For those with old homes or limited closet space...

So, we have an old house that only has three total closets. One in our bedroom, one in the guestroom and a linen closet. That's it! So, I have no problem in the bedrooms because we have enough space in dressers adn armoires, etc., but downstairs, I'm having trouble. I have a server in my diningroom that houses my china, table cloths, paper and crayons for Ava and some dish towels, but that's all it can hold. Then in my kitchen I have another, more casual server that houses cook books, crock pot, blender, food processor and paper towels. But that's it.
So what else can I get to store things in? We're completely maxed out on the storage in the kitchen and our tv stand holds some photo albums. Any suggestions?

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

Ikea has a lot of great storage solutions.

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

We have an old house, too. Thank goodness we have storage in the attic and basement and garage.

The owners of our home before us built a closet in the enclosed front porch, which offers so much storage space, so thats an idea. It actually looks like it was supposed to be there.

We have also installed the shelf units to maximize the space we do have in the closets. We bought them at Home Depot to save $ and had someone there cut them to size for us.

Good Luck!

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

what exactly would you want to use the additional storage space for?

we counted the closets in "our" home this weekend...we have one in the foyer, one in the guest bedroom/den, 2 in the master bd, one outside of the second bedroom.

we have an outbuilding (shed) no attic and some space in the basement.

If you have a basement, why not get a shelving systems from lowes...something like this


or this (depending on how high the ceilings are)


if you have a laundry room, perhaps you can install some cabinets up high too.

I feel you.

growing up, we had about 20 rooms in my house (no, I'm not kidding) and about 5 closets

Message edited 8/11/2008 12:45:52 PM.

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

Thanks, girls. I should have said that we do have a 2 car garage and a basement for storing big things. What I'm having a hard time with is that we have no coat closet. That's really bugging me. I don't even really have a place to put hooks on the walls or even a coat rack, plus I don't like those things being out. I also need some more space for kitchen items. Ok, I'm going to go take a picture of my kitchen and the walkway to the basement. I have some ideas for it, but maybe some people can give me feedback and some more ideas. BRB.....

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

We have an old cape with limited closet space.

We are currently doing some renovations to our basement to make a nice storage area down there for things we don't use as often to kind of clear things out.

We had a coat closet but, it just had hooks and could only fit like 3 coats so i put shelves in and turned it into the linen closets. I hang the coats in our spare bedroom (which now houses the dining room furniture). I put shelves up in the closet in our other spare bedroom.

We bought new coffee/end/sofa tables from Bobs and I made sure they all had storage (they look nice but, they scratch easily). Since our living room is right next to the kitchen, I've been storing some things there.

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

Re: For those with old homes or limited closet space...

Ok, so here's the space that's behind my kitchen and leads to the basement and the den. It's like this weirdass space that she had these old bread boxes hung in. Right now there's coat hooks on the wall and I hang my swiffer there and my broom and our extra plastic bags. But, we'll be repainting the stair well soon, and I thought that maybe I could put new hooks in here to line with coats on one side when company comes over or in the winter for us? How would that be? Then I want to take the bread boxes down and I thought maybe I could put some shelving there?

Looking down the stairs to the basement:


Looking UP the stairs from the basement. This is where I was thinking we could put shelves?


That same space again from the kitchen: