Have you, like me, often had the feeling that there is not enough space for everything? You immediately decide that the house is too small so you go to the nearest real estate agency and start looking for a new place...
The paradox is that if we do not have a plan for organizing the storage space (or a specialist to do this for us), our tendency is to fill the new home in the same way as the previous one ... no matter how much space we have available. This creates a vicious circle.
We don't have space to store -We buy a bigger house - We buy more things - We don't have space to store them.
We live with our objects and if they are not properly arranged they end up suffocating us - the house for people becomes a storehouse of objects. I'm not going to talk about minimalism, throwing away all the objects that don't spark joy, the 333 rule or how you're going to have to part with half of things now that you're moving.
Today I will talk briefly about a concept: organized storage. It may sound complicated, but all you have to do is go through a few basic principles:
1. Identify storage areas in your home. Based on a printed plan or a layout of the apartment / house, I encourage you to mark all storage areas with one color
2. Identification of irregularities or design of new storage spaces taking into account the principle of proximity and uniform distribution. Each room / destination requires its own storage areas depending on the activities carried out. Storage units must be in close proximity to the place where the objects are to be used. For example: in the kitchen we have the cutlery drawer near the dish cupboard/ buffet, and the cooking spatulas and oil containers near the stove. This principle helps us to put things back after we use them.
3. Proportion of storage space. The ratio between storage and your usable area must be at least 12% (if we are talking about a house). The smaller the usable area, the higher the storage percentage.
4. The principle of overlapping, not joining. Vertical space optimization by designing custom furniture across the entire height of the room is the ideal way to maximize storage space. If you are afraid that this closet may look massive, opt for white or light-colored fronts (or even mirror ones) and give up the classic handles - choose the push-open system, gola profiles or milled handles.
In the example above, we decided not to build a wall between the living room and the office/ guest room. We designed some double-oriented storage units on the entire height of the space - one half facing the living room and the other one the office. The entry is through a secret door integrated in the furniture.
5. If you find it boring to have a simple white closet on the entire wall height, you can always insert some open wooden cubes, bookshelf areas, a niche for TV etc. - as long as the ratio of open units - closed units is about 2: 8. It is not practical having everything visible.
It is easy for luxury apartment presentations to catch our eyes or some pictures from pinterest with the shelves perfectly arranged by interior decorators and we automatically imagine that we would like something like this in our house. But our homes are not showroom apartments or 5-star hotels, and honestly most of us don't have an army of professionals to clean up after us every week.
I encourage you to read the book Room to Breathe, analyze your storage habits, and choose just the things that work for you. Your design should primarily meet your functional needs.
I wish you an inspiring day,
Laura