Storage, storage on the wall…. what's the tidiest solution of all?

There is an old saying that “No matter how much I earn, I always seem to spend just a little bit more”. The same can be said of storage at home. No matter how much storage we have, we always seem to need just a little bit more. Both models are unsustainable and in the long term may contribute to the fall of civilisation (the key word there being ‘may’!). Whilst earning more might be difficult for many of us, the good news is that extra storage is readily available.

So why are our hallways an obstacle course of clutter? Why are we at risk of being crushed to death under an avalanche of winter coats when the rickety old coat stand inherited from Aunt Mary finally collapses? Answer: We don’t have enough storage in our homes.

With the value of property being calculated on a square foot and living space basis, there is little incentive in having a 10-foot by 5-foot storage room, when it can be sold as a child’s bedroom, or by an imaginative Central London agent as a compact, adjoining studio flat with its own bohemian entrance (i.e. the window). In short, the reality is there is little commercial incentive in having large storage provision included within the footprint of homes – unless the home has 5 bedrooms across 10,000 square feet, with a swimming pool, golf range and helipad. In which case, dressing rooms, laundries and pantries a-plenty – it’s great being rich!

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For most of us non-Kardashian’s, it’s not just about homes with minimal storage, though. Another reason why our hallways and living rooms are full of clutter is that we accumulate stuff, whether we like it or not.

There’s stuff we need regularly but would rather not have to look at it every time we open our front door. This includes bikes, push-chairs, scooters, golf clubs and shoes of every description (80% of which sit there sadly month after month, thinking “Maybe today?”). 

There’s stuff that we will need one day, that takes up all the space in the few cupboards we have in the hallway or kitchen, such as our picnic basket and chairs, cleaning buckets, half-used paint cans, a toolbox that isn’t ours and a 5kg bag of potting mix, despite the fact that we don’t have a garden or any plants.

There’s stuff we have to keep, but would rather not, such as personal paperwork, receipts and other boxes full of boring, unfinished admin (that we will sort out tomorrow), and then there is stuff that we don’t need and will never likely use again, but just can’t throw out. In that pile jammed under the bed you will have clothes from the last 20 years (that are in great condition, just not back in style yet), baby toys, a potty, the kids drawings and your bag of love-letters and photos from past relationships (from the days when people actually wrote a letter with a paper and pen and had a photo physically developed onto paper – how quaint!).

Whether or not we hold Amazon and QVC personally responsible for our homes being full of stuff we don’t need, or whether we take some of the blame, the solution is either we regularly clear out all of our clutter (easier said than done) or find alternate storage solutions.

So what are our additional storage options?

In your house:

It’s free and convenient, but likely that all of the wardrobes and cupboards are already full. So, it’s either filling up our living space with new cupboards or getting creative with where we stash our clutter. Under beds, behind doors, under tables and on top of refrigerators are all popular and quickly filled. Stacking your boxes and suitcases on your balcony might move it out of your sight, but into everyone else’s. You will get the Bad Neighbour Award and be scowled at in the lift.

In your car boot:

It’s a popular place for golf clubs and kid’s booster seats, but a royal pain having to go backwards and forwards to your car with armloads of stuff, that gets dumped into the hallway until being transferred back into the car boot hours/days/weeks/millennia later. 

A self-storage unit:

The good thing is that you can get as much storage as you want. The not-so-good thing is that you have to travel to get there - and pay an on-going monthly fee. If you need to store an entire 2-bedroom house worth of stuff, then a storage unit is great, but if you have a pile of general household clutter (e.g. fancy dress costumes, extra dining chairs, last year’s tax receipts and the inflatable mattress for Uncle John who has had too many sherries to drive), stuff that you will likely want to access quickly and conveniently, then a self-storage unit might not be the answer.

Over Bonnet Shed:

If you have a car space, then a new storage option is to have an Over Bonnet Shed. These are huge, secure, 200kg steel cabinets that stand high up on four legs at the end of your car space, over your car bonnet – and provide 94 cubic feet of storage. The cabinets are delivered as a flat-pack or fully assembled and are free standing at the end of your car space (so no drilling or attachment to surfaces is required).  With the height being adjustable, the cabinet legs can extend up to 1.5m high, enough even for a 4WD drive such as a Range Rover to park under (Kardashians, please take note). The cabinets can provide new storage directly above your car and can be easily dis-assembled and moved elsewhere. Whilst they can’t fit a 2-bed house of stuff, they can take adult bikes and the bulky bits and pieces that can shoo away your home’s Feng Shui. 

Whether we like it or not, especially for those of us living in apartments without a helipad, the challenge of lack-of-storage will always be with us. We can continue stepping over our stuff in the hallway, jamming our junk into our car boot and burying our bits under our beds, or we can take our clutter by the scruff of its neck and either send it down the road to its own little cage or walk it downstairs into the carpark and put it in our Over Bonnet Shed.

Which storage option works for you?

Storage, storage along the wall, a clutter-free house is indeed the happiest of them all…

Chris Minett, Managing Director at Over Bonnet Shed

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