25 Clever Storage Ideas

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It’s hard to truly organize your home when you don’t have enough storage to put everything away. Well, now you can solve that problem with these 25 clever storage ideas for every room in your home!

1. Rotating Desk Organizer as Makeup Storage

Grab a rotating desk organizer and fill it up with face brushes, concealers, tweezers, and all of your makeup supplies. Now you can keep all of your makeup in one place and it’s so convenient to just twirl it around to find what you need.

2. Behind the Door Storage

The wall behind an open door can be considered as wasted space because you can’t exactly put up anything there, can you? Well, this smart behind the door storage adds hidden storage that would be perfect for a laundry room or garage.

3. Under the Bed Rolling Storage Boxes

Use the empty space under all the beds in your home by building these simple plywood boxes and adding casters to them. Paint or stain them in colors that match your beds and use them to hold extra toys, seasonal clothes, or shoes. Alternatively, you could use a couple of old drawers and add casters to the bottom for a similar result.

4. Clear Storage Bags

These clear toy storage bags with a drawstring closure are a great DIY project you can do yourself if you have a sewing machine and the skills. Using clear vinyl and your favorite fabrics, sew up cute toy storage bags that can hold your kids’ tiny toys. You could also use them for all kinds of things, from hair ties to makeup.

5. Magnet Tape Bathroom Storage

Are you always losing tiny metal bathroom objects, like tweezers, bobby pins, and nail clippers? This clever storage idea is so easy: attach magnet strip tape to a cabinet door and stick your metal objects on it. Problem solved!

6. Magazine Holders as Kitchen Storage

Magazine holders are obviously useful for storing magazines and papers, but did you know they could also be used for holding aluminum rolls, parchment paper, and cling wrap? You could also use them to store cutting boards, candy molds, and any other thin objects you have in your kitchen. Store them upright to save on space in your pantry and cabinets.

7. Toilet Plunger Storage

The toilet plunger is an ugly thing but unfortunately a bathroom necessity. Hide it away in this smart storage solution that can also hold a bowl brush and bathroom cleaning chemicals. This kit comes with everything that you need to build out a little niche with a door in your bathroom.

8. Soda Box as Can Storage

If you like to drink soda, you probably go through lots of cardboard packaging that hold soda. Instead of tossing them, wrap them in decorative paper and stick them in your pantry to hold your canned food.

9. Over the Stairs Mudroom

A mudroom is a really nice thing to have, but maybe you don’t have enough space for a dedicated mudroom. How about using the space along your staircase? Add shelves and hooks along the wall on your stairs for a place to store your family’s shoes, coats, and bags.

10. Narrow Wall Shelves in the Bathroom

Shelves above the toilet in a bathroom is common, but have you ever thought about using the wall space right next to a toilet for narrow shelving? This is a great storage idea to hold towels, toilet paper, and other bathroom essentials.

11. Hooks on the Sides of a Kitchen Island

The sides of a kitchen island tend to be wasted space, but turn them into a cool storage solution by adding hooks in the form of cabinet pulls to hold up cutting boards or screws to hold pans.

12. Above the Door Shelves

There’s some space above your doors — just enough space for a shelf. In a bathroom, you could store extra towels up there, while in a bedroom you could put up books. This is a great storage idea for smaller homes and apartments.

13. Bookshelves on the Sides of a Dresser

Here’s another clever storage idea to use on the side of a piece of furniture, this time a child’s dresser! Add shelves, like these spice racks, and drill them into the side of a dresser to hold your kid’s overflowing book collection.

14. Hidden Jewelry Organizer as Art

There are so many different DIY jewelry organizer ideas, but this one is so crafty because it doubles as art for your bedroom. Mount a favorite photograph on a piece of wood and build a jewelry organizer with plywood and hooks. So pretty and useful.

15. Key Storage Behind a Picture Frame

Sure, you could always simply drop off your keys into a bowl near your front door, but that’s not exactly safe and your keys can get all cluttered up with others’ keys and miscellaneous things. Keep your keys hidden and hung up nicely behind a cute picture frame in your entryway.

16. Shelves on a Half Wall

Do you have a half wall that’s just standing there with no purpose other than dividing two spaces into half? Add shelves to it and a new counter top to turn it into shelving storage.

17. Canned Food Storage on Wheels

Check your refrigerator in your kitchen. Do you have a small opening, maybe around 6 inches, between the refrigerator and the wall? You could build this tall and narrow canned food organizer on wheels and push it right into that tiny space for a whole lot of storage.

18. Trunk as Shoe Storage

There’s a lot of storage ideas for shoes floating around on the web, but a lot of them can do some damage to your favorite pair of heels or flats. Here’s a new idea: find a cool-looking trunk at a thrift shop and turn it into shoe storage by adding rods to hold the shoes up. This tutorial actually made the trunk from scratch; you could do that if you can’t find a nice trunk ready-made.

19. Baskets on Hooks

If you have some wall space available, attach hooks on a strip of wood and hang up colorful baskets on them to hold anything you’d like, from kids toys to towels to garage tools. When you need to use a basket, just pull it off the hook and put it back when you’re done.

20. Drawstring Storage Bag

Lego and other tiny toys are always the bane of parents (and their bare feet), so here’s a really cute and convenient storage that makes it easy for your kids to clean up after themselves. This drawstring bag folds completely open to be used as a play mat and then you simply pull up the drawstring with all the pieces inside.

21. Garage Storage Tower

These storage towers are so clever because they can hold your huge plastic storage tubs as well as various garage tools on hooks along the sides of the towers. Instead of losing wall space with run-of-the-mill garage shelves, this storage solution gives you even more hanging space.

22. Hidden Storage Headboard

Thanks to thousands of DIY tutorials online, you can make your own upholstered headboard in any shape or style you’d like. Why not make one that comes with hidden storage to hold blankets, extra pillows, books, and more? Let this be your inspiration!

23. Fold-out Desk

Do you need a desk somewhere in your home for work or homework but no space to put it? How about storing a desk right on the wall? This fold-out desk easily pulls down to form a nice white desk and folds away to look like a small, simple box on the wall.

24. Cable Storage Dresser

Sure, you could wrap your cables with rope, tape, or the latest organization gadget, but then where do you put them? You know, you’ll only need them when there’s only a few minutes to grab them and you’re panicking and digging everything up. Put all of your cables in one place in a small dresser and label them. This only takes a few minutes, but it’s oh so worth it.

25. Shelves Between Bathroom Sinks

If you have a double vanity and not much storage space in your bathroom, try adding a shelf between the two sinks. It will look great even with a full mirror, but you could always swap it out with two smaller mirrors that fit on each side with enough room for the shelf.

Feature image via Better Homes & Gardens

What other clever storage ideas have you seen or used in your home?