The 15 Best Storage Hacks For Your Home

The storage and organization ideas can help you find and create all the storage space your belongings require.

Properly decluttering your home is next to impossible if you don’t have all the necessary storage space. Without an empty closet, drawer, or shed you can pack everything into, you may get discouraged looking at all the stuff lying around your home. But don’t despair! There are plenty of ways to create extra storage, even in small spaces like apartments.

In this article, you’ll find a handy mix of organizational tips, DIY storage solutions, and products we recommend. If you need a little extra help sorting everything, we can also point you to some professional organizers in your area. A qualified cleaning and organizing crew will have your home straightened out in a flash, and you won’t have to lift a finger.

Keep reading, and we’ll help you find or craft the storage solutions that will take your home from cluttered to clean in no time.

Install shelves in your closets and pantries

Add floating shelves to your existing storage areas so you can fully utilize all the storage space they offer. Image source: Home Depot

If you need more room for storage in your home, your first target should be the empty wall space in your closets and pantries. These areas have a lot of untapped storage potential that you can quickly unlock with a few extra shelves.

You can either pick up a set of floating shelves from your local hardware store and install them yourself or hire a professional installer to inspect your closets and tailor-make shelving units for each one. Either way, you’ll turn unused space into extra storage for clothes, boxes, and food. That said, the professionally installed shelves will probably hold up more weight, so we recommend working with a pro if you want to do the job right.

Alternatively, you can add durable shelving to a closet more easily by purchasing a standing shelving unit and placing it against one of the walls. This will take up some floor space, but it will be easier than DIY shelf installation and cheaper than professional installation.

Put old jars to good use

Instead of throwing out old mason jars, repurpose them as containers for small items like screws, paper clips, and coins. Image source: Rural Sprout

Glass and plastic jars are some of the most useful items that, unfortunately, get thrown out and carted to landfills daily. Instead of putting your old pickle, jelly, and peanut butter jars in the trash, wash them out and give them a second life as storage containers.

Beside a workbench or in a tool cabinet, old jars can be used to hold screws, nails, and drillbits of different sizes. This is much better than piling these tiny items together indiscriminately at the bottom of a caddy or a toolbox. 

On your kitchen countertops, jars can be used to hold sugar, oats, rice, and flour. This makes these ingredients stackable and much easier to handle than leaving them in the bags they came in. The best part is that airtight jars can keep all your food storage much safer from moisture and pests than their original packaging can. 

Next to your kitchen sink, used jars can hold tiny items you constantly need throughout the day, like twist ties and bag clips. You can even use a glass jar to rack up your dishwashing brushes much more cheaply than buying a specially-designed rack for this purpose. 

Finally, a few old jars can be used to store toiletries like cotton swabs, Q-tips, and toothbrushes in any of your home’s bathrooms.  

As a fun bonus, converting glass jars into storage containers can be a crafty project to do with your family. With an acrylic paint kit and a little imagination, you and your kids can decorate the jars with fun labels and fancy patterns to add a little personality to this practical storage hack.  

Use wide storage containers for under-bed storage

Storage containers that slip beneath your bed can provide discreet storage for spare linens. Image source: Amazon

If you have a small bedroom that doesn’t feature a dedicated linen closet, you can still give all your spare sheets, towels, and comforters a place to live: under your bed! Pick up a few wide, flat storage containers that can slip beneath your bed frame, and use them to hold anything you want to store out of sight.

This space-saving storage tip is handy for apartment living because you can use under-bed containers to hold your rolled-up clothing. This allows you to forego a dresser that would take up precious floor space in your bedroom.

Even if you have all the space you need for your clothes and linens, you could still benefit from under-bed storage containers. Utilizing this area to store rarely used items like gift-wrapping paper and family albums can free up more storage elsewhere.

Mount a key rack beside your front door

With a wall-mounted key rack in your entryway, you’ll never lose your keys again. Image source: West Elm

If you’re constantly searching for your keys, sunglasses, or purse, then a sturdy key rack mounted beside your front door might be exactly what you need. While this seems like a small storage tip, you may be surprised at how big a difference it will make by keeping your counters clear of everyone’s keychains, wallets, and other loose items they idly set aside at the end of each day. 

This tip will do more than just save space – it will also save you a few minutes every morning that you would otherwise spend hunting down your keys and other necessities.

Get a hanging shoe rack for your closet

Optimizing your shoe storage is one of the best ways to keep your entryway clean and unobstructed. Image source: Walmart

Speaking of your entryway, you can use the vertical space in your entryway closet more effectively. To do this, hang a mesh or wire shoe rack over the closet’s door. This will let you store shoes in a way that keeps them more organized and scuff-free than just piling them up on the closet floor.

