Storage Spaces You Need to Include in Your Home Design
It’s easy to focus on the big aspects of a home renovation or remodel. Building new rooms, installing baths or showers, making your home more accessible – it’s exciting and easy to fixate on. However, you can’t risk overlooking the smaller, more practical aspects of your home you might need. Storage spaces are one of these aspects.
The fact is, storage can be considered “boring” and doesn’t always excite us creatively when thinking about our dream home. But it’s essential, and it doesn’t have to be dull. Remember these storage spaces when designing your home, and watch us come up with creative ways to spice them up.
Linen Closet
Whether you use it for bedsheets, towels, or tablecloths, a linen closet is a must-have in your home. Otherwise those large articles of cloth take up valuable space elsewhere and can get wrinkled or lost. Typically, these kinds of closets are best placed in the hallway so they’re easily accessible to everyone.
As for making a linen closet more creative, consider making it deeper, almost similar to a walk-in closet. This way it can not only hold more of the essentials, but it can be used for storage of other things like vacuum cleaners and other supplies that would otherwise take up space. Turning the linen closet into a larger, more universal storage closet could save you space in the long run.
Pantry
The pantry is where you keep all of your non-perishable food and other kitchen supplies so they’re out of the way and will stay good for longer. The area should be fairly climate friendly and low in humidity to avoid things like mold growing on your food.
Ideally, your pantry should be located close to the kitchen, so consider the layout of your home and think of a creative place to put your pantry. “Wasted” space could be revitalized into a convenient area to install shelves, drawers, or lazy susans perfect for storing cans, spices, and boxed foods. Perhaps the space under your stairway could be converted into a pantry, or a narrow area between cabinets could have long, pull-out storage shelves installed.
Medicine Cabinet
Medicine cabinets are a must, especially if you live with children or elderly family members. This is because there needs to be a designated, accessible space for essential items for when someone is sick or injured. Having these things scattered all throughout the house isn’t particularly helpful. Children do best when they know there’s a designated space for fixing boo-boos or if they’re feeling ill. Meanwhile, older adults with memory problems benefit from having their medications and other essentials in the same place so they won’t lose anything or forget to take them.
Installing a medicine cabinet in a space like a bathroom is the best option. It’s a universally used, clean area that can easily be associated with medicine, bandages, and other health items. However, it’s also important to make sure certain medicines can’t be mixed up, especially if you have small kids or mentally-declining parents. Display risers installed in the cabinet can help medicine bottles that are in the back be more easily found and accessed, preventing mix-ups as someone blindly rummages through the different bottles, disorganizing them and possibly switching them around.
Storage spaces are a necessity you don’t always think about until you realize you don’t know where to put something. So keep them in mind when planning your home remodel design.
