I talk with all of my clients about using the vertical space in our homes and offices. So often I see people using their closets to the max or using the floor space but I see vertical space being unused. It’s so valuable and can be so useful in your home. I’ll show you a few places in myhome where I am using vertical space.
Off of my kitchen I have an area where we have some bins for storing headphones and chargers (and the top one has candy…shhh). The clipboards on the wall hold the school lunch menus and important papers I don’t want to lose from school. The chalk board is a play space as well as a place I like to write encouraging scriptures for my kiddos and myself to read daily.
This is Scarlett’s room. I have two sets of hook racks to hold her dress up clothes. I find they get less mangled and torn when they are hung and they are easier to find the right one when she is ready to dress up. It doesn’t hurt that they are a cute colorful decoration as well. I found this bulletin board with three storage bins (sorry hard to see in this picture) at Land Of Nod online and I have used it in so many places in my house over the years. In fact I have another in Savannah’s room you’ll see soon.
Here is my necklace storage in my room on the wall. I bought this years ago at Pier One and it’s worked well to keep my necklaces from getting tangled or forgotten.
I did something similar in Savannah’s room for her necklaces as well. This is hung behind her door since it’s not quite as pretty as I would like.
Speaking of hidden vertical storage…this is inside Savannah’s closet. I hung another hook rack in here to store her purses and tote bags (and evidently babies in plastic bag carriers…creepy).
We hung an ikea mirror with a ledge in my oldest child’s room since she shares a bathroom with her two other siblings. This has a little ledge for her products and makes mornings run more smoothly.
This is just like the shelf/bulletin board combo in Scarlett’s room. It’s got three cubbies for all kinds of little things little girls need to keep.
In Savannah’s room she not only has a very tall bookshelf that we used to replace two shorter ones once she was tall enough but we have hooks on the wall for bags, coats and scarves.
In my hallway we had a small unused space on the wall and a neighbor gifted me this shelf. The two were married and now we have shared book space in the hall between the bedrooms. It holds a suprisingly large amount of books.
By my front door is where I keep my scarves on a hook rail. It works well…one could easily have coats here for guests but we just don’t have guests that come in the front door that often. Our coat closet is rather small but we manage just fine with that. Oh now that I think of it we have a couple of hooks on the inside of EVERY hall closet door.
And finally this is the space where everyone comes in, through our carport into the kitchen. I put lots of hooks for all the coats, backpacks and purses. I have my own special hook up on the top left for my purse. When we moved here I had a 2 year old and a 4 year old who wanted to empty the contets of my purse regularly…so up high it had to go. I have some vertical files here that hold our paid bills, unpaid bills and school work that needs to be filed. (See…I get piles of things that need to be filed too. I do try to keep them off the counters though.)
So there they are…just a walk through my house and some of the spaces that I use that don’t really take up any more space. Take a look around your house and see if you are using your space to the max. You might not need a bigger space or an addition…maybe you’re just not using your space to it’s greatest potential.