Maximize Space, Minimize Clutter: Transformative And Ingenious Storage Ideas for Small Spaces

Ashley - June 21, 2023

Photo: instagram.com

Long gone are the days when everyone dreamed of owning a large home. Many people have transitioned to smaller living spaces. The tiny home trend has exploded, and even if you aren’t living in a tiny home, you’re probably living in a much smaller space than previous generations. While this is great for reducing our impact on the environment and making more space for our exponentially expanding population, it can be challenging to find good storage solutions. But never fear, the internet is here! We’ve scoured the internet to bring you the most transformative and ingenious storage solutions for small spaces. Get ready to take notes because you’ll want to completely redo your home’s storage after reading this list!

Under Stair Storage Is A Must

Whether you live in a custom tiny home or a house that isn’t quite big enough to meet your storage needs, it’s time to consider custom storage solutions. Adding storage drawers underneath your stairs gives you a secure place to store extra clothes, outdoor gear, shoes, toys, and more. The great thing about this is, if your staircase is right next to the door like in this photo, then you can ditch a shoe rack or coat rack and use the under-stair storage drawers instead. You’ll free up a ton of space and have an interesting and unique feature to show off when guests come to visit.

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Ditch Oversized Drawers For Baskets

Building drawers into the bottom of your bed is a common way people try to give themselves more storage in small spaces. But are those deep, oversized drawers really the best way to stay organized? Ditch the drawers and opt for small baskets instead. You’ll be able to find what you need much more easily, and the bins will still hold as much as your drawers. If you’re really into staying organized, you can even label each bin so it’s clear where everything belongs.

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Custom Storage Racks Save Space

Sometimes you have to get creative to find storage solutions that will work in a small space. Often, these solutions require not only creativity but a decent amount of work as well. However, the results will be so worth it! You can build a custom storage rack like the one in this photo if you’re crafty enough, but it’s also possible to buy what you need. Create a tall, thin storage rack and squeeze it between your fridge and the wall to store your spices and other baking supplies. But this trick isn’t just limited to the kitchen! Create a second one to squeeze next to your couch in the living room to hold candles and extra knickknacks or throw one in your bedroom to hold jewelry and other personal items.

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Install Corner Shelves In Every Room

There’s a reason corner shelves are so popular in tiny homes and small living spaces. They don’t take up room that you typically use, and they’re cheap and easy to install. Put up corner shelves in your bathroom to hold extra rolls of toilet paper or towels. Use them in the living room to hold your favorite books. They’ll make a great storage spot for spices and extra baking necessities in the kitchen. And these shelves work wonders in the bedroom for displaying photos or storing personal items. Seriously, if you don’t have corner shelves up already, you need to get on them!

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Thow In Custom Storage Drawers Wherever You Can

Many people living in tiny homes either built them themselves or had a serious hand in designing them. Make sure to think about where you can put extra storage when you’re going through that process! Under-the-floor storage is a unique idea that gives you a ton of additional storage space without taking up any extra room in your home. If you’re living in a home that you didn’t have a hand in building or designing, it’s still possible to install some under floor storage. Make sure you work with a reputable contractor to get the job done right!

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Use Ladder Stairs As Partial Shelves

Many tiny homes have these adorable ladder stairs instead of a traditional staircase. Not only do they look gorgeous, but they also create an excellent opportunity for additional storage! When you’re living in a small space, you need to look at everything from a different angle to come up with creative storage solutions. Place a few items on the back of your ladder stairs turns them into a multifunctional area of the home, which is necessary for limited spaces. Plus, it looks way cooler than a bland and bare staircase.

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Make The Most Of Your Shelf Space

This is another instance where seeing your home’s storage from another perspective will come in handy. When you look at your shelves, think of all the ways you can make them work for you. It’s easy to store jars on the bottom of shelves. All you need to do is screw the caps of the jars into the bottom and then unscrew the jar whenever you need what’s inside. You can do this with the corner shelves in every room of your home as well! Instead of jars of spices or herbs, install hooks on the bottom of your shelves in the living room to hold your keys and other small items. In the bathroom, install hooks to hold small bags filled with additional toiletries or rolled-up washcloths.

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Start Rolling Your Towels And Washcloths

Speaking of rolling your washcloths, it’s time to start doing that to your towels as well. Most tiny homes and super small living spaces don’t have a linen closet, and many don’t even have a decent-sized cabinet in the bathroom. You need an alternative way to store your towels and washcloths. The best way to go about this is to roll your towels and washcloths super tightly so they take up less space overall. Then, get creative about where to store them! You can install a hook on the side of your bathroom counter and hang a mesh bag from the side for storing towels. Or, you can get a ceiling net and store your towels and washcloths up there! There are tons of possibilities.

