Bedroom Storage Ideas - The Wardrobe
Free-standing wardrobes can be challenging to integrate. This is because they take up a large amount of space and are rarely designed to work with your particular clothing problems. The obvious alternative is a fitted wardrobe, or a combination of cupboards and wardrobe. You may break the wall of doors up with color, architectural details and carefully chosen knobs.
The example below shows fitted cupboards with staggered units of varying depths. The doors are furnished with large and striking handles.
Another alternative is to have a mix of shelves and cupboards covering an entire wall (see below left). The design looks neat and streamlined with the doors are closed and yet suits the storage of virtually every possible type of clothing and object.
Note also the wall of drawers hidden behind wardrobe doors for the picture below right.
Bedroom Storage Ideas with Shelves
If you incorporate drawers or shelves into built-in units, make them plentiful, shallow and consider fronting them with plastic, glass or cut-out section for easy recognition. Remember to allow room for garments that are not used every day, such as sports equipment and skiing clothes.
You may also want to have open shelves as shown below. For the bedroom shown below right, the shelves are in translucent acrylic with an almost conceptual display of clothing, staggered along one side of a bedroom. The regularity and order of such a display is visually stimulating, but also requires a highly methodical approach.
Custom wardrobe is also suitable for small bedrooms. One of the many small bedroom decor tips is to use a wall of fitted storage to make the room look larger and properly planned. This in turn will reduce the need for other furniture.
Also, bear in mind that it is no good storing something that you cannot easily access when you need it. Although it might make sense to put, say, seasonal clothes away in high cupboards when the season changes, it makes very little sense to use those same high cupboards for things you use regularly.
Alternative Bedroom Storage Ideas
Although shelves, hanging rails and drawers are the most conventional forms of storage, there are other bedroom storage ideas, including boxes, baskets, free-standing rails, and even bags. As with any other furniture, storage should be chosen to complement the style of the room. And storage solutions do not necessarily have to be expensive – shelves divided into different section, for example, can provide a good basic system, as can different heights of hanging rail, perhaps screened from view by a curtain or blind.
The first example shows Japanese-style shoji panels which are a less rigid solution to conventional doors.
In the picture below, a storage system has been constructed using wicker baskets of different dimensions as drawers. Hanging space is incorporated into the system which has been carefully planned.
There are now many companies and stores that specializes in storage, offering ideas ranging from the small but clever (plastic pockets for shoes that hang from a hook) to the large and expensive (complete systems tailor-made to fit your room). But remember always to plan the storage around the objects that need storing, rather than the other way round.
Storage space can extend beyond the confines of a single dedicated unit:
Beneath the bed – the space that can be used, either shallow containers or built in unit. Note also that anything stored beneath the bed, whether in boxes or trays must be covered to protect from dust
Bedhead – In a larger bedroom, there may be space to build a bedhead wall that can be made into a userful open shelf unit
Under stairs, sloping roof or obscure corners – shelving units
Spare bedroom, corridor, hall – the space can be annexed to include a walk-in wardrobe or dressing area
Look out for old wardrobe trunks in sales and junk shops for useful and decorative storage at the end or side of the bed. In the simple bedroom below, a tradtional blanket chest in woven wicker provides storage at the end of the bed
Return to the top of bedroom storage ideas.