Living Without a Closet

"two-twenty-six/three-sixty-five" by Laura Bittner is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Apartment living does not always offer ideal storage space, especially if you’re a shopaholic. While most apartments include closet space, more often than not, the available closet isn’t big enough, leaving us to find other, more creative ways to store our clothing and accessories. What are some alternatives to a closet? Apartment Guide offers some solutions:

An Armoire or Dresser

One of the most obvious solutions is to buy a large armoire or dresser to store clothes in. What’s great about armoires over dressers is that they offer a place to hang any clothing that you’d rather not fold.

Dresses, blouses and easily wrinkled items won’t have to be shoved into a dresser drawer, which could potentially save you from having to pull out the iron every day before work.

Dressers, on the other hand, are great for people with a lot of foldable clothes. Either piece of furniture comes in various sizes, so those who live in a small space will be able to easily find something that fits their room.

A Clothing Rack

Stores like Target and Ikea sell clothing racks of all different shapes and sizes. You’ll easily be able to find smaller standing clothing racks that have a single bar on which to hang your clothes.

There are also full closet organizers that you can mount to a wall with multiple shelves and rods great for holding an entire wardrobe. Though not as affordable, these are a one-and-done solution to not having a closet, and they’re pretty easy to install on the wall.

Bookcases

The variety of bookshelves available in stores and online is truly amazing, so they’re a great organization option for bedrooms with nonexistent closets. The bookshelves with cube-shaped cubbies are particularly useful for organizing different types of clothing and accessories.

If you’re planning on using bookshelves in place of a closet, be sure to buy plenty of baskets and bins that will help you keep the shelves neat and uncluttered.

Floating Shelves

Floating shelves are another useful storage option, and they’re especially great because they can fit onto walls of any size. Hang floating shelves across the width of an entire wall, or stack them from floor to ceiling. You can even install dividers on your shelves to keep all of your clothing items separated.

Under the Bed

Installing drawers under the bed is both practical and unobtrusive, so it’s a perfect solution for people who live in a small space. You can also inexpensively lift your bed to create even more storage space under it, using store-bought bed risers.

Consider storing shoes, handbags and other less-often-used items under the bed so you don’t have to get down on the floor every time you change clothes.

A Trunk

For a storage solution that’s part decorative and part amazingly effective, find an antique or vintage trunk to keep at the foot of your bed.

Trunks are very spacious, so you’ll be able to store a lot of your wardrobe in just the one area. Use it for bulky items like sweaters, sweatshirts and sweatpants that don’t stack as easily on shelves.

Create Pretty Decor

Some of the prettiest and most colorful items in a person’s apartment can be found in their closet, like shoes, handbags, scarves and jewelry. Instead of tucking those items away into storage, find creative ways to display them around the room and apartment.

Buy a small coat rack just for your scarves and hang them by the front door. Line pretty high heels and handbags along the bookshelves in your living room or entryway. Hang your statement necklaces from pretty hooks on the wall above your toilet, rather than using that space for a piece of art.

Use a Curtain

Many of the storage solutions in this survival guide will leave your clothing out in the open or on display, but simply hanging a curtain can help you tuck your wardrobe out of sight. Attach a curtain to your bookshelves or simply hang one from the ceiling in front of your shelves to hide your clothing.

Mix and Match
If you have one wall in particular that would work well for a “closet,” mix and match the ideas to create exactly what you need for storing your own personal belongings. Hang floating shelves across the entire wall, then attach a closet rod to the wall beneath them. Or, find two small armoires and put them on either side of a short bookshelf.

Organize That Clutter

"Desk Experiment 001" by Josh Lambert Pearson is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Unless you’re Felix from The Odd Couple or Monica Gellar from Friends, chances are you have clutter in your life to some capacity. It’s almost easier to clean and organize when you’re moving and are forced to go through everything; but if you have lived in the same space for a while, you might need to do some decluttering. What are some everyday tips you can use to keep up with the clutter? Try these ones from Apartment Therapy:

1. Live within your means.

This is an idea I got from one of our Apartment Therapy videos, and I think it's a wonderful place to start if you're aiming for a simpler, less cluttered life. What 'live within your means' means for your home is this: let the size of your home dictate how much stuff you have, and not the other way around. If your closet is bursting at the seams, instead of dreaming of a bigger closet, why not try paring down your clothes to fit the space you have?

2. Purge often.

Even if you get to a point where you have only as many things as will comfortably fit into your space, stuff has a way of accumulating. So set aside a time, a few times a year, to go through your things and get rid of the ones you don't use anymore. You'll feel so much lighter, and your home will thank you.