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Use Your Walls And Ceilings

Every room in your tiny home has some wall and ceiling space that isn’t being utilized. You can easily turn these blank spaces into storage havens with a little creativity and elbow grease. There are a ton of ceiling drop-down storage shelves and mesh nets that you can easily install in every room of your home. But, if you want to keep things simple, just get yourself some hooks and start hanging things from the ceiling and along the walls. You’ll still have everything you need within reach, but it won’t take up the space you need to walk around and exist in your home.

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Find Multiple Purposes For Every Piece Of Furniture

Many tiny homes have these little pull-out tables. Some are designed to be a bar area, while others are specifically created for eating meals, but regardless of what its original intention was, you can use it for multiple purposes. These little pull-out bars are the perfect spot to set up your office or create a crafts table for your kids. Get yourself some comfortable folding chairs so that when you’re done with work or crafts, you can easily fold up the chair. Add a hook to your wall for hanging the chair so it doesn’t get in your way during the rest of the day!

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Use Your Support Beams For A Rustic Appeal

Whether you’re in the process of building your tiny home or undergoing an in-depth renovation project, you have a unique opportunity. Most people consider support beams to be an eyesore that needs to be covered with drywall, but you can easily turn this into a storage opportunity. Only put drywall on one side and use the exposed support beams on the opposite side as built-in shelves! They can easily hold candles, dishware, and other common household items. Put down a little shelving paper and add some textured wallpaper to the back of the drywall to give them a unique and rustic charm.

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Hang Your Soap Dispensers

Shower shelves and hanging bags are excellent storage choices when you have a little extra room, but tiny homes often come with tiny showers. To accommodate your limited space, install a sleek soap dispenser like the one in this photo. You won’t have to worry about awkwardly leaving your shampoo and condition on the floor in between showers, and you can even use refillable bottles to maintain a clean, seamless look. Plus, refillable bottles are better for the environment, just like your tiny home!

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You Need To Try A Pegboard In Your Kitchen

When most people think of a pegboard, they picture it in a garage filled with tools. However, there is no reason pegboards should be limited to a garage! You can easily turn the wall behind your kitchen sink into a giant pegboard. Then, you can use it to install shelving for dishware, cleaning essentials, baking essentials, pots and pans, and so much more! Think of all the space you’ll free up if your kitchen items are hanging on the wall rather than taking up space in your cabinets.

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Add A Storage Ottoman

Living rooms in tiny homes are often tight spaces that don’t have much seating options. When you want to invite guests over, it can lead to an awkward situation where there isn’t enough seating space for everyone. Rather than trying to squeeze extra chairs into your home, go for a simple storage ottoman instead. They’re still comfortable, and you can use them as a footrest when you don’t have guests over. Plus, the storage compartment will give you a little extra space for storing your favorite books, candles, knickknacks, or whatever else is taking up space in your living room.

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Find Creative Ways To Establish More Counter Space

One of the downsides to tiny home living is a serious lack of space in the kitchen. This can be especially difficult if you’re passionate about cooking or have kids that you need to constantly prepare meals and snacks for. With a little creativity, you can easily find ways to give yourself more counter space. In this picture, the stairs leading to the second level also double as additional counter space! Plus, there’s a drop-down extension at the end of the counter. Another great idea is to make or buy a custom-fitted cutting board you can place over your sink when you need to prepare meals.

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Add Bar Seating For Meals And Work

Dining rooms are usually left out of tiny home designs, and even a tiny dining table won’t fit comfortably in most small spaces. Rather than relegate yourself to eating your meals on the couch or over the kitchen counters, add some bar seating to your living room! All you need is a long, thin surface to eat on and a few bar stools. Plus, outside of meal times, this space can double as a work or crafts table. The one in this picture even has an additional shelf for around-the-clock storage!

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Add Storage Under Your Seating Area

One of the most unique features of many tiny homes is these little raised living rooms/seating areas. They give you a nice space separate from the rest of your home to relax and visit with guests, but they also provide you with an excellent opportunity for additional storage. Add pull-out drawers underneath your seating and any steps that lead up to the space. These drawers are the perfect spot to store board games, books, additional clothes or blankets, or anything else you want within easy reach.

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Hang Your Pots And Pans

Pots and pans aren’t easy to store in any home, regardless of the size. These essential pieces of kitchenware are awkwardly shaped and don’t fit easily into cabinets, and they take up way too much space on shelves. Try hanging them from the ceilings to free up more of your cabinet space. This photo shows one option where you can hang them from exposed support beams, but there are other options you can try. There are heavy-duty mesh nets you can attach to your ceiling that are capable of holding the weight of your pots and pans. Or, simply install some hooks and hang your pots and pans like that.

