The attic is the space between your ceiling and roof – depending on the house this space might be as large as an entire room, but inaccessible due to its height and there being no stairs leading up to it.
For those of you who are lucky enough to have an accessible attic, you might have already started using as storage space for items that are not presently needed like Christmas decorations.
How to use your free space better
Now and again you get the urge to put something up there that you don’t really need, however, when you finally get it up the stairs there’s no more room to properly store it.
Then you are forced to place a box on top of another box, preventing you from easily reaching that box bellow – making you move everything around when you finally do need it.
There are some ways for you to organize your storage area a bit more so you don’t have to go through the shuffle each time you need something.
One of the ways is by creating storage shelves in between the trusses of the roof and the ceiling – it will give you enough space to organize by contents.
Buy transparent plastic containers
Instead of using cardboard boxes, use clear plastic containers instead – some of their lids have small latches that you can depress which locks the top to the box itself.
The clear view of the contents will allow you to sort by meaning and make sure that you get what is more important closer you.
Using a visible marker for this can also help you as it provides enough distinction and allows you to see even with low visibility. The second benefit of these storage containers is that you can stack them on top of the other without worrying about damaging what’s inside, especially important when dealing with fragile things
Buy shelves and make the best use of the space
You can also buy readymade shelves with reinforcement so you can place heavy boxes on the bottom and lighter on the top. These types of shelves give you a quick solution, though you might not like that solution if you have limited storage and have to personalize it to the size of your attic – so make sure you measure twice and buy once.
The best, most flexible solution is to spend some time organizing everything, creating some quick shelves from the 2×4’s that are available and use the frame of the house itself.
