Storage ideas

[4 boys]

As the title says I'm so stressed

I have a 4 bedroom house and there's me husband and 4 sons well we only use 2 bedrooms the rest is filled with storage boxes etc.
1 room is like my laundry iron ,tumble dryer area. Other room is just like for bedding shoes toiletries etc. I just want to throw it all out but we're else can I put stuff.
The two rooms are tidy but I want to put my other two sons in there own rooms but it's not a bedroom with stuff everywhere if you know what I mean..

I get soooooo pi**ed when you watch tv and see homes with very clean rooms and hardly anything in them just basic things and even when they have children.
My home is clean and tidy but doesn't seem to have anywhere to put anything

I wonder how people manage in small houses with a big family


How do you all manage.?
Any storage ideas?

Thanks ladies

 

[FAB mama]

I guess photos might help? I don't know how UK houses are set up. We don't use bedrooms for laundry, we have laundry rooms or smaller houses and apartments would have a laundry closet area.

My house was a mess until a few months after LO was born. I worked really hard sorting through everything and it's (mostly) organized and clean now. LO's room and the playroom were just boxes and boxes! It's hard to help without seeing it though.

Do you have an attic? Can you fit underbed storage boxes? What about a garage?

 

[Abz1982]

We have a 2.5 bed (baby in in the smallest room - its a small single or box). We make sure to have a bed that has room underneath.
Sofas have room underneath for storage. In our water closet/airing cupboard I have the bed clothes and towels stored and any old clothes go in tesco crates as they stack well (they keep dropping them off with deliveries and never picking them up!!)
DD has a cabin bed so toys can go underneath. Every alcove is a shelf!
We currently have toys in the dining room as the bedrooms upstairs.

I also aim to throw out ONE black bag of old stuff every 2 weeks - be it clothes, toys, stuff that is untouched for more than 6 months!
I dont allow magazines any more - they are pointless!
Only use TALL units as you can store more up the way than out the way!

I have also now imposed a limit on toys! DD is getting only hobby type things from now on as she has things that take up her room.
DS just wants things he can smash so he can have the old things DD had and smash them!

I think the key though, when you have lots of kids is to NOT have lots of stuff, I know its easier said than done though!

 

[R_x]

What about the loft if there is stuff you don't really use but don't want to throw. We'd be lost without ours x

 

[Vicyi]

We have 5 of us in a 2 bed flat - no loft, no garden.
I've recently redecorated/furnished/cleared out our place and i think IKEA has saved our house tbh! Expedit cabinets along one whole wall in the kids room (floor to ceiling pretty much) houses 90% of the toys, the rest (mostly DD2s) are in two smaller expedit in the living room. We have two big ikea wardrobes and two sets of draws in our room which has all our clothes in (including kids as there's no more room in their room) and we have a 3 monthly clear out of old, broken, no longer fitting clothes/toys. Its not perfect by any means but until we're able to move we just have to manage. I hope you find a solution that helps, it drove me mad before i got our place sorted. x

 

[DanielleM]

I'm sorry but a 4 bed roomed house is plenty big enough for 6 people, basically you don't need storage you need a clear out and get rid of all the crap

 

[Eleanor ace]

Can you post pictures of your set up? I would suggest lots of shelves and tall (floor to ceiling if possible) wardrobes/cupboards. Do you have space elsewhere for your lundry stuff?
It does sound like you need a big clear out. Time to get ruthless! When the clutter gets to me I go around with 3 bags- 1 for charity, 1 to chuck and 1 to keep. You could have get the kids involved- get them to collect stuff to sell at a carboot sale and with the money they raise they can buy stuff for their rooms- fun storage maybe

 

[KayBea]

im just about to downsize.. still a 2 bed flat but its half the size of what im in now.

ive just ordered some underbed storage & have discovered the front panel of the bath comes off easy so i'll be putting all my bathroom stuff in there.

i tend to bulk buy so at the moment i have 5x 10 kg boxes of washing powder which will have to go. ive got 10x 5ltr washing up liquid which will also have to go.

im going through each room & selling anything i have excess of. ie i have 20 bottles of shampoo so 15 of those have been sold!


my general rule is if its not been touched in the last yr its going!

all my LOs old clothes are being stored in the loft but her old toys are going. xx

 

[rosie272]

I had a ruthless clear out last week and got rid of absolute loads! It's amazing how much space you can create just by clearing the junk. I gave my friend 4 huge bags of stuff (toys, games, books and general crap ) for a car boot sale and I gave away old bedding and curtains and stuff on the Gumtree freebies page. I would do as pp's have said - floor to ceiling storage is great, we have Ikea tall Billy bookcases and the Ikea Trofast storage system with all the boxes of various sizes - you can fit loads of stuff in them. I got coloured storage boxes for the bookcases too and everything is in a place of its own. Ikea is your friend when looking for storage solutions! But I would do a huge clear out first, makes you feel better when there's less clutter around.

