LiveIn|LiveOut

Are you ready to rent out a self-storage unit for your personal possessions? Are you convinced that hiring self-storage services is the only and the finest available solution to your problem? If your reply is positive, then your hunt for the greatest available storage unit begins now.

Since, every storage facility has unique features to offer, you sometimes find yourself ending up renting the one you haven’t actually desired for. People who have not properly researched before renting often find themselves paying too much for their goods, as they had rented a large unit which was too spacious for their load. Sometimes they damage their valuable and precious things because they had not looked for climate controlled units feature in the unit.

It is always advised to check on a few things before you choose your self-storage unit. You can also have a look at the storage Birmingham as a sample storage service provider organization. Here is the checklist to make it easier for you when it comes to choosing the best among the variety of units.

1. First of all clear yourself up on the items you want to store. Do you want it for your office supplies, documents or computer, etc. or you want it for household items like furniture, kitchen utensils, or books, etc. Make a list of number of items to be stored in different cartons and then count the number of packs to be stored. You should also ask yourself that whether it is sensible enough to store the items rather than selling them. If you are going for a longer period of time, you should better sell them off.
2. Once you have decided your items take the measurements of all the items. If you have packed them in trunks, boxes or containers record the size of the said items. If there is just one item like car or a painting or just the furniture, take measurements from all the four sides. This will help you in determining the length and breadth of the storage unit you will be using. After assessing it check whether the size of the unit required is offered by the company you have chosen or not.
3. The security feature matters a lot to you. If you have the slightest doubt on the safety of your goods, try to find some other service, because if you are not satisfied with security you are going to take worries with you everywhere. That results in paying heavy amounts to the service provider and getting stressed for your plunders.
4. With increasing competition day by day self storage companies strive to add as many innovative features as they could. One of these latest features is climate control. Suppose you have an item that is sensitive to heat or humidity, you should find the storage facility that is humid and heat resistant. Items like paintings, metal decoration pieces, needs to be protected from extreme climate conditions.

Once you are satisfied with all the above features, you can comfortably store your belongings in a self-storage unit.

A closet is a great place to store all the clothes and items that you don’t want on display but organizing ideas are not always easy to grasp and it can also be a nightmare to implement and maintain them. Having a disorganized closet can be frustrating so it helps to have a good plan and learn how to organize your closet before you start using it. If you want to keep your closet user friendly then follow these closet organization ideas.

Before you even begin putting items into the closet you need to work out what you want to use the space for. For example, is the closet going to be mainly used for clothes? Or a place to store laundry? There are many different purposes you could use a closet for but until you’ve decided exactly what yours is it’ll be almost impossible to organize. You also need to decide if you need closet organizers installed or perhaps you already have a system in place you just need to know how to best utilize it. An IKEA closet organizer is a great addition to any small closet because they have great space saving and utilizing capabilities. They have hanging organizers for shoes or accessories that utilize the corner of the closet or even the closet rod.

A great way of increasing the amount of storage space is to install racks or shelves or perhaps a wire organizer if they are not already there. ClosetMaid and Rubbermaid offer versatile wire organizing options in do it yourself applications. Also, you know those plastic square boxes you often see in hardware stores? They’re perfect for the closet because they provide a way of organizing your items. Remember to buy extras such as hangers for clothes or baskets for laundry should you need them. Having a hook on the back of the door for your dressing gown or coat makes it easy to access them when you need to.

The best way of organizing closet clutter is to buy a complete closet system. These often come with a range of different compartments for various items. For example some come with a clothes rack, storage shelves and a shoe rack. However, before you buy you still need to know how to organize a closet because there are many different closet storage systems for different purposes. Spend some time looking at the various different options to make sure you buy the right system for you and your closet.

Organizing your closet may not sound like a fun way to spend an afternoon but it’ll save you a lot of time and stress in the future. Once you’ve organized a closet properly it’s much easier to keep it that way and you won’t have to fight through old clothes and pieces of junk to get at something you need. Wasting time looking for the right outfit is not a good way to spend your morning and organizing closets is a great way for you and your family to be on the right track to time saving tricks. So get you and your family to utilize these small closet organization ideas today and rid of the clutter that is bringing you down.

A garage, by definition, is a place where you store your car. In reality, it ends up being an extra attic on ground level. It’s easy to stack the discarded packaging from electronics, tools, gardening implements, and even bulky toys in your garage. But if you don’t know how to organize a garage, you may end up creating a health hazard, harbouring harmful pests, and ironically, having little space left over for your car.

