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Design

Smart Storage for Small Spaces

Add convenience and comfort to small kitchens and baths.

By Patrick McCombe
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Synopsis: In a small house, efficient storage space is essential. This article looks at seven cleverly designed compact spaces in kitchens and baths: a china cabinet in a breakfast booth, a dining-room desk, a laptop drawer, an appliance garage, a multiuse cabinet, a narrow vanity for two, and a pullout kitchen table.

Living in a small house requires making the most of any potential storage space, particularly in the kitchen or bathroom. With the right kind of storage, you can prevent the clutter that makes these spaces feel cramped and unkempt, as well as the frustration that goes with it. Instead, you’ll have spaces that are tidy and that feel larger than their square footage would indicate. What follows is a collection of the very best storage solutions we’ve come across in the last few years. As you go through the next few pages, you’ll find that even the very smallest spaces can be put to good use, and you’ll see that smart storage is often more about better organization than it is about creating additional space. We hope you’ll use these ideas as inspiration for your own projects. If you come up with your own creative storage solution, please send us a photo. If we like what we see, we might include it in a future issue.

Breakfast booth, China cabinet

Despite its modest proportions, this kitchen feels larger than it is. One reason is the built-in booth beneath a bank of windows. The seat back is affixed to full-extension drawer slides, allowing it to glide upward to reveal generous storage spaces. Cabled counterweights make it easy to lift the sliding panel. A drawer in the top of the booth claims the rest of the space.

Dining-room desk

A chest-high buffet cabinet separates the dining area from the kitchen in this house. The buffet turned out to be the perfect place to tuck an old-fashioned flip-down desktop in the service of 21st-century technology.

Kitchen laptop drawer

The kids eat their breakfast at this windowsill-height counter next to the kitchen cabinets. Once they are off to school, Mom pulls the laptop out of the drawer built into the side of the base cabinet, grabs a cup of coffee, and gets to work. An electric outlet in the base cabinet provides the power.

For more photos and details on smart storage, click the View PDF button below. 

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  1. RhondaHMcNab | Apr 27, 2018 02:40am | #1

    The roof is sheathed with a single layer of 1/2-in. plywood and has no overhangs and hence no eaves for ventilation.

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