Choosing a New Design for Your Home and Garden

To add storage to a room, you may think about simply adding shelves to a wall. This can certainly get items up and off the floor of a child's room or allow you to better organize computer games and DVDs, but they can also make a room look cluttered and busy. To add storage to your home without making it look cluttered, consider some sneaky tips from the decorating experts.

1. Platform Beds

A platform bed is built on a platform rather than sitting on a bed frame, and the platform will have built-in drawers for storage. These drawers are good for clothes and extra linens, and can even hold items you might otherwise keep next to the bed such as books and a flashlight.

2. Stair Drawers

You can actually have stair risers converted to drawers, as the space behind the stairs is typically empty. As long as there are not beams or studs behind your stairs, you can convert those stairs to drawers that pull out for hidden storage.

3. Under an Open Staircase

If you don't want to convert stairs to drawers, you can create storage under the stairs by building into the wall of an open stairwell. This is typically wasted space, and you can convert the wall into a sliding set of shelves. These slide back into the wall for hidden storage.

4. Under the Floorboards

A safe can be installed under floorboards, in between joists. You can also create storage in these small areas by cutting out the floorboards and boxing up the area underneath them. You can attach the floorboards together and put them on hinges for easy access, and then cover that section with an area rug.

5. Window Seats

Replace two dining room chairs with a bench that has storage underneath, and which is built under the window in the room. You can also easily create a window seat in a bedroom or living room with storage underneath. Not only do you have added seating but you have hidden storage as well.

6. Built-in Wardrobes

Dressers may not provide enough storage space for your bedroom, and for rooms without a closet, a built-in wardrobe can be the best solution. This type of wardrobe can be custom made (by companies such as Westglass) with all the shelves and drawers you need, and they are then hidden behind doors you can close. Built-in wardrobes can also be built around television sets or even windows, so you have the storage you need in any room and don't detract from the room's overall appearance.