Small Space, Big Style: Wall Storage

When you’re living in small quarters, all that blank space on the walls is the key to achieving storage nirvana. But there’s a way to take advantage of your wall space in every room of the house without making it a busy mish-mash of shelves, hooks and holders. Let Pottery Barn walk you through the many ways you can use and arrange wall storage ideas room-by-room. 

 

ENTRYWAY WALL STORAGE

Sometimes an entry table for tossing keys just won’t cut it when it comes to all the mail and other items that walk through the door unannounced. Take some tips from tiny house dwellers who need to make every inch of their vertical and horizontal space count. Here’s where entry organizers with open-and-close doors that expose chalkboards and pin boards, mirrors with hooks, shelves with hooks, hanging coat racks, cubbies and shallow wall ledges add functionality to your small entryway. Arrange these elements of wall storage like they were photos you need to arrange. Do it with thought and with usability in mind, but in an orderly way that is calming when you walk through the door. After your wall storage is in place, next, tackle your entryway’s floor clutter.

 

LIVING ROOM WALL STORAGE

Living room walls are typically reserved for displays of artwork and prized items, and it works well if you select an area on your wall, maybe where it dovetails an entry, hallway or kitchen area, to dedicate to wall storage. Do this even when you’re working with a small living room because you’ll need to use your walls for storage and displays with a three-step approach. 

 

Step 1: Invest in a floor-to-ceiling shelving system where you can store books as well as display photos or artwork. If there’s room, place two side by side for a substantial wall storage unit. The trick with shelving systems in the living room is knowing how to decorate them without adding clutter. Certainly use baskets to hide clutter but after that, heavily edit the rest of the items you keep on display.

 

Step 2: Use ledges as sculptural pieces for your walls that do double-duty as display pieces. Ledges can be used for more than leaning photos. Place decorative baskets on them, or arrange them to create a hanging bar set up with glassware on one shelf under a wall-mounted entertaining and wine storage shelf. Arrange them with care, either stepped, side-by-side, vertically one on top of another or from floor to ceiling for maximum display space.

 

Step 3: Don’t forget to use that dedicated area of wall space in your living room that meets the hall or kitchen. Here’s where your wall storage becomes more utilitarian and less about displays. It’s where your command center, daily system and organization center, complete with whiteboards, chalkboards, hanging bins for mail and hooks can be set up so you can keep your kitchen walls clear for other storage uses.

 

KITCHEN WALL STORAGE 

Whoever has enough counter or cabinet space in the kitchen? That’s why there are walls for rail bars that hold sliding knife blocks, utensil holders, paper towel holders and caddies to safely hold devices and tablets that tend to clutter up your counters and cabinets. No room for plants on your counters? Hang them on a system especially designed to hold small planters so you can start that herb garden in your kitchen after all.

 

BATHROOM WALL STORAGE

Bathrooms seem to have invented wall storage solutions for towels and toiletries that can’t fit into medicine cabinets and linen closets. From floating shelves and train rack shelving over the toilet to a rail system that holds hanging hampers and racks, there’s always a way to get those towels up off the floor.

 

BEDROOM/CLOSETS WALL STORAGE

Your bedroom is an oasis where clutter should be banned, but it tends to collect there over time. There’s no need to live—or sleep—with clutter when there are ways to banish the busyness of the day with wall storage solutions that you can tuck in the closet. Use every inch of closet wall space by installing corner shelves, hanging jewelry organizers, floating shelves and even closet drawers that can be installed under a shelf. If there’s plenty of wall space leftover in your closet, get shoes off the floor with a wall-mounted shoe shelf.

 

GARAGE/BASEMENT WALL STORAGE

Transform the walls in some of the hardest working rooms in your home into storage areas with wall-mounted galvanized metal that will last even in rough and tough environments. To keep it all organized, opt for a system that includes long shelf bins for horizontal storage, tall shelf bins to hold upright brooms, large bags of pet food and tall tools, rails for bins and hooks for everything else that needs a place to hang. 

 

Taking advantage of your wall space is just one small-house storage secret. But there are many more solutions that will make your home feel larger. You just have to look high, look low and then look under and around doors and furniture to pull more storage space out of thin air.