Useful ideas on keeping your bedrooms tidy.
We all do it – spend a whole morning putting clothes back on hangers, or in the laundry, only to find that a few days later our bedrooms look like the aftermath of a jumble sale again. Having more storage space can really help. After all, who wants to spend half an hour at the end of each day trying to force an extra jumper into an overfilled chest of drawers?
Short of giving half your clothes away to charity, what can you do to get more out of your storage space?
Top tips for tidy bedrooms
• Edit your clothes. Take a good look at what you have on your hangers – do you really wear all those dresses and tops? Does your other half really need to have his Bermuda shorts to hand in the middle of winter? Even if you can’t bear to get rid of lesser-used garments, hide away out of season clothes. A pack of 3 vacuum/roll bags by Space Bag is available at Argos for £6.99.
You fill the bag with clean clothes, suck the air out using your regular vacuum cleaner, and then store clothes away using a fraction of the space. This keeps moths out, it doesn’t damage the clothes, and the bags are transparent so you can see which one you want when you get them back out of the attic.
• Under-bed storage. Putting clean bed clothes under the bed is an excellent use of space, but make sure you get either under-bed drawers or tubs that have lids on, as this is a dusty space where moths love to hide out. Homebase sell 32-litre under-bed storage boxes for £4.99 each, and for a less functional look they have canvas under-bed storage bags, in cream or black, that look like soft suitcases £8.99 each. Use these on top of wardrobes too, where pillows and duvets will get dusty if left uncovered.
• Maximise wardrobe use. Are you getting the most out of the wardrobe space you already have? The rail might be groaning with clothes, but is there that magical 20 centimetres of space at the bottom where you could add another storage box or tidy shoes into transparent boxes? (Again with lids to keep dust off.)
• Think about changing your drawer space. If you don’t want to chuck out an old dresser that really doesn’t fit all your clothes, maybe reassign it to the lounge for storing kids’ art paraphernalia or something, and use the bedroom space more efficiently with a new chest that combines a cupboard and shelves, so you’re not wasting dead space. If you hate the idea of your chest of drawers being too high and overwhelming the room, opt for a lighter wood colour, or pick a chest with strong glass fronting so it doesn’t look so solid. IKEA have plenty of options.
• Buy a fitted wardrobe. You might think these are old-fashioned, but B&Q have some very funky modern-looking ones with flexible shelf and hanging spaces.
• Avoid the fabric or plastic temporary-looking wardrobes…in spaces where you want something permanent. They’re great in a teenager’s room, where your child might customise them, but in your bedroom you’ll quickly feel like you’re living in a laundry, and they won’t accommodate a great deal of your stuff either.
• Free up drawer space…by putting socks, knickers, scarves and other smaller items that don’t require folding into a nice-looking set of baskets. Avoid anything too roughly woven, especially for tights or scarves, as these will snag. Most home stores and larger supermarkets have plenty of variety to suit all tastes.