchen can be used to store spices or utensils. A similar drawer next to the wardrobe can be used to store dupattas, neck ties, socks and much more.

Pooja Mahimkar, Times Property, The Times of India, Chennai