What did you do to add storage?
 

I would love to hear from my fellow TVers what creative ideas you have come up with to add storage to your home. We are thinking of adding an attic stair. But other than replacing those darn half shelves in the kitchen cabinets with pullouts and buying a stackable washer and dryer, I'm stumped. Any suggestions?

Put in the stairs. The builder has supplied "some" plywood/particle board in the attic over the garage. I put in extra plywood in the attic and had the pull-outs installed in our previous house. Just haven't had a chance to get to it in this one yet. It's definitely on the "to do" list. I'm also thinking of adding pull-outs under the kitchen sink and the bathroom vanities. It's a real female dog to get to stuff in the back of those places. Also when you do the pull-outs in the kitchen, have those half shelves replaced with pull outs also.

What model home are we talking about??

If you're looking for more shelf/hanging space in your closets, take down the shelf/hanging system TV installed with the new build and put up double rows for shelf/hanging. This will work for hanging shirts, etc. Still will need the ones at the original height for longer items. If you've got higher ceilings, you can do a third shelf as well, just for storage shelf purposes.

Put shelving on your garage walls, too - up high, just to store things up out of the way.

Original/prior homeowners of our place installed extra wall cabinets in the laundry area.

Bill :)

Storage
 

I took all the 1/2 shelves out and added pullouts to top and bottom as well as the pantry. In the walk in closet I added a full row of upper shelves, in the master bath closet I added 2 additional shelves, in the laundry I added and extra upper shelf and a shelf on the wall,in both other closets I added a 2nd upper plus 5 smaller shelves on the right side. My garage I added 28' of wire shelves on the walls plus installed a 6' base cabinet plus added attic stairs. Once a year we go thru everything and donatate what we haven't used or worn.

We are adding additional cabinets in the laundry room and over the commode in the master bathroom 'water closet'. Also using lidded baskets where floor space allows for toilet paper and extra folded/rolled towels.
Hubby installed Craftsman work cabinets in the garage and attic stairs/plywood flooring.

We purchased furniture with an eye for drawers and cabinet doors/cubby holes.
Platform beds with drawers underneath.

Have ordered extra storage in the master closet. Double rods are most important for us here.
I also will convert the 3rd bedroom closet to become all 16" deep shelves (wall to wall, ceiling to floor) for oddball storage.

And I am really downsizing possessions. I suspect I will continue to do that in waves, as time goes by and we see how we are functioning.

Solving storage problem was easy for us---------we got rid of everything we had not used in 15 months. Now, no storage problems!

Ours was a Begonia.

We have Bridgeport model and I added cabinets under the kitchen window by the desk area. I also had to add a cabinet and full counter in my laundry room because they didn't offer that when we built. All of our closets have shelves and double hanging rods. Put in attic stairs and also shelving in our garage.

In walk-in closet hubby installed the Craftmade (sp) closet organizer system - well made, pretty easy to put together and looks great, economical, too. Great storage for blankets, pillows when company arrives, and other unit has shelves (we added doors on upper half)......second home we've done this to.

We did everything above PLUS we had these huge hanging steel selves installed in the garage. Once I convinced hubby he did not have to have the car in the garage, we also put in a row of heavy duty shelves basically dividing the garage in half. The left has the golf cart;the right have the laundry area. In the back hubby has a hobby area with shelves and a work surface he built.

OMG! We're going to have to get serious about getting rid of all our stuff. No way do we want to NEED all that extra storage and no way is our car NOT going to be in the garage. No offense intended. By the way, this is my first post. We hope to buy our CYV in a few months and move in by the end of 2012.

And when you think you've whittled your possessions down enough, do it again.....and again..... :D I'm not looking forward to the moving experience if we decide to move to TV f/t at some point in the future!!!

Welcome to TOTV!!!

Bill :)

That's what I've been doing..... I go through it and through it and through it. I toss and give away each time! whew!!!! I don't want to end up with boxes left over after I move in!

I think you'll find when you get here, you don't need all that stuff anymore. The whole idea is to make life simpler and easier and having a lot of junk you really don't need doesn't fit into the lifestyle here. The longer you are here, the less "stuff" you need - and the more time you have to enjoy life. We have a two bedroom, two bath home with 1-1/2 garage and I have everything I need (with our car and golfcart in the garage!).

Cyv??
 

I have been reading a lot of posts and I don't know what CYV stands for? Help!

Court Yard Villa

Hey... Were is the post with the abbreviations and what they mean for Happinow?

