Finding Hidden Storage in Your Apartment

One of the challenges of living in a small apartment is finding enough space to store all of your things. If moving to a bigger place or renting a storage space aren’t options, you’ll have to find existing space in the apartment you have now. Here are some hidden storage spaces you may not have considered:

1. Behind the door: Purchase a rack that fits over the top of your door to hang anything and everything- from jackets to purses. Bare doors represent unused but available space. Many home furnishing stores like Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond have over-the-door shoe hangers or other hanging containers where you can keep all kinds of items. A rack behind the bathroom door is a great place to keep towels.

2. Blank wall space: If you think your doors aren’t being utilized, take a look at all of the empty space on your walls. Wall-mounted storage can help you take advantage of your bare walls. Ikea sells wonderful wood shelves that can be mounted directly to the wall and look great with picture frames, candles, flower vases and other decorating items. You can even find storage cubes that attach directly to the wall with the help of a power drill. If you have more books than the bookcase can hold, consider placing them on a wall-mounted shelf to prevent cluttered piles of books in the bookcase.

Do you have a bike that is clogging up valuable space in your bedroom or hallway? You can hang your bike on the wall too! Bike shops and sporting good stores sell sturdy bike racks that mount to weight-bearing beams in your wall. If your apartment has a foyer or hallway, your bike can hang there and leave space for other things.

3. Under the bed: You may think you already have enough under your bed, but there are ways to fit more. Purchase inexpensive bed lifts to increase the height of your bed and your storage space. Stores like Wal-Mart and The Container Store also sell long flat containers and bed drawers that fit under the bed for clothing, extra appliances and papers. Purchase a duster to ensure these drawers and containers stay hidden from view. If you are willing to invest a little more money, consider an under bed dresser. Under bed dressers have a bed frame built into them and turn all your under bed space into storage.

4. Over the toilet: A number of stores also sell freestanding and mountable racks that fit right over the toilet. These racks are good solutions to bathrooms overflowing with bath products, cosmetics and other toiletries.

5. In the closet: If you lack storage space, your closet is likely stuffed to the brim with clothes, shoes and other items. However, adding additional shelving, shoe rack storage, pull-out storage units, multiple hangers and other storage tools can increase the amount of stuff you can fit in the closet and help you to keep it all better organized.

6. On top of kitchen cabinets: In many kitchens, there is a space about a foot high between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. This space can be used to keep appliances that you don’t use often, or if you have the right containers, to store most anything else. To keep the kitchen from looking overly cluttered, make sure that your storage containers generally match the kitchen’s décor and that they aren’t bulkier than your cabinets.

its so frustrating to hear the same advice over and over about using the back of your closet doors...
most apartments around here have the type that fold...
and nothing can be put on them...

Umm...I thought this blog was about storage? What the eff

I recently found some extra "space" in my apartment for storage i.e. seasonal clothes/shoes/coats, Christmas items, suitcases, toiletry bags, laundry bags and other travel items, holiday/special occassion wrapping paper/ribbons/gift bags, etc.

check out www.batboxstorage.com for unique storage solutions for apartment dwellers.

All of your comments were EXTREMELY helpful, THANK YOU!!!

I have always marked very carefully anything and everything wrong with the apt at move in and had it signed by the manager. If it was fixed then I signed off on it. I kept a copy of this as did management. At move out, anything on that list was not my problem. If I put holes in the walls while a tenant, then they were fixed by me before departing. Any damage done by me or mine has always been easily fixed. I have lived in several places that never intended to give back the deposit regardless of what the spt looked like on departure. I keep photo and written records and will use them in court if need be. They don't like taking a day off from work to attend small claims court.

It all depends on your property management company. I run CDCS and we manage luxury boutique complexes in Fort Worth, and I am the property manager at The Residences of Museum Place. If you are only here for three months, making tons of holes makes no sense, and you will probably get a chargeback at a place with no short term upcharge, or a larger part of the paint expense will be yours, due to the short term.

