People with tiny homes! Talk to me about space saving and storage!

[IsisOhIsis]

I have a teeny tiny terrace house. I have very little cupboard space in my kitchen, and a 2yo DD with toys that seem to breed when I'm not looking :-/ I am getting a bookcase for christmas from my mum (the excitement!) so that will be more space in my living room but I would love to hear your ingenious space saving and storage ideas! I'm on a teensy budget too, so unfortunately can't just buy lots of things or have a new kitchen fitted!

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Looking for advice on keeping things organised or making the most of a small space? Check out our round-up of Mumsnetters’ life-changing storage boxes, space-saving tips, and decluttering hacks. MNHQ.

Don't marry a computer geek. I have computers, lap tops, bits of computers, cables and electronics magazines all over my house.

DFs very practical DH built them brilliant fitted shelves and cupboards both sides of their chimney breast and put a lift top window seat round the bay window. Takes heaps of junk and saves three chairs at the dinning table which is just too damned neat. I'm always tidying up chairs.

Agree with the 4x4 or at least 2x 4 expedit - affordable plus it does come in white, birch and black too!

Decluttering is definitely your friend, flylady has some good tips We also operate an informal one-in-one-out system, so every time we get a new toy/book/pair of shoes we try to donate, eBay or bin an existing one, helps prevent you being overwhelmed!

I will give you an idea with an image: www.housemaidlondon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/livingroommagseat.jpg

Aside from looking quite rustic and cool, it can save enough space, if you lack library shelves. Otherwise, you should really decide on what you will use and what you will not. I recently cleared my old things out, it felt awful. But hey, it's all good now! If your rubbish is a bit too much, you can call these guys: www.rubbishplease.co.uk/ Both my wife and I are very happy with their service.

Cheers, I hope this will help, even if just a little bit. I feel for you, I've been living in a small home for several years beforehand.

If you have access to your loft use it. My DM has proper loft ladders, so they can go up and down without another person to steady the ladders.

My friend really uses her loft well. She has 3 young children and millions of toys, she uses big plastic storage bags and boxes and rotates them. Some toys e.g the Barbie house, permanently live in the loft, she will go up and bring it down if they want to play with it.

She also keeps most of her kitchen stuff up there. She has a few everyday pans and trays in the kitchen but the rest, along with things like bread maker and food processor live in the loft.

She also has clothes rails up there and rotates everyone's clothes seasonally. So ATM all the shorts and t shirts, sandals and summer coats are up and the boots and jumpers and big coats are down.

She is very organised, but it has become a way of life, she uses the loft as is if it is just another room. She doesn't see it as an 'event' to move things up and down, she just pops up IYKWIM!

We're a family of four and have recently moved into a house which is just over 500 sq ft in size.

I've found the best thing is basically to have less stuff, less stuff equals more room which you have found by getting rid of one of your sofas...so be ruthless!

I also go against the grain with a lot of comments here about using wall space etc. I find it makes the rooms feel claustrophobic. I need to see empty walls etc to feel calm so for me I have to keep less. My parents in law were horrified when they saw me ripping of kitchen cupboards hung on the wall in our kitchen, the area was too small to take them and made the room feel closed in. Now we simply have floor standing cupboards, under counter fridge with icebox etc and it's really opened up the kitchen so it's not pokey.

Put strips of wood across your kitchen cupboards,front to back,so you can stand baking trays on their sides.

Pans on racks.

Use insides of cupboard doors for anything you can think of.

Store blankets inside cushion covers and use as cushions.

Don't forget to have some room for things you like just because of what they are,even if they have no use - it's having a few things like that which makes a house a home.

But white, black and birch don't go with my oak effect floor and furniture :( Also, do they fix to the wall if you live in a slightly wonky old hovel?

Same here . Small house. Dont know where to put the spare duvet. I have no book case either. I pass on books.

I want to wait til i can get a bookcade that is very tall. Have a highsleeper with wardtobe and desk underneathin the box room. My youngest child in there. Has as much floor space as other child in bigger room.

I dream about getting a skip. You can get quite small ones.

I might treat myself to a skip

Or you could get a hippo bag if that is easier than a skip?

Minimalistmommy. Im wondering if 500sq ft was a typo. If not, wow... must be tough.

I've lived in some tiny places and always give my dc the bigger bedroom. I've radically stripped down my own wardrobe which means it's all in a single thin wardrobe and slim chest of drawers, and it's a lovely calm space. This arrangement means i can store more toys etc in their room. However, if I could time travel back to ds being 2 I would definitely stem the flow of toys. I'm with minimalist mommy. I spent years looking for storage solutions and it would have been so much easier with less stuff!

I love my expedit. Also I use muji cd folders for all our dvds and cds. They take up so little space now!

zo no! not a typo!

