Top 10 Creative Ways to Store Your Stuff

Figuring out the smartest places to store your stuff is time well spent—mostly because it results in time you don't spend cleaning. Here are 10 smart storage solutions for your excess cords, shoes, spices, and all kinds of computer stuff.

10. Make Your Shoes Float

Formal shoes, work boots, summer wear, running shoes, the spare brown pair—even those with minimal fashion sense can end up with lots of these suckers. You could pick up one of many hanging/sliding shoe storage solutions, but we dig both the look and convenience of this DIY "floating" shoe rack. For a slight upgrade, This version goes one better, hiding the hanging hardware entirely out of sight. (Original posts: one, two).

9. Keep Your Cats and Their Necessities Hidden

Cats are great, generally low-maintenance creatures, but the stuff they need and like does take up some space. Avoid sacrificing a room or closet to mother nature's needs with some litter box modifications. The ideas for turning big cupboards, entryway shelves, and under-sink spaces all come from IKEA modifications, but other furniture builds and storage bins can be adapted, too. As for providing some space for Whiskers McMeowerton when he's not taking care of business, you can convert a bookcase into a cat tree, or fulfill every cat's cardboard fantasy by converting a box into a kitty chaise lounge. (Original posts: furniture, entryway, under-sink, cat tree, cat chaise).

8. Get Your Bike Off the Floor

Biking is a lot more fuel-efficient than driving, but keeping a bike assembled in your home isn't space-efficient. Avoid paying for pricey bike mounts with some DIY offerings, like a few tension cables, a very cheap, board-based version, a modification of an IKEA storage pole, and that pole's carpet-friendly cousin. (Original posts: DIY, revisited, IKEA, carpet-friendly).

7. Make Your Filing Cabinet Actually Useful

If your filing cabinet serves more function as unintended shelf space than an actual filing destination, it probably needs some work. Gina showed us her extreme filing cabinet makeover, touching on the physical changes she made to make paper shuffling more convenient. Jason gave us a tour-de-force of his filing system workflow, which gave order and purpose to his old documents and made him actually want to file things away. Photo by Matthew Cornell.

6. Declutter Your Spices and Make Them Accessible

Having spices you can read, see the fill level of, and easily access saves you time while cooking, and money on unnecessary purchases, as suggested by the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Then there are the magnetic spice racks, which hang your dried goods both under a shelf and on the wall. Then, for those with quite a few spices to grab, there are the minimalist, all-access shelves that most anyone can make themselves. (Original posts: DIY spice jars, magnetic under-shelf, magnetic wall, minimalist).

5. Stash Your Headphones Without Tangled Wires

Headphones, of both the big-can and inner-ear variety, get tangled and never quite tuck away neatly. Not without some crafty assistance, anyways. Try installing a coat hook under your desk for a hidden-but-available hiding place. For your earbuds, first learn the "devil's horns" wrapping method (R.I.P., Dio), then keep them together and close by with an old vinyl badge clip, or other makeshift wrappers.

4. Stash Your Peripherals When Not in Use

USB headsets, USB cables, and other sometimes necessary gear will creep its way into your workspace if there's nowhere to put it all. MAKE points us to a DIY iMac monitor shelf, utilizing the space between a flatscreen monitor and a wall to tuck away items so they're within reach but out of sight. There's also a commercial version, if you don't like building your own mini-shelves. This Slashdot thread contains the thoughts of some very hardcore peripheral geeks on tidying up their wares (think velcro ties, not plastic zips), and our featured workspaces have provided some inspiration before, like these hollowed out shelves, or this IKEA cabinet-turned-workspace. (Original posts: monitor shelf, IKEA cabinet).

3. Store Stuff Vertically with DIY Shelving

If your home or apartment didn't come with great shelving, don't give up on it. Whether it's books, gear, or just general stuff that needs a new home, you can give it space with "Hungarian" square shelves (as demonstrated in this workspace), more simply-made DIY shelving, or compression bookcases that don't require any wall drilling. Lots more ideas and inspiration can be found at our full shelving collection. (Original posts: Hungarian, DIY, compression).

2. Tuck Your Cords Away

We've covered far too many cord management tricks, techniques, and one-offs to cover inside one list item, but here's an attempt. Adam and Gina have both detailed their own comprehensive cord clean-ups, and we've posted a notably cordless dorm workspace. Gina previously rounded up 10 cable control tips, and our full cord management tag page is getting regularly updated. Don't let your cords litter your space and distract your mind—bend them to your will.

1. Hide Your Cables in Plain Sight

If you can't find a space or a compartment to tuck your cords into, do the next best thing—consider creatively arranging them in plain sight. If design and sketching isn't your forte, you don't have to get quite so fancy—something like a green cable "flower stem", or an equivalent cable-as-hanging-platform idea, can fly just as well. If it's a short distance and a flat space, and you're willing to spend a little bit on style, we've dug the idea of FlatWire, too.