9 Basement Storage & Organization Ideas (with Pictures)
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Many people use basements are their storage and organization space. Even if you use it for some other purpose, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to store something down there. Luckily, there are many ways you can go about this. Built-in shelves and similar options are trendy options, but there are others as well.
In this article, we’ll go over plenty of different storage options. Whether you have a finished basement or an unfinished basement, you should find something suitable in this article.
1. Stacked Totes
One of the easiest and cheapest options is to purchase and label plastic totes. This doesn’t require any DIY know-how. You need to know how to stack totes and write labels – extremely easy, indeed! If you’re looking for a straightforward storage option, this is a suitable option. Once you purchase all the totes you need, you can quickly get this done in a day, depending on how much stuff you need to store.
2. Totes and Shelves
You can spice up the previous idea a little bit by putting totes onto shelves. This eliminates the problem with needing a tote on the bottom of the stack, which then requires you to unstack all the totes just for one thing you need. You can easily pull the tote you need off the bottom shelf without needing to unstack all the others.
The downside of this is that you will need to purchase shelves, and they will likely need some construction. Pre-built shelves are often too big to fit down basement steps, so you’ll probably need to put them together.
3. Plastic Organizers
If you have many smaller things that need stored, you may want to choose open-toped storage organizers. This works great for food and pill bottles. You can stack like options in each organizer, but you won’t need to worry about messing with lids or labelling. You can quickly look into each organizer and see precisely what you need. Or, if you have the placement memorized, you can grab it as you walk by.
For smaller things that you won’t need much of at a time, like food, this is probably the better option than a tote. Cans and boxed food don’t fit very well in totes!
4. Built-In Shelves
This option works best for finished basements that you use as a living space and a storage space. Built-in shelves look very lovely. You can paint them to match the rest of your décor, and they can be used to store just about everything. You can use some of the shelves food books and then combine the previous idea for storing food or craft items, for instance.
Of course, you do need to have a bit of know-how to make built-in shelves. You can find many easy tutorials online, but expect to spend quite a bit of time on this project.
5. Stair Closets
For a small-space option, turn underneath your stairs into a storage area. You can add many small doors and build-in shelves to take advantage of the small space underneath the stairs. These little storage areas can be as big or small as you want. Some people make sizeable closet-style storage areas under their stairs, while others make many small cabinets.
The size of the stair closet will dictate the size of the items you can store there. For food and craft supplies, smaller cabinets are much easier than a huge closet.
6. Handmade Shelves
Instead of purchasing some pre-built shelf, you can build your own out of simple wood. Unless you paint the shelves and spend a bit of time fixing them up, these likely won’t look super awesome. For this reason, we recommend them mostly for unfinished basements. They are much cheaper than pre-made options.
Simultaneously, you can fix them up a bit to make them suitable for finished basements. Just keep in mind that this will take time and money.
7. Bookshelf
Building bookshelves is an easy way to store books, board games, and other small items. Built-in bookshelves can also look quite useful in a basement living space. You can make very fancy bookshelves, but pre-made bookshelves, or slap together some pieces of wood into a general bookshelf shape. Either way, this storage option looks a bit more put-together and aesthetically pleasing than other options.
8. Entertainment Center
If you use your basement for entertainment, you can build an entertainment center around your TV or gaming area. While you can store your entertainment stuff in this area, you can also store un-related items – especially if you put cabinet doors on the front so you can’t see what exactly is being stored.
You can also purchase pre-built entertainment centers, but they often won’t fit your space as you build specifically for your purposes.
9. A Little Bit of Everything
You can combine cabinets and shelves for a unique storage option in your basement. If you store a wide variety of things in your basement, this may be the best option. You’ll have plenty of different areas to store whatever you suddenly need to put away, whether it is Christmas decorations, craft supplies, or cans of food.
You can easily adjust this option to whatever you need. Combine some of our previous suggestions for a unique storage space that perfectly holds precisely what you need it to.
Mix-and-Match Options
There are plenty of options available to create storage and organization in your basement. You can mix-and-match these options to make the perfect storage solution for you. Perhaps you need different storage areas for different things? Maybe you need specialized plastic totes to store tiny things, like buttons?
Feel free to make the basement storage area your own and design it to match exactly what you need.
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Featured Image Credit: Pixabay