It's actually not hard, but, and this is a big but, I've had a minimalist and simple living mindset for the last six years so we have been very careful what has come into the house/what comes into the house all year round. It's actually fascinating being able to live in a small space with children and it's something that I'm extremely interested in, about a year before buying the cottage I had been reading a lot about tiny house living in the USA (a lot will come up if you google it)

We could have chosen a bigger house in a not very good area but we decided to go for great desirable location instead. It was an intentional choice we made.

at Harriet

minimalist i'm intrigued by the configuration of your house, care to share? We have a two up, two down with kitchen and bathroom out the back, the two living and two bedrooms are approx 528 square feet, i always lose the plot when it comes to adding on the kitchen and bathroom. And do you count the stairs?

Do you have a loft? A couple of people i know have had a man in to insulate their loft then fit higher, stronger joists (higher to fit in the requisite insulation) and board the floor. It's made an amazing, accessible storage space which is basically another room, but with no windows.

If we'd thought of it when we moved in we'd have done this. We aspire to move now, so it's not worth it.

Yes, I'm quite minimalist at heart too. 7 years ago I left an abusive relationship with one bag on my back and a buggy. That altered my perspective really because I thought I would miss my stuff so badly but it turned out that within about 6 months there was almost nothing I missed. Then I lived in a rented house and every single thing that I took in to it I was aware that it'd be something I would have to pack up one day and move out!! So, the whole experience definitely altered my attitude to 'stuff' and made it easier for me to focus on saving.

Hi Janek our terraced cottage is quite petite! I know from viewing houses around here when we're were property hunting that they can vary in width/proportion even in the same street which I found surprising (and disappointing) at the time. We are also two up and two down with a narrow double height kitchen and bathroom add-on which is actually how it was originally built. What is now the bathroom upstairs would have been the third bedroom in the past. I have included the kitchen and bathroom but not the staircase.

We have a loft with a teeny tiny square which is boarded which is great for keeping the Christmas decorations in, can't be used for anything else as we have no pull down ladder or even electric light up there We don't even own a ladder as no where to store it and keep having to borrow one of FIL if we need to get up into loft which is really a pain.

Eventually in the future I would like to have the entire loft boarded so we can store out of season clothes etc in there like another poster suggested above but as we are renovating entire cottage I don't think that will happen for a long time yet.

We have a small three bedroom 1930's terraced home. Small hallway, tiny bathroom and third bedroom is a box room.

We keep all unused items in our loft and shed.

Clothes - out of season stored in loft
Shoes - out of season stored in loft. Kept at bottom of our wardrobes.
Coats - two each hung in the hallway. Remainder kept in spare wardrobe.

Bags - kept in bottom of wardrobe.
Towels - kept on rack behind bedroom door
Dressing gown- kept on rack behind bedroom door
Bathroom storage - one cupboard over the sink and one on the floor containing all cleaning & beauty products.
Understair cupboard- store hoover, DIY box, duster, plastic bags, food with long expiry dates.

Hi,
We've just moved from a 3bed high ceilings Victorian flat to a 2 bed ex council house. We have a garden and we have halved our outgoings but our house is teeny tiny. We have 3 kids under 6. We have given them the bigger bedroom. The boys have bunkbeds and dd is in her cot. We have SO much furniture from Ikea. Before we moved I got the charity shop to come and take away two rooms full of stuff.
To declutter is the key!

clara do you know what you will do about sleeping arrangements in the long term when your DS's and Dd get older? Or is this not your forever home?

Oh this feels so familiar. Here are some tips that have worked for us.

Learn to declutter 10 mins a day everyday - it soon stops you buying junk. Avoid Grandparents giving large presents at Christmas - avoid the plastic cooker unless it can fit in the garden! We ask for experiences e.g. a horse riding lesson rather than things and send thank you notes as a photo.
CD's and DVDs - throw boxes away and put contents in those Computer disc books. One for children's films & one adult.
Buy high beds for kids with desk underneath and some clever shelving for all their stuff. Get drawers for under your own bed - there is lots of space under a double bed for a hoover.
Review your kitchen cupboards. Dispose of extra pans etc - keep what you use only. Can you add extra shelves? there is so much wasted space above cups plates etc...
Build narrow shelves in halls all the way to the ceiling - the width of a toilet roll can be great for storing cleaning items etc releasing space under the stairs for bulky items. Make any cupboards above wardrobes more useful by adding a shelf.

Use the boot of the car to store the buggy/scooters etc...

By 8 years toys get less bulky, pushchairs are thing of the past and you can begin to reclaim your house.

I used to save up bags of old clothes for the charity bags that come through the letter box, but now as soon as I clear out, I take them to a clear out place and get a few cents for them as well.

Minimalist, at one point I was thinking of buying a two bed place. Like Clarabump, I would have given the children the bigger room, it had an en suite bathroom which would have helped but I was also going to get them an office style partition. Or use wardrobes as partitions...... I know it wouldn't have been ideal, but my mum shared a bed with her two sisters for god's sake! I saw some great partitions on an office stationery and equipment website. They were brightly coloured and didn't take up any room (apart from the 'feet' that held them upright)

If the room is big enough (and that's a big if!) you could use a 5x5 expedit as a room divider.

This and this are the ikea version of the lakeland shelf inserts linked to above.

Or, two wardrobes. Each facing different direction. But pushed together.