How to make the unassuming spaces work for you as storage spaces by using a little bit of creativity!

A pile of things you don’t want to get rid of but no place to store them, or items lying strewn around the house with no space to put them away for later.We have certainly all faced this problem with our living spaces. It doesn’t matter whether we love to periodically clear out our spaces for non-essentials or a hoarder who finds meaning in the smallest of things to save them, designing the right type of storage in a modern home presents a challenge, but working with professional architects and innovative interior space designers can solve this problem. Working in tandem with you, they will come up with creative solutions that will make furniture and spaces multi-functional to provide ample storage in almost any area of the home.

A Multi-purpose Living Room Set up

Here’s a pro tip from our designers; while designing any space, especiallya small or compact one, look for furniture that can serve multiple purposes. This is why a smartly-designed centre table can be the showstopper in your home.It can be used in so many different ways! Apart from being a centre table, it can open up into a workstation while handling concealed storage. Given how the lines between home and office have blurred these days, you can design your space in such a way that it doesn’t take much to convert your workstation and carefully store away your work-related paraphernalia to immediately convert the space into a zone where you can relax with family.

Ottomans are great hacks for storage. Deep tufted ones with shelves at the bottom, open or closed, offer a quick stash to storing anything from magazines, books, blankets, or shoes. And of course, all this functionality comes in fancy shells. Take your pick.

The Wall is Your Best Bet

In Indian homes, having a television in the living roomis a must since it’s the place where the family gets together to watch the news or their favourite shows. When the layout of the room is small or narrow, mounting the TV on the wall helps to save space.

You can build a wall-hung shelf unit that can hold the television. This provides ample space to display décor accessories or store books, music, and DVDs, but if there is a bit of room to spare in your living room, install top-to-bottom customised shelves and cover them up with camouflaging doors that would blend seamlessly with the surrounding walls. We all love open shelves, but they are a little high on maintenance and add to the cluttered look. The cupboards with this treatment won’t just add to the very put-together look of the room but will also be a great storage solution for everything you might need in this area.

Custom-made Furniture for the Nooks and Crannies

Bulky furniture is your enemy when you’re designing a small space. Compact storage should be sleek and space-efficient, while also providing adequate storage. Often, the space under the staircase lies wasted or is used to dump things. Instead, make the most of it by creating customised storage that has a combination of open shelves for displaying items as well as a pull-out unit that can serve as a shoe or coat rack.

Whether for the inside or the outside, benches are great at adapting to any nook they are placed in. But they work even better when they are assigned some storage space. Use lined baskets under the benches for a beach-style look or simply have trunk bench storage. These work wonders in children’s rooms – they lap up and store away all sorts of toys, board games, and clutter.

Your Dining Space

Most modern homes in India have an open-plan layout that connects the living and dining areas. However, it is possible to separate the two spaces visually using furniture that doubles up as a partition. An elegant sideboard between the two areas helps to divide the spaces without compromising on the natural light or the aesthetics. Moreover, it provides storage for crockery, cutlery, linen, and anything else that needs to be within easy access in the dining room.

The Kitchen

There is no such thing as too much storage in the kitchen! Whether you’re a closet master chef or a food expert, extra storage in the kitchen is a must! But how do you fit in compact storage solutions in the kitchen when the space is small? In most kitchens, especially those with an L-shaped or U-shaped layout, the corner units need to be designed efficiently so that this little space isn’t wasted. Incorporating intelligent storage systems can make items placed in the deepest corners of the cabinets easy to access. The inner side of the doors of kitchen cabinets or wardrobes can be fitted with racks to provide additional storage. In a kitchen cabinet, it can be used as a spice rack.

Bedroom Storage

And finally, we come to the wardrobes. For some of us, a single almirah is nowhere close to providing enough storage in the bedroom! So what do you do if your room has no space to add another compact storage unit? Simply make use of the vertical space! Wardrobes with lofts pack in vast amounts of storage within the smallest of spaces. At the same time, they are unobtrusive, and with very little effort, succeed in making a smart style statement

Bedrooms need to be free of clutter so that they render a soothing ambiance,which is essential for relaxation. When the room is small, instead of using additional cabinets that take up floor space and make the room appear more cramped, get your designerto make a headboard for the bed that doubles up as a storage unit. It can be used to store books and other bedroom essentials, or even have a pull-out section for shoes.For the kids' room, look at setting it up with multi-purpose furniture such as bunk beds and foldable desks. The space below the bunk bed can be smartly used both as a cupboard or a desk. Similarly, drawers under the bed can be used to store toys and shoes, and other knick-knacks

Under the Floor

I bet this hasn’t occurred to you. Well, it’s as simple as ‘slide it to hide it!’ Did you know that many traditional houses that were built during the olden days in India used to maintain such spaces under their homes for keeping their high-value items safe and away from the possibility of theft or plunder? Although it might seem like a concept that is difficult to incorporate into the design of a contemporary Indian home, under-the-floor storage is the most timeless and ingenious space-saving method you can opt for. While being unobtrusive, these can also accommodate plenty of stowage.

The next time you feel like a hoarder or that you don’t have enough space to manage the storage of all your essentials and possessions, look more closely at the unexplored spaces in your home! There are so many ideas one can employ and create spaces one can use as storage. All it takes is a second look at the unused spaces in your home and getting a little creative on how you can make those spaces work for you!