You need to set aside a day to work on your garage. You can make it a family affair or gather a group of friends. Throw in the promise of drinks and a barbecue after. This will make the task more fun, boost morale, create motivation for the task at hand, and turn the whole thing into a party. Move the car and clear the yard or driveway to create space for the work. Collect storage accessories that will be used to make everything easier.

Take out the items in the garage individually and class them. Broken items should be placed in one area, dirty items in another, and useful items in a third. Once the garage is completely empty, clean it out thoroughly with brooms, soap, water, and scrubbing brushes if necessary.

While the garage dries and airs, attend to the three piles. Start with the pile of broken items and subdivide the individual pieces. Decide which items can be repaired. The useless ones can be set aside for recycling, and you can classify them according to what they’re made of. Of the reparable items, some can be sold while others will remain in use, so that’s two separate categories. Next, go to the dirty items and clean them. Class them as you clean. Some will be sold, some will be recycled, and others can even be given away.

The garage should be clean and dry now, so you can install storage accessories. You can use things like bike racks, storage bins, wall hooks, and shelves to help arrange the garage. Bicycles, lawnmowers, and power tools can be suspended on racks. Small tools can be stacked in labelled bins.

The key method of how to organize a garage is to keep an inventory. As you place the items back, list every item so that you know exactly what is in your garage. Put the list in a visible place and as far as possible, update the list whenever a new item is stashed in the garage. You can also make a small note on exactly where each item is for easy retrieval.

If you are thinking about installing shelves to help get organized, check out this article 5 Questions To Consider Before Looking At Garage Shelving Ideas from Get Set Organize.

You have decided to buy some plastic storage boxes to help clean up around the house and make it more organized and presentable. Once you have decided on the size and shape of container that is best for you, you need to figure out where you are going to go to buy these containers, given that money is tight right now, given the current economic environment. This article will offer some ideas on where you can go to get the best plastic storage containers for your dollar.

If you don’t mind buying used plastic storage boxes, check out your local Goodwill store, where you can buy a wide variety of used items all under one roof at bargain-basement prices. You can find some real gems at these kind of stores, where most people wouldn’t even think of looking. Visit any yard sales that are being held in your area, where people are often desperately trying to get rid of things that they don’t need anymore. You can often find some real steals at places like this, where the price is often negotiable.

Check out online auction sites like eBay, and online marketplaces like Amazon.com, where plastic storage containers are just one of hundreds of thousands of different items sold every day, often at prices that can’t be beat anywhere else. If you’re looking to improve the aesthetics of your home as well as its cleanliness and organization, you can buy some stained glass window film at these places too. Do a Google search, and you may find the websites of companies that offer bulk pricing, where you can purchase a large quantity at a lower unit cost.

You can always visit your local discount retail store, like Wal-Mart or Target, where a wide variety of items such as plastic shoe boxes can be bought at relatively low prices. You can also check out your local hardware stores, or home improvement retail chain, like Lowe’s or Home Depot. These stores carry plastic storage boxes, because they are used extensively at shops and manufacturing facilities to store everything from power tools to mechanical fasteners. You should also check out your local office supply store as these boxes are also used to store files, as well as office supplies.

By following some of the steps outlined above, you should be able to find the plastic storage containers that you need at a very affordable price that won’t break your bank.

Shoes can make or break an outfit and a variety of shoes helps ensure every outfit you own looks great and up to date. Shoes are often quite a financial investment, so you want to make sure the ones you buy are going to last a long time and look great for more than one season, so protecting them and keeping them in good shape by storing them properly is important. Storing shoes, though, can be quite a task. Shoe storage needs to be easy and convenient, or you will not use it and your shoes will end up scattered about or laying in front of the door, just waiting to trip you after a long day at work. There are a lot of storage options for shoes, and this is your guide to shoe storage solutions. This quick overview of storage ideas should help get you organized and ready to put your best foot forward.

A shoe storage cabinet is a great solution for families and households with children. These cabinets are actually pieces of furniture that organize and hide your families shoes while keeping them ready at hand. Available in armoire and chest styles, these pieces offer an elegant solution that will blend with your existing decor while offering organization for your home. Designed with individual cubbyholes, every member of your household will have a place to put their shoes and you will not find yourself tripping over your children’s shoes or struggling to find them every morning before school. Shoe cabinets offer another advantage in that they are often large enough to offer a place for hanging coats, handbags, and other items, as well.