Eta: I also put all my winter clothes and coats into vacuum bags that go under the bed!

 

[4 boys]

Thanks ladies for all the ideas we'll I'd had enough I spent 3 long hardcore working days cleaning it's still not empty but I got rid of stuff I don't use I sold most of baby things and toys so made abit of money along the way lol.

Yay feel much better ..

 

[lindseymw]

Firstly have a massive clear out. As Kaybea said, if it hasn't been used/touched in a 1 year, it goes. Do one room at a time...makes it a bit less stressed!

Secondly, Ikea. They have various storage systems. We have the Trofast one. The boxes fit in a surprising amount of toys in them.

Now if only I can listen to my own advice.....

 

[Kanichen34]

Key for me is vaccum pack bags for quilts, pillows, outgrown baby clothes and seasonal clothes. All then stored in a suitcase. Saves so much space!'

 

[JessdueJan]

Firstly have a massive clear out. As Kaybea said, if it hasn't been used/touched in a 1 year, it goes. Do one room at a time...makes it a bit less stressed!

Secondly, Ikea. They have various storage systems. We have the Trofast one. The boxes fit in a surprising amount of toys in them.

Now if only I can listen to my own advice.....

I have just ikea'd my house! Trofast and the expedit/kallax range are my new best friends! I love how much you can fit in the boxes, they're not always organised but I can make the rooms look tidy in minutes

 

[supertabby]

Are you hoarding things you don't need? And do you have best use of furniture?

Wardrobes - we have Ikea ones that you build your own set up, we've got a two door wardobe with two rails, one above for my clothes, one below for hubby's. It means things like maxi dresses have to be folded over a hanger but that's no big deal. Then we have a matching one door wardrobe that we have 4 drawers for underwear/socks and shelves for shoes and toiletries. Anything that doesn't fit in we don't really need. The exception being I packed away my normal clothes when I was pregnant, they went in vacuum pack bags in the loft.

Bedding - this goes in the divan drawers, if you don't have a divan get underbed storage boxes on wheels from Ikea. Really you only need 2 sets of bedding for each bed.

Towels - in our old house we stored them under the bed (one big drawer for bedding, one for towels). Could you squeeze in a small unit/undersink shelves etc in your bathroom?

General - we've got a fab unit from Ikea (expedit I think) in our living room. We have our dvds and stationery boxes along the top, kids toys at the bottom. You can mix and match open shelves, doors, boxes that slide in.

Board out your loft if you have one and think about if you're making the most of under stairs storage.

We're about to have a new kitchen and are going for extra tall wall cupboards - so much space is wasted between normal kitchen units and the ceiling.

 

[Blah11]

We have 5 expedit/kallax units lol they hold a huge amount!

 

[Mrs.C]

Ive got my bedding and towels in the airing cupboard, spare linen and winter clothes in bags under the bed and we have lots of storage containers from Ikea my son has the unit with big tub drawers in. They hold lots!

 

[KayBea]

sooo i moved house last week, in a previous post i said i was downsizing...

i dumped about 10 bin bags of junk, 5 bin bags to charity shops & sold about 10 bin bags of other stuff & made myself a nice £380. im off to ikea next week to get a wardrobe
i LOVE the fact ive got an airing cupboard! its got all the towels & bedding in which has freed up 3 storage boxes under my bed
xx

 

[lhancock90]

We just majorly downsized, four of us in a two bed and honestly, clearing out all the shit felt amazing.

 

[aimee-lou]

We have 5 of us plus dog in a small (and I mean small) 2 bed terrace. I have no space and no storage - we have an airing cupboard which I clear out and try to keep tidy. I try to keep on top of the boys clothes and my loft is full to bursting. As I have 3 the same gender I keep a lot of stuff as I see it as a waste to keep rebuying lots of clothes and toys. I regularly sort and clear out - I aim to take a bin bag to the charity shop once a month and I sell anything that's superfluous. It's still an absolute nightmare though as I have no money in order to go and buy fit-for-purpose furniture. I would love nothing better than to go all out in Ikea but I just can't afford it. I'm having to make do with buying new sets of storage boxes from Argos when the old ones fail/get full.

I've also had to be ruthless and prioritise things - we do not have a dining table. I bought a childsize table and chairs for the kids, but we don't have a standard size one. We only have a sofa - no 3-piece suite. We have 1 bookcase that I rotate the DVDs onto. I have 3 boxes of them under my bed and I change them every 4-6 weeks. I had a massive clear out and got rid of a lot of stuff just before DS3 was born and that really helped - I started treasure boxes for us and the kids and anything that was sentimental went in there. If it was too big or not worthy it was thrown.

I really wish I could help but i really do sympathise OP - the amount of 'stuff' that 5 people generate, let alone 6, makes it impossible to be minimalistic. Just the sheer number of pairs of shoes left by the door, or the coats on the pegs, or even just the number of pairs of socks!