As architects who have a penchant for being organized (are there any who don’t?), my husband and I are on a never-ending quest for more storage space. After living small in London for 10 years with our two sons, we sleuthed for more space last year and upgraded our kitchen, taking the opportunity to create as much storage as possible. Come have a look—we managed to find storage in the most unexpected places.
Our modern London townhouse has three floors, each is 500 square feet, with sleeping at the top, working and reading in the middle, and everything else on the ground floor. The first floor acts as the engine room of the house—it’s where cooking, dining, meeting, laundering, ironing, newspaper reading, and even ping-pong playing (on the dining table) take place—so it was important to us to create a place for everything, and that it all be easily accessible. Of course, the better you are at putting things away, the more effective this strategy is. Are you listening, my beloved teens?
Above: The tall kitchen cabinets that extend from the front of the house to the back are visible immediately beyond our entry. Above: While our galley kitchen runs the length of the house, the sizes of the kitchen cabinets vary according to use. In Sleuthing for Space in My Kitchen, I discuss how we found more space without extending the kitchen. Above: The vents at the top of the cabinet doors hint at what is behind them. Above: The cabinet doors open up to reveal the laundry area, complete with washer, dryer, and sink—an adapted version of my fantasy laundry room. See more small laundry rooms in 9 Favorite Laundry Rooms with Storage Ideas to Steal. Above, L to R: A Before shot of the laundry room shows our open shoe display; the same shoes are now hidden away behind cabinet doors. Above: My husband has hats, lots of them. I don’t begrudge him his hats because he needs them for good reasons, but they are not easy to store. We used to hang them on the wall going up the stairs, but they kept falling off when people brushed by them. Our new solution: We installed Commercial Kitchen Draining Shelves from Alco–8½ linear feet of them in the entry hall. The shelves work well not only for hats but also for hanging the incidental coat (our coat closet is always filled to the max), as well as dry-cleaning, dog leashes, and anything else that needs a temporary home. Above: In the entry hall, things remain pretty much the same as before, despite the fact that the entire kitchen area on the other side of the gray wall was completely overhauled. Above: My husband earmarked a sliver of the wall in the entry hall for keys, transit cards, headphones, and other miscellaneous small items that are so easy to misplace and yet so important. He went to Habitat and devised a solution from what was there (he’s annoyingly good at this)–he combined white metal DVD shelves with acrylic storage boxes (both are no longer available at the store). Above: I have a friend who thinks Bill and I are deluded in believing we can reduce the essence of teenage detritus into one box each. She may be right, but at least our boys know where their keys, phones, and wallets are (most of the time). Above: Closets in London, if you have any at all, tend to be small. Two rows of Shaker pegs absorb the overflow of scarves, bags, and jackets, and are particularly useful during the winter. To read about how I used the pegs in Connecticut, see How Shaker Pegs Saved My Summer Sanity.
Middle Floor
Above: On the second floor, where we read, work, and watch TV, we installed the 606 Universal Shelving System by Vitsoe to maximize space for our ever-growing library. Above: The best thing about the Vitsoe shelving is that it can come with us when we move. Because it’s a modular system of interchangeable parts, we can add to or subtract from it as needed.
Top Floor
Above: When we moved our bed into an awkward niche in our bedroom, we took the opportunity to integrate overhead storage into the headboard and we added drawers to the base of the bed for luggage.
When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.
Access 10 archived posts (older than one year) per month on each site
Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
Unlimited access to the Product Catalogs, Design Travel sources, and Architect & Designer Directory listings
Choose from our ten newsletters to keep up with the latest on the sites
Or Subscribe for Maximum Value!
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Sorry! As a registered member you get 10 free posts from our archive (posts more than a year old) every 30 days. You have reached your limit for this 30-day period. If you would like to access unlimited posts from the archive (ad free, too), become a subscriber today, and keep reading as many articles as you want.
Full Access Individual Subscription
Benefits include:
Unlimited access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home sites
Ad-free browsing environment
Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
Receive the full-text daily newsletters
All features that Members have access to
Annual subscribers pay just 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
Sorry! You have reached your limit of three (3) free posts from our archive every 30 days. You can increase this to 10 posts by joining as a free Member, or read unlimited posts with no ads by becoming a paid Subscriber.
Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
Become a Member at no charge
When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.
Have a Question or Comment About This Post?