A closet in or near your home office or workspace is an often-overlooked storage bonanza. But few people know how easy it is to make the most of it. Does your closet look like this?
Home Office Closet – disorganized with wasted space
A high shelf filled with reams of paper, envelopes and binders, and the floor a jumble of everything else. And the space in-between wasted. Well I had a closet like that and decided to do something about it. Not ready to have a custom closet or built-in shelves, I used a bit of creative thinking and DIY initiative.
After: the home office closet holds 3 times as much
- The top (built-in) shelf with boxes of file folders and larger mailers worked well for me, so I left it as is.
- I needed a shelving unit that was tall, narrow and strong to fit into the closet and hold a heavy box. I got galvanized metal shelves at IKEA (Hyllis $16) and positioned it in my small closet. I purposely did not get deep shelves, so I could see everything easily and not have to grope for lost items that got shoved to the back,
- On the top shelf are clear plastic bins with lids (also IKEA, $3) that hold my office supplies. Like is grouped with like: glue, staples, tape and paper clips are in one bin; pens, pencils, leads, and erasers are in another. A stack of my book is on top of a third.
- On the next shelf is a cozy place for a computer projector – for my presentations. Stacking bins hold my marketing materials and next to them are boxes of envelopes.
- Below that is a shelf with a large bin with miscellaneous larger things, such as my external hard drive, and a folder with various instruction manuals.
- On the bottom shelf is the large box filled with reams of paper of various colors and thicknesses. Tip: These are placed on-end in the box, so I can simply reach in and pull out the paper I need without moving other reams or boxes of paper around.
- On the floor of the closet is a wooden cube with catalogues for reference. On top of that (and in front of the box of paper) is my “portable office” bag which I take with me on consultations.
- Inside the closet door I used a 3M Command® hook to hold my laptop backpack.
With some ingenuity, a good set of shelves and plastic bins, I can now store three times as much stuff in my office closet. And in a way that makes it easy to find what I need. The best thing is – I can close the door and not see it – no more visual clutter! Let me know how you have used your office closet. Do you have unique storage problems? What ways did you find to make a closet work for you? Learn more about home office storage solutions in The Smarter Home Office: 8 simple solutions to increase your income, inspiration and comfort.