We roll rather than spray, since we have multiple colors and hardwood floors and aren't just painting the whole thing white semi-gloss. We also use a $14-18 gal. latex/plasticine flat or semi-gloss paint instead of the $6.50 clay based stuff most places use. It should clean up if you have had the place repainted white several times, with a Magic Eraser, or just a light colored sponge and water or vinegar. Don't use 409, Orange Glo or anything oil based, because that will just make a bigger mark. Toothpaste is twinkly and sometimes has titanum powder in it, and often has oils in it that leave bigger marks that have to be KILZED as they will bleed through the new paint. If you toothpaste holes in a red wall, and then it is painted over with latex Kilz and then two new coats of paint, you can get "bleeding walls" as the oily toothpaste will take the red pigment right through the KILZ and two new coats of paint. OIL based KILZ over toothpaste, then latex KILZ, then the new paint. "This is resident #1101, I've been here for two weeks, and, well, my wall is 'bleeding', can you come look at it." So this is why I know this.

Places that keep your whole deposit are typically scamming you and make a profit on your move out. We always lose money on a move out, to varying degrees. This is why a well run place will bribe you to keep you as a tenant, and other places will upcharge you on month to month (rather than nag you about renewal and just irritate you by showing your home - what we do, since people prefer that over paying $100-200 more per month) since they will make money on flipping you anyway.

Let's use a typical B property 1 bedroom average unit for example: $100 painter labor, $25 in cheap spray paint, $65 cleaning (typical 665 sq ft 1 bdrm), $100 for low-grade carpet = $300 including cleaning sundries. Your deposit was $550? They just cleared $250 and will have a new tenant in 3-4 days, subtract vacancy loss = $150 profit. Or better yet, $150 equals two new faucets (upgrade) and a new ceiling fan. New tenant rents at $100 more than you, you paid for the upgrades. I have been in this business for a while. How it SHOULD work: Based on wear and tear of 5 years lifespan for high quality paint, fixtures and carpet or 3 years on the cheap stuff, after 1 year occupancy, pro-ration of expenses at 20% for 5 or 33% for 3 year expectancy per year. And they should be up front about that at move-in.

So, for example, $100 painter labor, $25 paint, $65 cleaning, $35 carpet cleaning, $10 paint sundries, $10 cleaning sundries, [$245] - 550 = you get nada and they net $305 on you. I have been a renter plenty of times and expected reasonable expenses.

FYR: I have also been in court while my staff has been screamed at by people whose dog shat on the wood floor for 6 months and burned a hole in the countertop with a cigar and called that "normal wear and tear". Normal for who? Anyway....

...correctly processed is 20% off painter, 20% off sundries, you pay all of the cleaning (will explain later), carpet clean should be free annually as part of GM (general maintenance), $8 paint sundries, $10 cleaning sundries (you pay all) = $183 your share, plus $550 deposit equals $367 REFUND to you, to tell people how wonderful you are.

1) Some people will complain, even about a $367 refund from $550
2) The property loses money on the vacancy days
3) The property pays for upgrades on its own, not out of YOUR pocket

Exceptions: Smokers. You need to buy an ozone machine. You guys also kill the carpet and require a full paint to be done rather than a partial. The professional grade ones are $278 (Queenaire) from Home Depot Supply, and they work well. If they hire it done (the property) they can nick you for $50-75 per day, which is outrageous, and why I bought my own machine. We do NOT charge people for this, though we are allowed to in the Lease. Ask your property why they don't have a machine. If they have more than 65 units, it is a worthwhile purchase. It kills all odors and bacteria in the air.

Exceptions: Pet owners. Pet damages require carpentry repairs. Be sure they are not overkilling on the restoration, most chewed areas can be BONDOED for $15-20, sanded and painted.

Exceptions: Barbie's dreamhouse. Do you really think we can kill magenta semi-gloss paint in one coat? We allow our residents to custom paint, tastefully. Sometimes the next tenant who is pre-leasing sees it, and they love it - you are off the hook. Otherwise, you have to pay to have it put back to neutral. That we allow this is unusual, and it is more work for us, but the customers love it. Reds and pinks are hard to kill, and will result in a significant upcharge.

Exception: Fire, water damage. Have renter's insurance added to your auto policy. Avoid the potential problems for $10-15 per month. Really. Your insurance will talk to our insurance, and it is painless for everyone.

Exception: 171 nails in the wall. This actually happened. Plus 51 hollow wall bullet anchors. So we charged 80% of the paint and mud, fill expense to the resident after a year's occupancy, and took pictures in case they argued.

