Essential Tips for Organising Your Loft Space
The loft is a space that attains something of a mythic status in each home, being a black hole into which things often disappear. It is an ever-consuming void, and a handy place to put things we’d sooner have out of mind. But this treatment of the loft can make it very unfriendly for those of us that just want to get our Christmas decorations down – when it could be a much more useful storage space besides. How can you organize your loft for better storage?
Declutter
The first step in your loft organisation plan should always be to declutter. For one, you will need to practically empty your loft anyway in order to enact the next stages of your plan. For another, the more unnecessary and unwanted items you can jettison early, the easier it will be to organise what remains – and the easier it will be to find what you need in the future. Besides, with over 1.5 million rooms lost to clutter across the UK, you could stand to create more space – if only to free up some space elsewhere…
Think Storage
From here, your organisational journey can begin proper. Having just jettisoned a great deal of possessions, you should have a much clearer idea of exactly what you’ll be keeping – and what you’d like to be able to store up there too. As such, you can draw up something of a plan for the storage you’ll need.
Building some DIY shelving and racking out of plywood should be a simple job, and can make organising pre-packed boxes of items like Christmas decorations much easier. For essential equipment like tools, you might consider acquiring a rolling tool chest for ease of portability around or out of the house. For items without a home, investing in some clear plastic crates can help you organise by type, and identify contents much easier when you eventually come looking.
Think Accessibility
While you’re creating your storage solutions, you should always be keeping accessibility at the forefront of your mind. For one, not all loft spaces are suitable for walking around in, and in many cases the only thing between your insulation and the floor below is plasterboard.
You might want to install some boards or proper flooring, to make it less likely that you fall and injure yourself! In terms of item placement, make sure to store your least-needed items in the least-accessible places. Anything you’re going up there for regularly should be extremely easy to find and grab.
Lighting
The final piece of the puzzle is lighting, both for safety and for ease of navigating your belongings. With additional outlets few and far between, battery-operated LED lights are a great and easy-to-install alternative.