3. Have a place for everything.

'A place for everything, and everything in its place.' Almost a cliche, but still some of the best organizing advice out there. A bit of further advice: if you have lots of things in limbo on tables or countertops or the floor and are struggling to find places for them, maybe you need more places. This is where clear plastic shoeboxes or a filing cabinet or maybe just a console with lots and lots of drawers can come in handy.

4. But don't underestimate the importance of a junk drawer.

Every household has those little things — pens, tape, twist ties, whatnot — that get used a lot but don't really have any logical place to go. Instead of agonizing over finding a home for every little thing, keep a junk drawer. The last few little bits of clutter get swept in there, and you're done.

5. Become a habitual putter-awayer.

This is probably the hardest part of this whole list for me: the 'and everything in its place' part of #3. I try to tell myself that it's a sort of game, kinda like one of these for adults. Put the bottle opener back in the drawer! Hang that skirt you didn't wear back in the closet! But ultimately, I think the easiest way to make sure you put things away is just to do it, and then keep on doing it until it's so habitual that you wouldn't ever think of not doing it. When you see how much better your home looks, you'll be that much more motivated to keep fighting the good fight.

6. Store things where you use them.

Be smart about where you store things. Not having to walk halfway across your home to put things away will make #5 that much easier.

7. Stop clutter before it enters your home with a landing strip.

Even if you're conscientious about what you buy, it's easy for clutter to sneak its way into your home in the form of junk mail, freebies, what have you. That's why setting up a landing strip by the front door is so brilliant: because clutter has to come into your home somewhere, and you can stop it right at the source.

8. Go paper-free.

Scanning all the documents you've been hanging onto may seem like a daunting task, but once you're done, they'll be easily searchable (plenty of apps, like Evernote, allow you to search scanned documents for certain words) and you'll have that much less stuff to manage.

9. Realize that life is about experiences, not things.

We're constantly being bombarded with advertisements that try to convince us that a happy life is all about having the latest stuff: a new car, an outdoor kitchen, an ice cream maker. But studies have shown, over and over (and my own experience has borne out) that it isn't the things in our lives that make us happy: it's our experiences that we treasure most. So the next time you're tempted to buy more stuff, ask yourself if the money wouldn't be better spent on a vacation or a nice night out. Bonus: you won't have to find a space for these things in your cabinets.

10. Forgive yourself and try again.

Remember that nobody is perfect, and nobody's home is perfect. Even the homes you see in the magazines aren't perfect — it took a whole team of stylists to make them that way. So if you have an off week, or two weeks, or month, and suddenly your house is a disaster, don't panic. It's never too late to forgive yourself and try again.

Maximize Your Kitchen Space

"counter space!" by Maggie Hoffman is
licensed under CC BY 2.0

Regardless of the size of your apartment’s kitchen, it seems like there is never enough space for cooking, not to mention storage. If you are especially pressed for space to cook, storing your kitchen utensils in an organized and efficient way is paramount. Get creative with maximizing the space in your kitchen with these storage ideas from The Kitchn:

Add shelving anywhere you can: When space is at a minimum, you have to make the most of whatever you can find. That will likely mean adding shelving or a hanging cabinet to spaces that might otherwise go unused. Just make sure you have stylish storage containers if you opt for open shelving.

Hang your pots and pans: By storing your pots and pans vertically, you’ll free up cabinet, shelf, and drawer space for more pantry storage. We’d much rather see a beautiful Calphalon or All-Clad pan than a box of cereal or a bag of chips.

Make use of your cabinet doors: The inside of your cabinet doors are a woefully underused resource. Use them for storing spices or small kitchen utensils to free up even more space for larger items.

Put even narrow spaces to use: Think an awesome skinny storage rack is out of your reach? Think again! Find out how you can easily DIY a rolling pantry that is designed to fit whatever space your kitchen has to offer.

Organize in tiers: A simple and inexpensive addition, risers in your cabinets will not only make use of the vertical space on your shelves, but they’ll help you know what you already have and avoid buying duplicates.

Add a cart: If you have more space near your oven than you do in your pantry, keep a rolling cart with all your essential items at hand. You can move it around to wherever you’re cooking or stash it away when you have guests over and need more floor space.

Don’t forget about the space under your cabinets: Steal a trick from woodworking workshops, and affix lids to the bottom of your cabinets to keep jars of your most used items handy. Just be sure your cabinet is sturdy enough to hold the jars when they are full.

How do you make the most of the space in your kitchen? Share your tips with us!