Vintage Storage

The last two weeks has seen much spring cleaning at Lesley's Girls HQ, sorting the stock room... as well as the rest of the house which led us to the inevitable conundrum that most homes faces- achieving practical but attractive storage.

Hours were spent trawling pinterest (in an attempt mainly to avoid actually doing the job) and googling clever vintage storage solutions, some of which we used some we didn't.  Some were more appropriate for the display on our trade stalls for Lesley's Girls rather than in our home. 

Here is a list of just a few of the classic or unusual (but beautiful) storage solutions I found on my internet travels this month, there were more (lots more) but these are the ones that got me thinking:

• Vintage Suitcases: A suitcase is not just for holidays. It looks equally beautifully when turned into a display and can hide a multitude of rubbish as I realised pretty quickly!
• Fireplaces: Open fires are getting less common but fireplaces are still a part of many homes, and can be utilised to store anything from flowers, to candles even books in larger fireplaces.
• Jewellery: There are a million and one ways to store jewellery.  I use a vintage cake stands for all my beads, and a large champagne bottle for my bangles. A really good idea is using a vintage box grater to hand earrings (not ideal in a house with under 5's though!)
• Post: Create a letter rack using an old window shutter mounted on a wall.  This is one I would love to do as we have a really issue with post which just seems to pile up in mounds everywhere. 
• Loose change: Old metal serving ladles can be nailed to the wall to create handy pockets for loose change. 
• Crates: The ever classic apple crate box is sturdy and beautiful enough not to need to be stowed away either. You can also turn them on their side and affix them on a wall to create unique shelves.
• Buckets: You can hang old metal buckets on basket brackets and use them as magazine storage.

Space can be reclaimed from just about anywhere- so quite literally you should think outside the box apparently  One of the key things to remember with storage, it seems from my research (read procrastination) is directions- don't go just across a space but go up and down too, you can add vast amounts of storage by being clever and layering in cupboards with hanging drawers under shelves or added hooks in an area which would otherwise be wasted space.  

Please do share your own unique storage methods and tips in the comments below.  Or if you have a Pinterest board which is might be full of relevant images and articles, let us know and we'll share it with our followers too (as well as stealing as many ideas as possible to make our house organised!)

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