Plastic shoe boxes are another great solution to keeping your shoes neat and orderly. Clear shoe boxes make it easy to see shoes while keeping them off the floor and out of your way. Plastic shoe boxes are stackable and take up little space, making them a perfect choice for closets. Just put your shoes in the bin and stack them on your shelves, and your shoes will be easy to find and access. Plastic shoe boxes are also inexpensive, allowing you to buy multiples without breaking the bank so all your shoes can be neatly put away, not just your true investment piece shoes.

Shoe storage benches are perfect in a hallway or entrance because of their narrow footprint. Offering a place to sit while you take off or put on your shoes, shoe benches protect and organize your shoes and de-clutters your house. Many shoe benches offer enough storage to hold up to ten pairs of shoes and some models have additional storage drawers that can hold umbrellas, keys, and other small items that might otherwise end up strewn about cluttering up your living space. Shoe benches are a great addition to an entryway and ensure your family has a place to take of their shoes as soon as they come in, eliminating most of the tracking in of dirt and debris through your home.

Hanging storage units are handy and inexpensive options, as well. Hanging units can accommodate multiple pairs of shoes and take up very little space. Hanging units have individual shelves for each pair of shoes that are designed to hang on the back of your closet door or from the clothes rod in the closet. Many hanging units have smaller shelves or cubbyholes that hold accessories such as belts, gloves, or scarves making them a great addition to the closet organization you already have in place.

Bedroom storage for your shoes is a snap, too. There are a number of storage pieces designed to hold multiple pairs of shoes, even high heels and boots, while still being slim and narrow enough to slide under your bed easily. These shoe organizers are a great idea for people with exceptionally limited closet or floor space. Small apartments and homes often have tiny closets and you need every available inch in them for storing your clothes, so these under the bed units are a great choice in those cases. Depending on the size of your bed, you can house multiple under the bed storage units in your bedroom without clutter and without eating up valuable closet storage space.

With all the available options, there is a shoe storage solution just right for your home. Whether you choose a cabinet, plastic box, a bench, a hanging unit or bedroom storage, keeping your shoes tidy is easy. De-clutter your home and keep your shoes looking new with one of these great ideas today.

There are two kinds of people who do not have a messy closet – those who have put a great deal of time in to organisation, and those who are lying.  It is very easy to mess up a new closet, after all – a few days of throwing in shoes and clothing in to the apparent dark pit can easily lead to an insurmountable mess.  When this happens, any wardrobe will easily become messy and disorganised. Without some real effort, one can say goodbye to any hope of keeping the closet in one piece.  Getting your wardrobe organised with hanging storage can be a real lifesaver.

Some people wonder why to hang clothes.  The short answer is simple – because if they do not, everything is going to get wrinkled.  Sure, ironing can be done, but the only clothing that is actually easy to iron is clothing that was not all that wrinkled to begin with.  But there are other good reasons – clothing that is hung gives its owner easy access, stays better looking for longer, and takes up far less space than folded clothing.  In any home, there is only a finite area of space available for clothing, so making the most of your space has to be a priority.

Finding ways to hang clothing and accessories is not all that hard.  If one has high existing shelving, it is easy enough to place a single rail (or even two rails) underneath.  This allows for an appropriate space to hang clothes without having to losing any existing space.  The height of rail ought to be high enough to keep clothing off the ground, but not so high, that it cannot provide easy access.  Hanging rails are easy to install, available for a relatively low cost, and can make the most of space available for even the smallest carpet.

Once a hanging rail is installed, one should hopefully still have space available.   A great way to keep one’s wardrobe organized is to purchase more hanging organizers.  These items are fairly ubiquitous – most major retailers sell at least a shoe rack of some sort, and purse racks, sock racks, tie racks, and dozens of other storage devices (including, one might imagine, a storage rack) are available for purchase.  These handy little devices can allow one to get almost all of the clutter up off of the closet floor or off the shelves.  They also represent a great way to stop losing things.  Who, after all, has not had to dig through a massive pile of shoes at one point or another to try to find that rebellious matching shoe?  An organizer can help eliminate these pesky problems, and give strangers the illusion that the owner is effortlessly neat and tidy.

These bits of hanging storage are all useful for anyone with a closet, but even those with no closet space can benefit from hanging a few organizers around the house.  Shoe organizers, for example, are a great thing to keep behind the door and take up much less space than a shoe storage cabinet or the increasingly popular clear shoe boxes after plastic shoe boxes take up valuable floor space.  A few hooks for towels and bathrobes can keep a bathroom floor neat and clean.  Even having a coat rack next to (or behind) a front door can eliminate a good deal of clutter from a home and cut down on the amount of time one has to spend cleaning up.  There is no reason not to find a few clever ways to hang things up – after all, it will take a great deal less time than is necessary to try and chase down that one errant (yet somehow, always absolutely vital) piece of clothing.

