5 small space storage ideas to make tiny rooms feel bigger (and tidier)

Looking for small space storage ideas to stretch your space? Search no further...

Small space storage ideas
(Image credit: Ikea)

If there's one thing lockdown's highlighted for us, it's a lack of small space storage ideas at home. Grrrrr! WHY IS STUFF ALWAYS EVERYWHERE? So we thought it would be a good idea to invest a bit of time surfing the web-er-net to find some fabulously simple, storage-problem-solving, clutter-crunching ideas. And we have. LOVING these. A mix of easy buy and clever but doable DIYs you can make. You're most welcome...

Find more small space ideas, hacks and buys on our dedicated tiny house page.

1. Store on the door

Small space storage ideas

(Image credit: Ikea)

Searching for small space ideas for everywhere from the bathroom to the kitchen to the hallway? These self-adhesive hooks are genius (and sooo simple). Put snacks and sauce packets that you're always losing/spilling/forgetting about front and centre so they don’t get lost. Use them in the hallway to hang up stuff that usually clutters up the table. Put them in bedrooms for everything from jewellery to bags. You can even write names (and reminders) on them. Plutt storage hooks with self-adhesive stickers, £1 for a three-pack, Ikea. See all Amazon's self-adhesive hooks

Small space storage

(Image credit: Ikea)

2. Use hanging backs to clear drawers, floors and tables

Small space storage

(Image credit: Ikea)

This is such a simple idea: this Nordrana hanging storage, £17 at Ikea, comes with bags that you connect with toggles and loops, so they can be moved, removed and added to. Better still, they are hand-crocheted by skilled craftspeople with good working conditions and fair wages at organised weaving centres in Vietnam.

3. Put up a noticeboard, then hide it

Small space storage

(Image credit: Ikea)

If a noticeboard is too messy to look at in your small space, and building a cupboard with shelves is beyond your DIY capabilities, how about this for a clever compromise? The Skadis pegboard, £10, Ikea, has been simply hidden away in a cupboard that (and this is important) has been painted the same colour as the wall behind it for ultimate blending and space-enhancing.

For more Ikea hacks, see our dedicated feature.

4. Go overboard on narrow, full height storage

Small space storage

Styling: Sam Grigg Photographer: Ben Robertson

(Image credit: Ikea/Sam Grigg/Ben Robertson)

Don’t let a hallway – or any room – be wasted storage space. If you can dedicated a whole wall to tall, shallow storage you can hide away a ton of stuff. Here, Trones shoe cabinets have been used for much, much more than just shoes. See below for an idea.

Can't get to Ikea? Buy the Trones at Amazon.

Small space storage

(Image credit: Ikea)

5. Using under the stairs is a small space storage must

small space storage

Styling: Carl Braganza Photographer: Nato Welton Idea: @juloxyy

(Image credit: Ikea/Carl Braganza/Nato Welton/@juloxyy)

Got room under the stairs? Fixing deep, narrow shelves to the underside of the stairs that are built to take storage containers that might usually have been slid under a bed is a clever way to stash away out of season shoes, coats, umbrellas... and to stack up what's in season in front so that it's always to hand but neatly off the floor. And, of course, you can easily hide it all away with a curtain that simply pulls across the staircase.

Lucy Searle

Lucy is Global Editor-in-Chief of Homes & Gardens having worked on numerous interiors and property titles. She was founding Editor of Channel 4’s 4Homes magazine, was Associate Editor at Ideal Home, before becoming Editor-in-Chief of Realhomes.com in 2018 then moving to Homes & Gardens in 2021. She has also written for Huffington Post, AOL, UKTV, MSN, House Beautiful, Good Homes, and many women’s titles. Find her writing about everything from buying and selling property, self build, DIY, design and consumer issues to gardening.

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