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Use Open Storage Cabinets Under The Bed

Using storage drawers or bins underneath your bed is a great way to free up space in your home, but it can often feel like a chore to have to pull them out multiple times a day. A great alternative is to use open cabinets like the ones in this picture. Add the cabinets under your bed, and don’t put on any doors. This way, you can easily pull out your shoes, purse, and other daily essentials, and it only takes a moment to put them away at the end of the day. Plus, it gives your home an interesting and uncommon aesthetic.

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Think Vertically, Not Horizontally

Tiny living spaces don’t have much room to offer horizontally, so it’s important to think vertically. Most kitchens are filled with deep cabinets, but that storage option isn’t always practical in tiny homes. You can only have a handful of cabinets, so rather than making them traditionally box-shaped, try these pull-out cabinets instead! They’re tall and deep, rather than just being deep. You’ll be able to store so much more on these than you would in traditional cabinets. Plus, they look really cool!

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Use Fold-Out Furniture When Possible

Fold-out furniture will open up so much room in your home. A traditional Murphy style bed often comes with extra storage options on the front like cabinets you can lock to keep your items secure. In your living room, opt for fold-out chairs and fold-down desks. There are also inflating seating options you can look into for when guests are coming over. Inflate the chair for your guests, and deflate it when they leave. Then, you can roll it up super tightly and store it in the cabinets on your bed!

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Three-Way Stair Storage

We’ve touched on the importance of finding multifunctional uses for everything in your home, and your staircase is truly the perfect place to put this into practice. Earlier, we mentioned you can add pull-out drawers to your stairs and use them as partial shelves, but now we’re going to teach your how to turn them into a three-way storage system. Along with the drawers and shelf space, build cabinets into the side of your stairs as shown in this picture. You’ll give yourself so much more extra storage space, and it keeps that space from looking bland.

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Turn Your Living Room Into A Flex Room

Your living room is likely the space in your home where you do the majority of your activities. It’s where you relax and unwind, get some work done, do your morning yoga, and indulge in your hobbies. Therefore, everything in your living room should be flexible. Use pull-down or inflatable seating options that can easily be moved and rearranged. Use a multifunctional fold-down countertop for eating meals, doing work, and working on hobbies. Your stairs can be used as additional seating when guests come over with the addition of a comfortable pillow or roll-out seating pad. Stackable furniture is also a great choice because you can pull it out and set it up when needed, then fold it up and stack it when you’re done with it!

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Install A Skinny Shelf Over Your Sink

Have you ever looked at the unused space above your sink and sighed in frustration? This space can easily be transformed into a storage opportunity with the right mindset. While you probably don’t have enough room for a full-sized shelf, you can definitely fit a skinny shelf up there! It’s the perfect spot to store small items like spices and herbs. You can also use it to store extra rolled-up dish towels, small cups or mugs, and extra utensils. Remember, every inch of blank space in your home is a storage opportunity waiting to be discovered!

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Cabinet Organizers Are A Must

If you don’t have room to hang your pots and pans from the ceiling, try a cabinet organizer instead! It’ll keep everything organized and easily accessible while preventing them from taking over your cabinets. These organizers can be used in cabinets in every room of your home. They can keep your dishware organized in the kitchen, make your toiletries easily accessible in the bathroom, and keep your craft supplies situated in living room cabinets.

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Get A Blanket Ladder

Super bulky items like blankets can be a challenge to store, even when you have plenty of space. When you’re living in a tiny home, this becomes even more challenging. Rather than attempting to stuff them into the storage drawers under your bed or couch, grab a blanket ladder instead. You can hang your blankets on the ladder and lean it up against any corner in the home. Not only does this give you an aesthetic option for blanket storage, but it will also free up a ton of drawer and cabinet space where you were previously trying to store them.

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Create An Open Wardrobe

Tiny homes and small living spaces typically don’t come with big closets or have the space for a massive wardrobe. But you still need somewhere to store the clothes and accessories you wear every day! You can easily create an open wardrobe with just a few materials. Get a hanging rack like the one in this picture. They usually have a little bottom area where you can place a few storage bins or cubbies. The best part is many hanging racks come on wheels, so you can easily move this around the home to suit your needs.

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Opt For A Long, Skinny Desk

So much furniture is designed to build out, but there are options that offer minimal outward exposure and will run along your wall instead. This is the perfect option to put in your living room because multiple people can use it at the same time. They often come with little shelves on either end that you can use for additional storage. Get yourself some folding or inflatable chairs to use while you’re working and stow them away once you’re done.

