Maximise Space: Effective Tips to Organise Your Understairs Cupboard

The story of how I organised and transformed my under-the-stairs cupboard, with ideas you may not have thought of.

The transformation of our under-the-stairs space

A while ago I realised I was getting super annoyed with our under-the-stairs cupboard: the door wouldn't open fully, the shoe rack on the door prevented me from getting into the cupboard and there was only one shelf for that whole space! I felt battered and bruised every time I tried to get the hoover out, let alone find my shoes. It was the worst organised space in the house.

Generally, when you're getting annoyed with inanimate cupboards, you know it's time for a change

The Storage Solution

As with most of my transformations, I began by heading to Pinterest for some inspiration. I was looking for a shoe rack, what I found was FILSAT (Ikea £15, not sponsored). Someone had used a similar shelf to store their shoes in and, given that I already had 2 in Evie's room for her books, I took one of Joe's largest shoes, and went to test the efficacy of this.

Reader, it worked, the shoe quite firmly stayed put in the shelf.

As we use the understairs cupboard for very little other than shoes, it seemed efficient to line the whole cupboard with these shelves.

That decided, it was time to use my imagination.

Decorating the space

That decided, I got to work getting the cupboard ready.

I took the door off, removed part of the door frame, filled and repainted the frame, and replaced the door with a curtain (an idea I'd seen recently in Ideal Home magazine). On the inside I cleaned down the walls, filled all of the holes, painted it a very dark green, and then put up the shelves (which necessitated a bit of wrangling on my part, as I mis-measured and had to cut some of the shelves down!).

I also made the gap between Evie's shoe shelves at the bottom smaller than mine, and made mine smaller than Joe's to maximise the number of shelves I could put in.

I also made a box for the unsightly meters under there, and painted that the same colour as the walls, so it had the effect of vanishing.

Finally, I used old cabinet knobs to make hooks for our bike helmets, rolled up our exercise mats and then gently* placed the hoover in.

*Which was already a big difference from the fight I had with the door every time I'd tried to do that previously.

Was it worth it?

Yes, absolutely. It's easy to see and get our shoes, Evie can put hers away now and get them out again, the door no longer attacks me, and I can actually get into the cupboard. Actually, it's one of Evie's favourite places to hide now.

I liked it so much, I did the airing cupboard like that too (but with actual shelves, not the Filsat shelves.

As always, thanks for reading!

Nx