Keeping up with one’s own wardrobe often seems like an eternal battle against entropy.  The busier one gets, the more appealing it because to wad up one’s clothing, make a lovely ball, and toss it in to the dark recesses of the closet.  Eventually, though, things have to get straightened out.  Using hanging storage can allow one to not only keep things organized, but to do so without actually wasting the amount of space one initially had for storage.  Everyone wishes they had just a little bit more closet space to do with what they pleased, but finding ways to make the existing room work is a bit easier than an afternoon of demolition.  Consider hanging up your clothing – it will look better, last longer, and possibly drive you just a bit less crazy.  At the very worst, one can at least know that everything has a place to go at night.

Many individuals struggle to find ways to find shoe storage solutions that fit into their home and their budget. They also seek solutions that are easy to set up and maintain. If you find yourself struggling to find matching shoes regularly, and you are looking for a simple way to organize your closet, consider plastic shoes boxes that help to organize your shoes in a way that is accessible and easy to see.

While everybody loves shoes, and is always exited to add a new pair to their collection, the situation can become complicated when your collection gets larger. Your needs change depending on which season it is or what type of shoe for which you are looking. It is tricky to find a shoe storage cabinet that will meet all of your needs, and still be cost effective while providing easy access to all of your shoes. Choosing these plastic storage containers is very neat as well as incredibly cost effective: why spend hundreds for a complicated storage unit that is tricky to se up, when you can have an organized closet for less money.

Another excellent detail about choosing clear shoe boxes is that by choosing see through plastic, the end result is that it is easy to identify which shoes are which, even if they are stacked in the back of a closet. When you are in a hurry and do not have any time to spare, having your closet together can make all the difference. A container like this makes it easy to label your shoes, and having the ability to stack them neatly makes what used to be a mess into an attractive, orderly space.

When stacking your shoes in plastic shoeboxes, another aspect to consider is that it saves you problems with dust. Dusting your shoes can be a hassle, and it is much more hygienic to keep them organized using this system. Storing your shoes in this way not only keeps the dust off your footwear collection, but it also keeps them from facing any unnecessary wear and tear that inevitably happens when they are thrown on the bottom of a closet. You will save hundreds if not thousands by protecting your shoes when storing them this way. In addition, you will save time: time cleaning your shoes, and time having to go buy new ones when they are ruined.

There are other details that can help you get your footwear collection in order, even if you have limited space and a limited budget. Consider choosing plastic storage boxes that have different colored lids. This would make it possible to identify which are which easily, even if stacked in a hard to reach corner. It is possible to sort by type of shoe, such as tennis shoes, dress shoes, boots, and so on. Alternatively, if it makes more sense for your personal collection, you can sort by season: summer, fall, winter and spring. No matter what your choice is, you will absolutely find is simpler to sort through when all is said and done.

Another great storage solution is a shoe storage bench. This offers a smaller space to organize several of your favorite and most used pairs of shoes. It is small and offers a nice hide away for your footwear so that you can keep them close by without them being noticed. Maybe you could keep the unit by your front door, or on your porch, so that you can have easy access to your shoes whenever you need them. In addition, the other added benefit of such a piece is that it offers you a comfortable place to sit and put on your shoes. Therefore, between storage, style and a comfortable place to sit for a moment, it offers several reasons to utilize it in your home.

Overall, it is important to remember that plastic shoes boxes help to organize your favorite pairs of shoes in a way that is neat, economical and very user friendly. It makes your favorite pairs of shoes easy to find and protects them from dust, additional damage done by just leaving them on the bottom of a closet, and it protects your investment. Many people who have a great deal of footwear struggle with finding a way to organize them well, but all of that is behind you when you choose to use these plastic storage boxes. Consider choosing this as an alternative to your current storage method, and you will definitely be happy that you did. As will your shoes!

With the advances in home electronics and entertainment, it’s no wonder our homes are beginning to look like DVD rental stores. If your house is like most, you have a large collection of DVD’s and CD’s and as great as they are, having them scattered about is not the designer touch you are going for when decorating your home. CD’s and DVD’s are so small and slim, you can amass quite a collection before you realize that storing them has become problematic and before you know it, your house looks like the corner movie rental shop. You are certainly not going to get rid of the DVD’s and CD’s, though, so what are you to do? How about investing in a DVD storage cabinet!

