As a new homeowner or an existing homeowner, having enough storage is an important consideration when renovating and designing your home.
By understanding the basic principle of storage (adapted from Marie Kondo’s book, Spark Joy), it is a useful organization principle you can adhere to while organizing your home.
✓ Basic principle: reduce bulk and utilize height
Reducing bulk involves eliminating unnecessary clutter around your house. At the same time, you should ensure that all your unwanted items and rarely used items are removed from your home.
Utilizing height is a principle that homeowners are often unaware of. Effectively using height maximizes space as it allows you to make use of the ‘dead space’ found in your tall cabinets.
How then can you utilize height? This is where…
Storage goods come in handy
Marie suggests the use of z-shaped inserts as they take advantage of the height of your shelves by stacking one shoe on top of the other. With the help of such shoe inserts, the amount of storage space doubles up instantly!
If you feel that some of your shoes might be hidden at the bottom, the smaller Double Layer Shoe Organizer would be an alternative for you instead.
Some shoe cabinets are built with a deeper width and therefore, having your shoes stacked up would be impossible. A simple trick is to place them upright instead!
With the aid of your living room walls, you can simply lean shoe organizers against it to optimize space too. This is an extremely space-saving way to keep your shoes within your reach and sight – simply grab your favourite pair and head out!
Another way to store your shoes upright is through utilizing shoe holders/slots. Easily extend it out when retrieving your shoes!
Steadily rising joy
Marie Kondo’s motto for shoe storage is “steadily rising joy”. What it stands for is to have the heaviest things at the bottom and lighter things at the top.
- Bottom of the cabinet: Put regular shoes, such as pumps and leather shoes
- Above them: Put lighter shoes such as sandals
Now that you have an understanding on the basic principle of storage, it is time for you to make small changes towards storing your items around different areas of your house.
Start tidying by category instead of location.
The right order to kickstart your tidying is – clothes, books, papers, komono (e.g cosmetics, stationery, kitchen goods, cleaning supplies) and lastly, sentimental items.
Embark on your tidying journey and share with us your experience on it!