Exception: Acetone based nail polish takes off chrome, so if it looks like the finish on the new faucet we installed at move-in for you has been melted, after a year, you pay 80% to replace it, including labor. Women/trannies: Please do not pour nail polish remover on your tub drain, sink stopper or faucets, for this reason. Acetone is used to de-silver film.

Exceptions: Flushing an orange down the toilet (found in your pipe), nail polish in the new carpet in a place that just installed new carpet for you (We use a DuPont Stainmaster I Class A), large gouges in the wood floor. Most people take reasonable care of their places, but a few really, really live like pigs, and it continues to amaze me that people who make 200, 300 thousand a year can't budget $65-80 every other week for a maid service.

Finally, some people are really clean. Most companies I worked for did a half-ass job cleaning and charged you for it, even though they may have had two girls in there for an hour or two or even three, at 6.75 an hour. We clean behind the appliances to keep the places bug free, and residents "who left it cleaner than when I moved in", well, I'll give you that one. If it is an old place and you are paying $400 a month, that's what you should expect. No place I have ever moved cleaned like we have OUR staff clean. Places you forget: patio and window sill tracks, on TOP of cabinets, sucking the lint out of the fridge motor and keeping that from dying prematurely and running inefficiently, the "fart-snatchers" in the bathroom and washer/dryer room, around the water tank, fans, lights. We even put the vanity bulbs abd everything that is loose/detachable in the dishwasher first thing. On move out, you should do that and take a picture of it. How can they accuse you of not cleaning it? Next to the stove, under the removable stove drawer, shelving is never dusted, all the moulding gets dusty, the air return grilles, under the sinks, toilet seats, corners, behind the toilet (nasty) and my number one gripe and place that tenants waste money is NOT using any shower cleaning product. I hate seeing white/frosted glass and blackened grout/caulk. That's $100 right there, not to mention how unsightly it is for visitors while living there. The $1.99 off-brand (Target) shower spray, applied daily, will keep it clean for years. Also, older folks with polyester pants, we have to restain and re-polyurethane your cabinet facings since your pants wear off the poly and stain like sandpaper, as you stand there leaning against the kitchen islands. Funny thing - we finally figured out what was causing it. The last thing we do is sit on the toilet and where the sofa will be and look for anything that might be noticed, a cracked tile by our feet, a booger of texture staring back at you across from the commode on the wall, a different colored screw than the rest. People will spend 50% of their waking hours sitting in these two places in the unit, on the toilet or on the sofa watching TV, and will notice and remember these little things.

Good luck and remember, no matter how incompetent or unfriendly your staff may be, be nice, you will end up with a better result. Flattery will get you everywhere. (unless you burned a hole in your countertop, then you will still have to pay to fix it).

I like coffee tables and ottomans that can also be used as storage devices. I found a cool one at IKEA with tons of open-ended shelves underneath and my friend made an ottoman that was hollow inside to store blankets and built racks on the outside for magazines.

Putting holes in the wall is a no-no in most apartments (except for thumbtacks, usually). You have to get permission and even then, you could be forfeiting your deposit or owe the complex money if you leave the holes there when you move out.
I've heard putting toothpaste in the holes will fool them, but the color has to match exactly and it can't smell like mint! I've never done it, though.
Door and over-the-toilet racks are great, though. I use them and it increases storage tremendously.

When it's time to move out, you could go to the hardware store to get a spackling kit or plaster patching kit. I've even seen the material come in a bottle with a very small tip to apply it directly into the whole. Then you could get a small can of paint to match the wall.
This is exactly what they will do, it will be much cheaper for you if you do it yourself.

If you are willing to take a little extra time and maybe and extra $20 when moving out to puddy the wall and get a quart of paint to touch it up, there is no problem. As for the bike mount, you can buy hooks that hang from your ceiling and nobody even notices the hole once you've left!

A long time renter

So many of these suggestions are relating to MOUNTING objects on the apartment walls! What????? We have always been disuaded from mounting anything on the apartment walls for fear of too many holes in their walls. I'm confused!

A Former Renter

Just spackle the holes when you are moving out. I hang large prints, shelves, medicine cabinets (I've even moved towel racks that are inconveniently placed). I just move everything back where it was and spackle the holes, and have never had a problem. I've gotten my deposit back in full each time. Leaving the place super-duper clean also helps them to ignore the spackled holes, I've found.