Keeping tidy with DVD storage units is a snap. Designed to house all your DVD’s and CD’s, these storage units offer a great solution to keeping your movies and music in an easy to view, space saving cabinet with ease of access. Most units have doors that when closed shut away clutter and chaos from your view. Imagine how much nicer your living room will look when your collections of music and movies are not on view constantly. And, if you chose a unit with glass doors, your collection will be well organized and easy to view while still contained within a small footprint of space. Another advantage of the DVD cabinet is that it will help keep your collections safe from scratches and dust that would certainly accumulate if you left them out in the open.

DVD storage cabinets also offer you a great way to keep your collections in order. Whether you group them by artist or alphabetically or by some other method of your choosing, keeping your CD’s and DVD’s organized makes it easier to choose what  you want to watch or listen to since you won’t waste time rummaging through your collections trying to remember what you own. Everything is right there, organized and ready to use, at your fingertips sitting dust and scratch free on your DVD storage shelves. Imagine deciding to watch a movie and browsing neatly rowed titles rather than the DVD shuffle you’re used to doing when going through your movies!

Whether you choose a wall mounted storage system or a floor standing model, there is a DVD storage unit to fit your space requirements and your decor. From large to small, a corner or wall unit, wood or metal, doors or no doors, there are a variety of choices, styles and sizes available to accommodate your movies and your music. If you want to go all out and really give your space a designer boost, you can even buy a unit that will house your television, DVD and VCR, and any gaming systems and games you might have in addition to your DVD’s and CD’s. Look for units at discount retailers, furniture stores, appliance centers, and from retailers online. Research the makes and models you like and do some comparison shopping to make sure you are getting the best price and the highest quality for your money. Metal units are built to last and require little in the way of cleaning, and aluminum units are lightweight but sturdy. Just dust the surface to remove fingerprints and that is all there is to it. Natural wood units will be longer lasting and more substantial than pressed wood or particle board units, but they will cost more so you want to make sure you have shopped around for the best price you can get. The care for wooden units is as simple as their metal counterparts, just dust and clean the glass doors if your unit has them, and it is done.

No matter what style you choose, a DVD storage cabinet will help you tidy up your home and will make movie night more fun for everyone. By keeping your movies organized and close at hand, you will be able to find exactly what you want every time. No more movie nights gone bad because the audience grows impatient waiting while you dig through random piles of DVD’s to find the one you want. No more disappointment of finally finding the DVD you spent ages looking for only to find it has been scratched beyond repair because it was sitting out on the coffee table like a coaster. No more wondering if you still have that particular CD or DVD, they are all right there in their new home, the DVD cabinet!

When you wish to clear your home of unwanted clutter, it is important that you have a look around your house and ascertain as to what areas have an extreme build up of unwanted mess and clutter. You may find that these problem areas are usually around by the front door where shoes are kicked off before entering into the house. Also, there may be a similar situation by the back door and also in the bottom of your wardrobes. Things could be far less stressful and more organized by using the correct storage solutions. A tidy house means a tidy head as so by putting in place some simple ideas of how to organize your possessions will help you to get one step closer to creating a nicer and more pleasant ambiance for you to relax in.

Why clear plastic shoe boxes?

We are all aware that shoe boxes clear an unwanted muddle of shoes and ultimately help you and your family to organize your precious space, but why would you want clear shoe boxes rather than solid boxes? The answer is simple and very useful. It is because you can quickly identify what is in each box rather than having to take down and stack the tower of boxes looking into each one before you successfully find the pair of shoes that you are looking for! If this sounds stressful then you may want to look into purchasing some already! If you would prefer a little bit of colour then you are able to buy coloured plastic options too. There are various colours on the market that will help add a little bit of individuality into your home whilst maintaining the ease of knowing what is inside each box.

Look after your shoes by using storage shoe boxes

Looking after what you have is a very valuable lesson. By looking after your possessions you will save money and you will also learn to appreciate things more. If you kick around your shoes they will have a shorter life and will look shabbier a lot quicker. This will mean that you will spend more money on unnecessary purchases that could have easily been avoided if you looked after them in the first place. Ladies shoes will benefit most from having a safe home, as they can be quite delicate and may have added accessories that need to be looked after, such as feathers and diamantes. If you just carelessly continue to throw your best shoes into the bottom of your wardrobe you will wear the heels out as well. The constant bashing against other more substantial shoes will harm the daintier ones and so these types of shoes would be most advantaged from the use of clear shoe boxes.

