If you live in a small apartment, you might be pretty familiar with the struggle of keeping organized and finding creative storage solutions. Living in a small studio or one bedroom apartment can cause you to feel cramped, disorganized, and cluttered, but with the right small apartment storage hacks, you can maximize space in even the smallest of areas.
Here are some small apartment storage hacks to keep your bikes, books, clothing, shoes, and bathroom items neat and out of the way.
Small Apartment Book Storage
When it comes to books, most people love to show them off. In order to avoid living among wobbly towers and sketchy stacks, follow these small apartment book storage hacks.
Go Through and Donate Books
Go through your books regularly to see what you want to donate or sell. If something doesn’t have sentimental value or you aren’t planning on reading or rereading it, consider donating or selling it to a used bookstore or other local donation center.
Invest in Sturdy Floating Shelves
To store your books in a safe yet visually appealing place, invest in sturdy shelving units. Floating ledge shelves are great since they store books off of the ground and allow for more space. Just make sure that you install them correctly so that they don’t fall down or ruin your walls.
Use a Bookshelf as a Room Divider
In studio apartments or spaces with open floor plans, an open-sided bookshelf can be a great tool for storing books as well as dividing the room.
Create a Rolling Book Cart
If you have a collection of books you want to move from room to room, such as cookbooks or children’s books, a cart with wheels is a simple, visually appealing, and functional solution for your book storage.
Find a Bed Frame With Under-the-Bed Storage
Need your books out of the way, or have an excess of books you don’t care about showcasing? Certain bed frames have under-the-bed shelving units that can also be a perfect spot for books.
[Related: How to Declutter Your Small Apartment]
Small Apartment Bike Storage
Bikes are quickly becoming a major mode of transportation, with more and more people every day choosing to cycle to work. While cycling is great for your health and the environment, storing your bicycles can definitely throw a wrench in your organization plans. For bike storage, small apartments can be tricky.
Hang Your Bike
Instead of storing your bike on the ground, think of your walls and even ceilings as storage solutions. Bike hangers can be safely installed on your wall or ceiling to keep your bike off of the ground and out of the way.
[Related: How to Keep Your Apartment Clean]
Small Apartment Bathroom Storage
One of the hardest places to keep organized in a small apartment is the bathroom. These rooms often have minimal counter space and little or no under-the-sink or cupboard storage.
In order to make the most of your small bathroom, use these small bathroom storage tips.
Install Floating Shelves
Floating shelves can be installed on the walls to give you more surface area than your bathroom countertop can offer.
Set Up Over-the-Toilet Structures
Portable structures that can be set up over your toilet are a perfect way to efficiently use the small space in your bathroom. You can find these setups in many different sizes and shapes, and they allow for extra storage space.
Install Under-the-Sink Structures
Similar portable storage solutions can be arranged underneath your sink if your bathroom has a pedestal sink without cabinet storage.
Use In-Shower Storage
In your shower, you can use caddies that hang around the shower nozzle to hold your soaps, shampoos, and creams. Take advantage of the corners by installing a shower shelf with a tension rod of suction cups for even more in-shower storage.
Install Towel Hooks and Bars
As far as towels go, you can always install hooks or additional bars to accommodate extra towel storage space in your bathroom.
[Related: How to Keep Your Apartment Organized: Your Complete Guide]
Small Apartment Clothing Storage
An overflowing laundry basket or bursting closet can make a small apartment look messy. For clothing storage, small apartments can make it really difficult to see what you need and to keep things looking organized, especially if your closet space is limited.
Sort Through Your Clothes
First off, just like with your books, go through your clothing regularly to decide what you want to keep, donate, or sell.
Store Out-of-Season Clothes
Store your out-of-season clothes so that they aren’t in the way when you’re looking for your day-to-day wardrobe. Consider tubs or bins you can store these clothes in and slide under your bed or stack up in a closet shelf.
Add an Additional Closet Rod
Adding an extra closet rod can really maximize the space in your small apartment closet.
A double closet rod, with one installed on another level, can instantly double your closet space by allowing you to hang twice the amount of clothes. Just ensure you’re installing it safely and correctly so you don’t damage your walls and that the rod can support the amount of clothes you’re hanging on it.
Use Cascading Hangers
Cascading hangers are a great organizational hack to create more room in a cramped closet. Their design adds several additional vertical rows to one hanger, so that you can store more clothing on one closet rod.
Utilize Under-the-Bed Storage
As we noted earlier as a solution for book storage, finding a bed frame with built-in storage is also a great trick to store clothing. Lifted bed frames also enable you to store bins or baskets of clothing underneath.
[Related: How to Organize Your Closet]
Small Apartment Shoe Storage
If you have a lot of shoes, you know how difficult it can be to store and organize them, especially in a small apartment.
Donate or Toss Your Old Shoes
As with anything, go through your shoe collection to donate those you don’t wear anymore and throw away those that cannot be worn any longer.
Shoe Racks
A simple solution to shoe storage in a small apartment is to add a shoe rack, sometimes called a shoe shelf, to your closet. These structures keep shoes organized and easily viewable so that all of your options are in one place without taking up too much space.
Over-the-Door Shoe Pocket Organizers
Hang a shoe organizer over your closet door. These handy storage solutions come in many different styles, but a popular one has numerous wide pockets for you to slide your shoes and slippers into and out of.
When you’re done storing your shoes, the organizer neatly tucks away out of sight once you close your closet door.
Baskets and Ottomans
If you don’t need to have your shoes in plain sight, or want to put away some out-of-season boots or sandals, find an ottoman with built-in storage and keep it at the end of your bed or by your front door.
Make the Most of Your Apartment With These Small Apartment Storage Hacks
Remember, when trying to store away your necessities and keep your small apartment organized, frequently go through what you need and what is just taking up space, find multi-use furniture pieces with built-in-storage, and try to use as much wall space for storage as possible to keep your possessions off of the floor.
If you follow these small apartment storage hacks, you’re sure to have an impressively organized space and a happy life.
Featured image via Unsplash
Comments are closed.