While you can accomplish the same outcome with a shoe organizer that sits on the floor near your door, this second method takes up floorspace in your entryway and keeps the area less clear. Overall, a hanging shoe rack will make the space feel less cluttered by storing shoes out of sight when the closet is closed. 

Use shower curtain rings to double-up your hangers

Make the most of closet space by using shower curtain rings to hang secondary hangers from your hangers.

If you’ve got more clothing than room to hang it all, use shower curtain rings to double the capacity of your closet’s hanging rods. Simply slip the rings around the hooks of your hangers to create a secure spot to dangle a second hanger. This will allow you to hang two shirts, slacks, or jackets in the same spot, greatly reducing how much room your clothes take up.

Just make sure that your hangers are sturdy enough to support twice the load they usually do. Otherwise, utilizing this storage hack could snap or stretch your hangers. 

Get your garage sorted with an adjustable shelving unit

Adjustable, heavy-duty shelving can turn your garage into a tidy and accessible storage space. Image source: IKEA

Your garage is one of the best places to store odds and ends that don’t belong in your home. Unfortunately, this strength comes with a weakness. Because everything in your garage is out of sight except for when you get into or out of your car, the space can quickly become a “dumping ground” for objects with nowhere else to go. This means your garage can quickly become very cluttered if you aren’t careful.

Luckily, putting your garage in order can be as simple as picking up an adjustable shelving unit or two so you can utilize all the vertical space in your garage instead of piling stuff at the edges of the concrete floor. It’s important that the shelves be adjustable so they can accommodate the various oddities that garages hold. For example, a shelf for camping gear usually needs to be taller than a shelf for paint cans or motor oil. 

Since much of the stuff you keep in your garage is probably pretty heavy, it’s best to get metal shelving units rated for hundreds of pounds. The metal will also be ideal for the drastic temperature and moisture fluctuations that occur in garages.

Master wire management with cord labels

Label all your cords to get a handle on cord management in your office, sewing room, or home theater. Image source: Best Buy

Cord management is an essential—though often overlooked—part of keeping your home in order. Instead of contending with the mess of wires behind your television or under your desk every time you need to plug in a new electronic, properly label every cord to streamline the process.

You can do this with tabs that were specially designed for it, or you can use old bread bag clips instead. This second method will be much cheaper, though the clips might not last as long as the tabs. 

While you’re at it, make a few loops in every especially long cord and zip-tie the loops together to shorten the cord. That way, when you need to unplug something or move an appliance, you won’t have to untangle every cord from its neighbors. 

Sort your workspace with old cardboard tubes

For a DIY storage solution, use old cardboard tubes to sort tools and materials in your workspace. Image source: Teadoddles

Messy drawers are a common ailment in many kitchens, offices, and home workshops. Luckily, you can cure this affliction with everyday household materials. The cardboard tubes from rolls of toilet paper, gift-wrapping paper, and paper towels can be repurposed as drawer organizers. 

This is an especially easy DIY project. You only need a ruler, a pair of scissors, and, of course, plenty of cardboard tubes. Simply measure the depth of any drawer you want to organize, cut your tubing down into multiple pieces of the correct size, fill the drawer with them, and voila! Just like that, you’ve got dozens of compartments for properly sorting the odds and ends found in your junk drawers. 

This storage hack can also be applied to tool cabinets, cleaning caddies, and your kids’ art stations. 

Store cookie sheets and cutting boards vertically

Declutter your kitchen cabinets by storing large items vertically instead of laying them flat. Image source: Wayfair

More than any other room, your kitchen has to pull double duty as a practical space as well as a cozy one. Because of this, proper kitchen organization is more important than the organization of just about any other room. The space must remain uncluttered for a breezy, untroubled atmosphere while providing easy access to things you need when you cook. 

One surprisingly simple way to accomplish this is to store your large cooking implements vertically instead of laying them flat in your cabinets. Storing these items upright prevents them from obstructing each other, meaning you can pull them out one at a time instead of all at once—intentionally or accidentally.

This also makes the most of your cabinetry’s vertical space, so it frees up more horizontal room in your cabinets to store dishes and unused appliances. It can even net you some extra counter space since it enables you to move stuff that’s currently on your counters into your cabinets.

You can vertically store items like baking sheets, muffin tins, and cutting boards by propping them upright against each other, but you risk the items falling over this way. For best results, use dividers to provide support between the items. You can get specially designed cabinet racks for this purpose, but tension rods and even old magazine racks can also work. 