Clear shoe storage boxes will cut down on dust

Another benefit of purchasing a clear shoe box is that you will undoubtedly cut down on the amount of dust and grime that inevitably builds up over time. There is nothing worse than having a pile of shoes in the doorway that you just linger around in awkward places and gather dust. A storage system will help you to not just organize but will help you to keep your home cleaner. We spend such a long time trying to keep down the amount of dust because of allergies and other medical conditions, so by buying a simple storage solution for one of the most common problem areas will help cut down on the time you spend dusting and general cleaning around your home. You will only have one surface to quickly wipe over rather than an epic vacuuming session on each shoe!

A stackable system will save on space and it’s more hygienic

The benefits of having a stackable system are quite clear, particularly in the case of homes with limited space. If you have a small porch area, for instance, this will be a tidy and cheap solution for you to store your shoes. The use of shoe storage in your wardrobe is extremely beneficial too. If you do not have the opportunity to keep your shoes separate from your clothes, a simple stackable system is probably a better and more hygienic way of storing your shoes.

Where to get your clear shoe boxes

You don’t necessarily have to buy boxes specifically for the use of shoes, there are other options and these other options may be a little cheaper. Amazon.com are selling a set of these plastic storage shoe boxes under the title of – Clear Shoe Box. These come in a set of four clear boxes for around $12 and can also be used for other uses too if you do not need all of them for this specific use. The boxes come with a handle to help in the pulling or lifting of each box, making it easier to shift around.

A lift top coffee table could just be the piece of furniture that you are looking for if you want to improve the tidiness of your home and reduce the amount of your precious time that you spend cleaning. As you will know from LiveIn|LiveOut’s other article we are all for clever home ideas and storage is one of those areas that allows for some ingenious thinking. This article is the first in a series of clever methods to store items in your house and we will start by looking a lift top coffee tables.

Clever storage ideas allow your home to look just like the show homes – it’s not that the other homes you see don’t have bits and pieces – they simply have enough storage to hide everything away, and what’s more it is often concealed storage and this is the best type.

When thinking about storage it is not just a matter of considering what size you need, you also need to think about how and when you use that particular type of storage and this is the key to create a home that is a pleasure to spend time in. If you don’t think about how you are going to use something you end up having to move things out of the way to get to the item or items that you want and this can start to make life very stressful – everything becomes an effort. A good example of bad storage is drawer unit that has three deep drawers, the drawers are so deep that you have to get past all the ‘stuff’ at the top of the drawer in order to get to what you are looking for. What you would have been better of doing is buying a unit that had six shallow drawers which would therefore make it much easier to find what you were looking for. Bearing this in mind lets move on to the lift top coffee table.

In our recent article on magazine racks we discussed how leaving magazines lying around were a pain to dust and tidy around, they make your home look messy and they can be dangerous (as anyone knows that has tried to balance on a pile of magazines – they are very slippery). Magazines and newspapers however are the one thing that you do want to hand when you are sat down on the sofa in the evening, and this is where a coffee table with a lift top comes in to its own. As mentioned in the previous paragraph this is a great storage idea – it stores things away just where you want them – it’s perfect for the task.

The coffee table with lift top is also the ideal accessory to have if you like to read oversized books or wanted to store something other than magazines such as board games. Lift top coffee tables generally have much greater storage area than a coffee table with drawers. Fitting your favorite board games in to a drawer that is meant for magazines is no fun at all as you have probably found.

Using you coffee table as storage is a great use of space, more often than not a coffee table will comprise of four legs and a table top, so the floor area that it takes up is equal too the area of the table top. In essence this is wasted space so if you can also use the table to store items then this is a very efficient use of space indeed. Now you may argue that you can get a table that has drawers in it and that you don’t need to clear the table top in order to get access to what is underneath it. One answer to this is a coffee table whose table top that has a cantilever type action so that when the table top is lifted, the actual surface of the table remains parallel to the ground. This means that you wouldn’t have to clear the table top at all, in fact if you were feeling particularly brave you could even leave drinks on top.

The big benefit however of a lift top coffee table is the fact that it still looks like just a regular table – there are no drawers or external hardware that detract from the design of it. The clean lines of a black lift top coffee table make it the ideal choice for any one wanting to create a sleek minimalist looking interior. Having this type of storage – the type you don’t even realize is there – is the ideal way to create that much strived for show home look.

We hope that you have enjoyed this first article in a series of clever home storage ideas and will check back soon to read other articles in this series.