Smart Ways to Use Existing Space and Furniture
It’s always exciting to buy your first home with your partner. You spend your time and energy decorating it, trying to keep things neat and tidy. Everything is organised, when you first set it in place, but before you know it, over the years, things start to pile up. Suddenly, you find yourself staring down problems like clutter, lack of walking space, and missing belongings.
So how can you bring some order back into this chaos? Read on to find out how you can redesign your home back to how you first bought it.
1. Make Use of Your Wall Space
Credits: Apartment Therapy
It is natural to consider only flat surfaces like tabletops or floors when considering where or how to furnish your interiors. Challenge these preconceived notions by considering vertical spaces instead. Walls are a fantastic way to store your belongings for both function and style.
Consider hanging your pots, pans and mugs to clear up countertop spaces in the kitchen.
Have musical instruments lying around your room? Try mounting them on the wall to free up some walking space.
Always forgetting your car keys? Hang them up next to your shoe cabinet so you never forget them on your way to the door!
2. Everything in Its Place
We keep our gaming stuff neatly in one designated corner
If you watch any cooking shows, you will learn that chefs take their mise en place very seriously. This French phrase simply means "putting in place" or "everything in its place", and it’s a great lesson for any of us, in or out of the kitchen. By always keeping the same items in the same place, you not only reduce the mess, but you also eliminate the headache of figuring out where you last left them.
Organise your daily carry (wallet, phone, keys, etc), trinkets, and other loose items in designated trays, drawers and boxes.
3. Bring Life to Bookcases
Credits: Eleonora Galli / Getty Images
Bookcases are great multi-functional pieces, yet most people use them exclusively to store their books. Here are some ways you can maximise your shelf space and add some style to the room.
Place small items like toys, trophies and mementos to highlight your passions.
Use bookcases as your online meeting video backdrop for a more refined and personal background.
4. Plan Ahead
Hard at work making plans
If you’re planning for a big reorganisation, it’s always good to plan ahead and consider some basic principles regarding how things should be stored or how some furniture should be placed.
Frequency of retrieval - When storing an item you tend to use at least once a month, like a Mahjong table, you should always give yourself sufficient space to easily retrieve it. Conversely, for items that you don’t see yourself retrieving any time soon, such as photo albums or antiques, keep them in deep storage by utilising the more unreachable or obscure corners of your storage.
Exposure to elements - To minimise the glaring sunlight in your rooms, consider shifting tall existing furniture, like shelves, lamps or fans between your workspace and the problematic window.
Aesthetic cohesion - Over many years, it is likely that you have collected furniture pieces of various styles and materials throughout your house. Consider swapping out pieces between rooms to create a complementary material or style palette.
5. Maximising Space in Your Wardrobe
Roll your clothes to maximise wardrobe drawers
The wardrobe is an often underutilised or inefficient space, due to old habits hanging on from generations ago. Here are some tips we’ve picked up over the years.
Roll your clothes instead of stacking them into a pile. Not only does it increase the amount of space you can use, it’s easier for you to see the designs and choose which to wear as well.
Use hooks on your clothing rack to hang your bags. Because they are removable, you can easily change the positions to better utilise your wardrobe space.
6. Transform Dead Spaces
Credits: Oscar Wong / Getty Images
Dead spaces, in interior design lingo, refers to awkward areas in a room that might be oddly shaped or too small to be utilised as a walkway or to place furniture. Awkward, empty spaces can be quite an eyesore, so we have a tendency to fill it with useless things, creating unsightly piles.
Consider transforming dead spaces to either functional or decorative spaces:
Use short tables, like bedside tables or office pedestals, to both provide a surface for people to use and to visually fill up a space.
Bring a splash of colour to your home by decorating corner spaces with plants. It also provides health benefits!
7. Organise Your Storage
CDs lying on top of each other = difficult retrieval
CDs stacked upright = easy retrieval
We’ve previously written about maximising storage space in your wardrobe. Here are some other miscellaneous tips to organise around the house.
Optimise the lids. If you prefer to store objects in boxes, using the lid as a tray serves as a way to visually cluster objects together.
Store CDs and books upright. This is more efficient for both storing and retrieving as you can easily find what you need.
8. Keep Changing Things Up!
Get into the habit of assessing and reorganising your home occasionally. Just because you designed and organised your house one way, doesn’t mean that it needs to stay the same way throughout its lifespan. Don’t let your interior design stay static. By changing things up, you can breathe fresh life into your house with minimum spending.
Thank you for reading! For more articles on DIY, design, and other shenanigans, click here!
- Glennard & Nicole 🕺💃