Get stacking bins for your fridge

Stackable storage bins are a fantastic way to keep your fridge clean and organized. Image source: The Container Store

Like drawers and garages, refrigerators store things out of sight most of the time, making them very susceptible to clutter and disorganization. The result is often leftovers molding in the back, buried vegetables going uneaten in the crisper, and spoiled milk (and have you seen the price of milk lately?). Organize every shelf with stackable bins to solve these issues and prevent rotten odors from filling your kitchen.

This storage solution helps organize your fridge in two ways. Firstly, it makes better use of your fridge’s vertical space instead of requiring you to pile things on top of each other on your shelves. This will clear up more space for additional food, meaning you can make less frequent grocery runs and keep items from burying and obscuring each other. 

Secondly, if the bins are made of clear glass or plastic, you can see what’s stored inside them. Say goodbye to the days of buying things at the store only to discover you already had them in the fridge.

Install a lazy Susan in your cabinets

A lazy Susan can help you easily access every item in your cabinets. Image source: Lowe’s Home Improvement

In a small kitchen, you really have to make the most of every square inch of cabinetry and counter space. Unfortunately, this often results in tightly packing dishes, ingredients, and appliances in front of each other, making them all less accessible.

With a lazy Susan, you can solve this problem. These organizational gadgets feature wide, round shelves that revolve. You can pack them just as tightly as a standard shelf, but the difference is that you can spin them to bring the things packed in the back to the front. This means you don’t have to reach around objects to get at the stuff stored behind them.

You can hire a professional installer to build a lazy Susan directly into your cabinet(s). Still, if you need a more budget-friendly option, you can also get a tabletop lazy Susan and place it on the bottom of any cabinet for similar results. 

Put a coat rack in your living room

A coat rack will give you and your guests an easy place to store coats, hats, and scarves. Image source: Overstock

Stray jackets, hats, and coats tend to pile up on the backs of sofas and chairs in many living rooms. These cast-off clothing articles are some of the biggest sources of living room clutter. Fortunately, there’s a simple—and classy—solution to this problem: a coat rack.

With a coat rack beside the front door or in the corner of your living room, you give everyone an accessible place to put their jackets and hats without opening your entryway closet. This will passively keep your living room much tidier.

As an added bonus, a coat rack can also be a fancy decor accent. It’s not often that a practical storage solution is also stylish!

Get a pegboard for your gardening shed

A pegboard mounted to the wall of your gardening shed will help keep the space decluttered. Image source: Shed Liquidators

If your property has one, your gardening shed is a fantastic place to store just about anything. And if you don’t have a shed, want one, and your yard has the space for it, you could always build a new one. However, like other areas that store stuff out of constant view, a shed can become uselessly cluttered if you aren’t judicious about what you put inside it.

Mount a peg board to one of the walls to alleviate some of this clutter and ensure your shed remains a functional space with easy access to your gardening tools, brooms, and snow shovels. This will provide a nice, vertical surface to hang all your necessities, keeping them within reach above the other items you store in the shed.

A pegboard can also serve the same purpose in a garage workshop or a sewing room. In fact, a pegboard can be a welcome addition to just about any room where you need quick access to tools you use all the time. 

Hire a professional organizing service to help

Calling in professional help is the best way to clean and organize your home quickly. Image Source: Northwestern Mutual

Is the clutter around your home proving more resilient than you’d expected? Are you running out of space to add shelves, racks, and cardboard tubes? Then it might be time to bring in the big guns. Imagine hiring Marie Kondo to give your home her special treatment. Well, with a professional cleaning and organizing service, you can basically do just that!

Hiring a professionally trained organizing crew to sort your closets, kitchen storage, and other problem areas is the simplest and fastest way to bring order to your home. The best part is that your crew will collaborate with you to determine the perfect blend of functional and aesthetic organization for your household.

The crew will take the time to understand what you want for your home, help you decide what items you no longer need, consult you on organizational decisions, and create a custom layout for every area where they apply their magic touch. They can also help you add the ideal drawers, labels, dividers, and shelving to your different storage spaces. 

While this service won’t be free (it generally costs between $40 and $90 per hour), it will spare you the painstaking trial and error of DIY organization. And you don’t even have to hire the pros to spend hours sorting your whole home, either. Instead, you can make your best attempt at organizing your home yourself, then hire professionals for a few hours to apply the finishing touches.

Putting your house in order

When everything’s in its right place, there’s a place for everything. With the storage hacks and DIY organizational crafts we’ve listed in this guide, you can put every item in your home where it belongs. But if all else fails and you’ve got some especially stubborn clutter, you can hire professional organizers to tidy up your space and get your home where you want it to be.