You have to be creative in finding places to store things. In my living room, I have a sofa with a filing cabinet sitting beside it as a combination of storage and side table. I realized that I could pull the filing cabinet out about 18 inches from the wall, so it was just even with the edge of the sofa. That 18″ of space behind the filing cabinet is the perfect size to store extra toilet paper and paper towels. I put a pillow on top of them and no one can tell they’re there. I also pulled the sofa out a couple of inches from the wall, and I store my large cookie sheets behind it, along with platters and other awkward things that are difficult to store.
Office Depot and Office Max have some reasonably priced, tall/narrow Formica shelves (in black or white)that should work for you. We bought one for my husband’s office (which is in a very crowded 11′ by 12′ spare bedroom that has many of the problems you mention). We were recently in either Home Depot or Lowes and saw a tall, narrow white shelving unit with paneled doors that looked very nice and was quite inexpensive. It was being advertised as a storage unit for a child’s room but would make a wonderful pantry or what-have-you unit. How about going up? I live in an older walk-out ranch. We made an attic entrance in the garage and there’s another in the house. We covered a lot of the floor with scrap plywood. While I wouldn’t store food up there, it is nice and dry.
TP, Laundry soap, out of season clothes, Christmas stuff. The attic is about 20′x40′. If I didn’t need them for people I would take the smaller of the two bedrooms without a closet and turn it into a big, yummy storage room. Put in lots of stand alone shelving and you have plenty of storage. I never have enough storage, LOL…Its the bane of my existence…Im living in the largest sq ftg place of my life and still NO storage space, just lots of floor space I have some Under bed storage drawers that are pretty niffy, just make sure you get the ones w/ rollers…Got 4 to 6 under each bed depending on the size Also I use hanging baskets, the tiered ones on chain or cord, you can get them in graduated sizes from top to bottom or just same size for all. Most have 3 or 4 baskets to a set, I take 2 sets and combine them to make very nice corner or small space storage.
