Ever wonder why the homes you see here on TV Showhomes and in top home and design mags look so clean-lined and spacious.
Did they just move the kids out and get the cleaners in? Does the camera lie? Did the art director go to town with the computer-eraser?
Well, yes…all of that, but more importantly those people with not-a-thing-out-of-place understand the importance of good storage. Whether that means a pantry full of labelled Tupperware, or an attic full of stuff the kids have out-grown, it's what makes the difference between your house and theirs.
Ask yourself, “if there was a fire, would I be devastated to lose it, or would I secretly be glad to get rid of it all?"
Take a look around. Do you accumulate clutter on the edge of your bench? Can you even see your bench? Are there magazines stacked on table tops, small piles of hair-ties, paper clips and coins dropped randomly into bowls? If so, then you are an obvious candidate for a crash-course in storage.
Here then are the official TV Showhomes Top Ten Storage Tips.
1: Be ruthless. Do you think people with minimalist homes really find it necessary to hang on to all that stuff that you have crammed in your cupboards and drawers. First love-letters aside, do you really NEED it? How come you save the used Xmas paper every year, then go out and buy new paper anyway? If it's taking up room in your drawers it has to earn its keep in sentimental value.
2: Take a Look at the Kitchen. It's hoarders law that the more cupboard space you have, the more junk you will find to fill it. On the other hand a lot of airspace is wasted in kitchens. Nobody needs all that air up there, so why not fill it with cupboards that go all the way up to the ceiling. Remember your grandmother's kitchen with all those preserves up in the high cupboards – if you don't have preserves you can at least hide the chocolate biscuits away from the kids up there.
3: Look for ‘forgotten' or ‘dead-space' in your house.
Free space under the stairs looks great, but if you need extra storage space think about closing the space in and building in drawers or cupboards.
4: Small bedroom? Think French.
No, not the big sprawling French country bedroom you see in expensive French design magazines – we're talking the pokey one-room cupboards the Parisians call 'apartements'. By the time you've got a bed into them there's not much room left for anything else – so, do what the French do - build the bed on a platform and ‘voila' you just doubled your floor space – ideal for storage – or a study area underneath. This is a great idea for kids who suddenly have more homework, more clothes, more everything than you ever thought possible.
5: Sit on it!
Bungalows got it right – with those big window seats complete with hinged lids and squabs on top. Open the lid, stuff it in, close the lid and sit on it. You can even pour a glass of wine and get someone to photograph you looking smug because you know the secret of that minimalist look.
6: Build it in.
One of the niftiest ideas we've seen this year is fold-down or pull-out ironing boards. They're a bit like the pull-out chopping boards or fold – down beds that were built into ‘pads' in the 1960s – except they were naff and probably unhygenic while these are very cool (for an ironing board).
7: Build it in - Mk II.
The trend in smaller urban dwellings is to cram the laundry appliances into a cupboard and try to pretend that they don't exist. A more mature approach is to accept that laundry is a fact of life. Reverse the trend and cram more cupboards into your laundry! You'll appreciate deep pull out bins for dirty clothes, cupboards for cleaning products, and extra bench space for shining shoes, or doing messy jobs like gluing.
8: Box it.
Working from home means that you have all those extra hours not spent commuting – so how come you still never have time to clean your desk? Maybe it's because you feel like you need to have all those files in sight so you remember what it is you're supposed to be doing. Open wall-mounted shelves are a good solution. Store things in clearly marked regular-sized cardboard filing boxes and you can see what's where – without it falling on you.
9: Reclaim the bench.
Think of all the money you paid for that beautiful bench-top – and now you can barely see it for the bills and bits and pieces that just gravitate there! The first rule of clutter is that any flat surface is a magnet for paper. Break the pull of the benchtop by investing in a bulk pack of plain brown manila folders and file all you stuff into them. Keep a file marked 'kitchen litter' and stick all those little bits of paper into it. Keep it in a kitchen drawer and review it twice a day or more if you have to.
10: Close the Door on it.
The beauty of the spare room – you can stick whatever you like in it, shut the door and maintain the semblance of living an ordered, minimalist and clutter-free life. The same principle applies throughout the house – if it's not going to look good on display, then shut it away. Books are the exception here – they are meant to sit on shelves – and, depending on the authors, they give the impression that you are not only ordered, but intelligent!
