Running a family isn’t always easy. There are tantrums, arguments, and financial issues you have to contend with on an almost daily basis.
But one of the biggest problems is not having enough space for all your stuff. You’d love for your kids to have mountains of toys or shoe cupboards for as far as the eye can see. But floorspace is constantly thwarting your plans. What’s a mum to do?
Fortunately, this is a longstanding issue for families up and down the country, living in less-than-ideal accommodation. And because of this, they’ve come up with some rather creative solutions - things that you can do right now to free up floor space and get your home back on track.
So what are they?
Use Wall Sconces
Many of us wind up wasting space unnecessarily when trying to provide lighting for our rooms.
Take your bedroom, for instance. If you have a bedside table, the whole purpose of it is usually to act as a platform for the lamp that sits atop it. That’s a colossal waste of space.
The same goes for people who use their kitchen sideboards for lamps. You’re taking up room you could be using for something else.
Wall sconces are the ideal solution here. They fix to the wall, so you can place them pretty much anywhere you like. And because they make use of vertical space, you free up the floor for other things.
Open Up Your Loft
Do you have a loft? If so, it could be precisely the resource you need to free up space in the rest of your home.
These days, there are all sorts of inventive and exciting ways you can use your loft. The attic doesn’t have to be a dank room full of boxes with a fibreglass floor. It can be something light and airy, with skylights if you have the budget.
People who live in apartments, for instance, often create additional mezzanine loft spaces if they have high ceilings. This tactic provides them with extra space for bedrooms and even lounges if there is room to stand.
Consider Going Open Plan
Interior walls take up a lot of space in the average home. And, for the most part, they don’t actually serve a useful purpose.
Ripping them out and going for a fully open-plan design could help to improve the space available in your property tremendously. Instead of feeling claustrophobic in your kitchen, you suddenly have vastly more room in which to play. That sensation alone can help you enjoy your property more, even if there is no corresponding reduction in the level of mess and clutter.
Miniaturize Your Kitchen
While we’d all like to have bigger kitchens with more floor space, sometimes you have to make compromises. If you only have a limited area in which to work, miniaturizing your kitchen could be a solution. When you think about it, you don’t want vast amounts of space between rows of cabinets. What you need is an area in which you can prepare food, and that’s it.
Minizimating your kitchen means condensing the space down so that it provides all of the functions you need, without eating up your square footage budget. Kitchen islands and stools might be trendy right now, but including them provides you with fewer options elsewhere.
Turn Your Walls Into Shelves
In-built shelving is not only attractive, but it is also an excellent tool for making use of vertical space in your property. When you dedicate an entire wall to storage (building it up to the ceiling), you can often store vast amounts of stuff, which makes a massive difference to your home. What’s more, because you build it into the wall, it doesn't actually take up your square footage budget. Just paint it a bold colour, get it to match your interior theme, and it’ll immediately slot into your home like it was always supposed to be there.
Make Use Of Corners
Making use of corners is sometimes challenging. But if you can figure out how to fill them, you can economize on space and free up other areas of your rooms, such as the main thoroughfare.
Doing this is much easier than you think. For instance, leather corner sofas can occupy the entire corner of the room, leaving the rest of the space available for tables, ottomans, rugs, TVs or whatever else you want to place in them.
If you have irregular corners, you still have options. Some families, for example, commission companies to create bespoke pieces of furniture that fit in them snugly, without wasting any space. They might get a furniture maker to build a chest with seating on top to provide extra space for guests while also doubling up as storage.
Sliding Doors
Doors that flap open on hinges are popular, but they’re not ideal for compact properties struggling with space.
By contrast, sliding doors are a much better option because they allow you to use more of the available space. You don’t have to leave room for the door to open, enabling you to place objects closer to it.
It sounds like a small innovation, but it actually makes a massive difference in the availability of space in your rooms. It’s something that immediately frees up space and allows you to be more inventive with your room layouts.
Hang Your Cookware
Instead of building endless cupboards to store all your cookware, it can be helpful to hang it from racks so that you can grab it whenever you need.
If you decide to go down this route, be sure that the rack and the pans are both attractive. If you don’t, you’ll wind up with an eyesore in your kitchen - not what you want.
Hanging cookware allows you to use your cabinets and drawers in your kitchen for other things. You might find that you have more space, for instance, to hide appliances away while you are not using them.
Take Advantage Of All Available Free Space
When you live in a bijou property, you need to take advantage of any available free space you have. Exploit every crevice.
Here are some ideas:
Fills the space under your stairs (if you have them). Use the area to store all your cleaning equipment and vacuum.
Use the space above doors to provide additional storage.
Look for opportunities to take advantage of storage under floorboards.
Place chests under your decking for all your outdoor toys, chairs and garden equipment
Build a wine cellar into your kitchen floor
Fix Furniture To The Walls
If you go to Tokyo and spend time in an apartment there, you’ll notice something. Most of them have fold-down tables, beds and even chairs that you put away when you’re not using them.
You could do the same in your property. Today, there are numerous options for beds, tables and other items of furniture that either stow away on the wall or fold down into something small enough to push out of the way.
Use Dual-Purpose Furniture
Instead of buying a TV and a storage unit for your living room, look for ways to combine both. Likewise, instead of having a kitchen table and storage, mix the two.
When it comes to saving space, dual-purpose furniture if your friend. It looks great, and it helps to avoid furniture cluttering up all your rooms.
So there you have it: ingenious space-saving ideas for families who are a little short on square footage. Which of these strategies will you use?