CourtYard Villa

CYV = Courtyard villa

Ask and ye shall receive, Angie:

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ad.php?t=44092

Bill :wave:

Thanks Bill! I knew you could do it! :wave:

Will someone PLEASE call my wife and remind her of this?

I told her we have have to get rid of a lot of things before we move into our CYV. She gets rid of things and when I come home she has went out and bought more to replace what she got rid of! :oops:

Getting rid of "stuff" is the best solution but definitely not the easiest. :sigh:

Ummm Mark, You're on your own on this one... But nice try! :girlneener:

Thanks for the great suggestions. I'm not sure if I'm proud or embarrassed by how many trips I've made to goodwill but I still have a few more to go.

Keep your receipts!!! This is going to be a good tax year for us!

This is what I built for my extra storage. And it hides the ugly utilities. Just be sure to keep proper clearances from hot pipes if you have a gas furnance or gas hot water heater. Some homes are built with AC & water heater enclosed. My Bougainvillia did not.
Also louvered bifold doors insure good fresh air flow for combustion of gas appliances.

did it change names????:)

Cyv....
 

Ah...thanks. Now it all makes sense!

Abreviations
 

You are all so prompt! Thanks for the help. :wave:

I agree lol. I've been sorting through things for two years now and it seems like I'm going around in circles. :loco:

Wish I could hire that guy on television (can't remember his name) who helps people downsize their "stuff".

Hopefully I can manage to get it done before our move to TV!!! I don't have a choice. :sigh:

I think about half of the folks in our villa neighborhood do NOT put their car in the garage. This is not Minnesota. You might well change your mind. Hubby did.

In our CYV, we are replacing all the kitchen cabinets with pullouts, converting the closets to "california closets", having a large pantry cabinet put in by the entranceway, adding cabinets to the laundry room and having an attic ladder put in. We have a little sign on our refrigerator that says "If it isn't useful, beautiful or joyful, throw it out". However, we find it easier to post the sign than to live by it, but we are trying.

Your sign is nice and general. I like that. All my junk fits in those categories so I have specific signs all over the house and in my shirt pocket and still fight myself to obey them. The junk is part of our collective history of being on the planet so throwing it out is like throwing out a part of myself. Each piece bring back a certain memory of acquisition or good time. Maybe when I get in my 80's or 90's I'll do better when I start forgetting where I got them!

No, we changed houses. We now have a Lily.

Found nice product for flooring in attic ezattic.com

Product for attic flooring
 

Looks interesting. Do let us know if you try it.

Someone told us when we were trying to decide which and what was to buy as much space in a home, square footage, as you can comfortably afford. Some cottages are the same price as designers. Some cottages are the same price as villas. Some villas cost the same as designers.

We are still LIVING and DOING and yes bringing stuff home. Think about the size before you commit. There is much said about villas and enclosed backyards and dogs, but I see a lot of folks walking dogs in my neighborhood. The dogs like it, I like to see the pups walking by and the owners are getting exercised.

Just had to say that we are glad we took the advice and bought a Camellia for our first house here.

My husband put shelves to the ceiling in our garage and added shelves in our interior closets. We have nightstands with drawers and hall furniture with drawers. We filled an entire St.Vincent de Paul truck before we left Cincinnati. AND I am not a keeper or a hoarder.

The getting rid of stuff is hard to do...but don't get rid of everything you love....like Christmas stuff. Christmas still arrives here.

Its a losing battle for me because while I keep explaining to my wife we are in the liquidation phase of our lives she continues to buy things because they are great "sales". and to add insult to injury I still can't get her out of the habit of saying " you just don't know when you might need this." So despite a major reduction of furniture, et al when we moved from Minneapolis area and I am talking about many truck loads I find myself going nuts again finding places for her to store stuff. I am admittedly prone to organization and don't like to see much of our stuff.

so like many of you I added extra shelves in the closets. I purchased furniture with an eye for storage. I installed white cabinets in my garage to hide everything including brooms, etc. I still have plenty of room for my two cars and golf cart. By the way a neighbor of mine had the habit of leavng his car parked outside until he discovered rats were using it at night.

I also had space over my garage attic I install additional cabinets in the laundry room. finally like many of you I continue to reconfigure each and every area of storage to determine if there is a better pattern. God this be patient and please the wife venture alone should get me into heaven.

I wonder why the builder does not offer more storage , attic pull down stairs and all the things that people add to their homes after thy move in.