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I have no choice but to use a spare room as both storage and an office.
I don't have any other space to store what most would store in an attic.
I have trimmed it down to about 30 boxes that fit against the wall and take up about 1/4 of this 12 x 12 room.
My question is how to I make the storage look better.
I have considered using moving boxes and painting the side that faces the room.
I also considered using long curtains that span the length of the room and hiding the boxes behind that.
What kind of stuff are you storing? IF they are documents, can you scan them and get rid of the paper? If it is stuff try this trick that I was told about when I was actually moving. Pretend you are moving and every box the mover has to touch will cost you $100. That adds up very quickly and things I could not live without because fairly easy to get rid of.
As I said we were moving, but in the end using this imagery helped me to end up with only a 3 boxes of stuff that 4 years later I could have lived without.
If you don't want to put up curtains try a tri or quad fold screen.
It depends on how big the boxes are. Ideally, get a large storage unit or shelves (Ikea would be good) with doors, and cover one wall with it and put all the boxes in there. If you can't fit them in shelves with doors, use large open shelves (I love the ikea modular ivar, also very cheap, but billy in white also looks good), and then get really attractive boxes (plastic, not cardboard) and put them on the shelves in a way that looks pleasing. There are so many styles of boxes available, you should be able to make it look really nice. I did that in my last office, and had one whole wall of shelving with boxes and books, and it looked pretty good.
A curtain or set of curtains can also look nice, but you would have to find one that spans the whole of the room, and I'm not sure how that would work.
A curtain or set of curtains can also look nice, but you would have to find one that spans the whole of the room, and I'm not sure how that would work.
They work well. I know one person who has it in a sitting area and two people who blocked off storage in their basements.
My mother got creative did it in my bedroom when I was a teen. My twin bed was on the far wall...a hutch cabinet with books and TV was at the foot area and she had a rod going across the length with swayed curtains(old patterned sheets that matched my bedspread). It closed off my whole bed area and was cool....I had my own private cubby
I can't imagine what you have in 30 boxes for storage. Holiday stuff?
I downsized to NOTHING twice in relocating. Stuff. I've seen too many estate sales with boxes of stuff left untouched and forgotten for years. Good china? Good silver? Take that stuff out and use it! Nothing sadder than beautiful stuff that's never used and sits in boxes for ever.
I vote for trimming back more, get bins, pack wisely, use a storage unit designed to hold bins.
You could hire someone to help you organize. But it's your stuff and ultimately, you keep what you want.
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Sometimes we just have treasures we want to keep. I understand.
How about building a false wall with an opening at one or both ends. Ive seen this done as a closet for clothes with the bed headboard on the false wall. Later when you sell it would be a bedroom with extra closet space. The boxes would be in the "closet".
If you don't want to build an actual wall you could do free standing bookcases. Same principal. Just make sure to anchor them.
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