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Tiny Storage For Tiny Laundry Rooms

If you have a tiny laundry room in your home, then you’re probably struggling with storage space in that room. Instead of looking for one large, all-in-one storage solution, try to find multiple tiny storage options instead. It will look so much better and provide you with more space. Add a tiny storage cabinet next to your washer and dryer if possible. Add hooks to the side of your laundry sink to hang mesh bags full of clothes that need to be washed or your detergent. Hang shelves along the walls to hold your cleaning items and consider putting a mesh net on the ceiling to store extra clean blankets, towels, and other linens.

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Try A Sectional Instead Of A Couch

Everyone deserves somewhere comfortable to sit in their living room, but a couch may not be the best option for tiny homes. A sectional can fit against your walls, even when there’s a corner involved. Sectionals also allow for more seating, and many come with a chaise lounge with a decent-sized storage compartment. If you get a sectional like the one in this photo, you can easily buy some storage bins to fill and slide underneath.

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Choose Your Lighting Carefully

Floor lamps really have no place in tiny homes. They take up too much space and usually aren’t multi-functional enough to be worth it. Instead, opt for wall-mounted options whenever possible. Overhead lighting is also a good option, but overhead lights take away from your ceiling space, which can be used for mesh nets and drop-down storage. So small wall-mounted lighting options are your best bet. Plus, they use a lot less electricity than other lighting options.

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Use A Bathtub Tray

Not all tiny homes have a bathtub, but if you’re lucky enough to have one, then you should definitely consider getting a bathtub tray. There’s the obvious luxury of having a hot cup of tea during your bath, but there are other and more practical reasons to get these trays as well. They’re the perfect place to hold your bathing essentials without having to install extra shelves or baskets on the wall. Plus, they’re multifunctional! You can always pull it out of the bathroom and use it to serve your loved one breakfast in bed on a special day.

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Get A Rolling Shelving Unit

The furniture in tiny homes needs to be flexible and multifunctional. Rolling shelving units fit that bill perfectly! You can use these to store books, keys, tissues, and other random items you use throughout the day. It’s super easy to move out of the way when you need more space in a room, and you can change what you have on the shelves seasonally to better suit the flow of your home. These also work really well in the kitchen for storing additional dishware or cooking essentials.

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Add A Lazy Susan In The Kitchen

We mentioned the benefit of pull-out cabinets in the kitchen, but if you’re already stuck with deep traditional cabinets, then we have the perfect solution for you! Add a lazy Susan to your cabinets to keep everything organized and easily accessible. You’ll never have to pull a ton of stuff out of your cabinet to reach something in the very back with this in place! There are smaller options for small cabinets as well, so make sure you thoroughly research all the options to get the most out of your limited space.

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Use A Free-Standing Island

Free-standing islands are awesome for a few reasons. They give you extra counter space and usually come with a drawer or two for additional storage space. It also gives you a place to eat meals in the kitchen if you’d like. Plus, they just look awesome! Look for free-standing islands on wheels, so you can easily move them out of the way when you need more floor space. There are also much simpler folding options that don’t typically come with extra drawers for storage, but still work well as a free-standing island and are easy to stow out of the way when you aren’t using them.

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Use Your Windowsills

Use your windowsills to store small potted plants, books, candles, and so much more! Windowsills are often pretty small, so most people don’t consider them a good storage spot, but there are tons of little trinkets you can place on them. They’re great for tiny picture frames, knickknacks, incense burners, and so much more!

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Put Cup Holders In Your Cabinets

Adding cup holders to the back of your cabinets gives you a ton of extra storage space. This can be especially useful in the bathroom and the kitchen. In the bathroom, use them for storing toothpaste, toothbrushes, lotion, and creams. In the kitchen, use them for storing small items like herbs, spices, baking chips, and more! If you feel like taking a break from installing stuff, try getting some with adhesive or suction cups to make the process super easy.

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Add Shelves To The Sides Of Your Cabinets

Every inch of blank space is an opportunity for extra storage in your tiny home. The bare sides of your cabinets present the perfect spot to install a few extra shelves. They will give you a little extra space and provide your tiny home with an additional spot to display your favorite knickknacks. After all, you can never have enough knickknacks and decor in your home!

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Use Floating Shelves In The Living Room

Floating shelves are awesome for several reasons. They look cool, give you additional storage space, and can be tiered to fit the space in your home. They can be put anywhere in your home, but we recommend the living room. This is a great spot for storing things you need within easy reach, like your keys, games, craft supplies, etc. They’re also relatively inexpensive and easy to install, which is always a plus!

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Open Overhead Storage Maximizes Your Space

We’ve mentioned overhead storage a few times, but this photo gives a great example of how to do it right! Open overhead storage like this gives you plenty of space for all your essentials while allowing light to come through. This prevents your already small space from feeling more cramped while still keeping the things you need easily accessible. Just make sure you have a good folding stepstool nearby so you can reach the overhead storage shelf!

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