Help, how do I store all this stuff more efficiently??

[chefddr]

Ok ladies, here is the good, the bad and the ugly,the very ugly.

I live in a small rental home, no room for stoage, so my food is basically in boxes all along one wall in my dining room (I have the pics here but can't figure out how to get the pics posted) anyway, my entire wall is loaded with boxes, one end to the other, anyone who is in my home KNOWS I have food! Any tips on how to find a way to "hide stuff?? Please don't say under beds, my kids can't keep their room clean and if I had food there my teenagers friends would eat everything! Heck they keep moving furniture around!!

[vigilant20]

Hmmm it's hard to say without seeing what you have. You could line them up along the bottoms, top shelves, or stack them along one side of each of your clothes closets. Pull the couch out a little and stack them 2 high behind there. If you rearranged kitchen cabinets to pack things tightly you could probably unload some stuff in there. Usually people have linen closets filled lightly, you could stack stuff more tightly in there and use the open shelves as a pantry.

[Suz]

Does your house have an attic? I wouldnt put food up there, but it'd work for paper goods etc

 

WM has a put together plastic pantry for approx. $75. I have one and am very pleased with it

 

Check craigslist or freecycle for some heavy duty moving boxes to reorganize/repack your preps

 

If you have a formal dining room table, under there with a long table cloth to cover it

 

Make end tables with table cloths out of those heavy boxes

 

Thats all I can come up with until some caffine gets a flowin....

[Snowmom]

 

I just did a google search and found a few sites you might like to check out.

 

http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/christ...apartments.html

 

http://homedecor.iloveindia.com/small-spac...or-tenants.html

 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2...pace.html?cat=6

 

I didin't read them, so not sure just what all is in there.

 

As for using heavy boxes, yes, then make a cover for the box and it looks like an end table or something.

 

Under your bed, and any place you have enough space to add anything.

 

 

[Jingles]

If I were you (depending on your finances) I would invest in a heavy duty shelf. I bought a Gorilla shelf from Sam's for $65 and that thing holds a ton of stuff. It's 4'w X 7'H X 18" deep. It's well built. There are a lot of other shelves out there just as good. This was the cheapest I could find. I also am re-doing my food storage and I'm putting all my dry goods in mylar bags and then in rubber-maid containers. This last winter we got mice in our pantry and I lost several packages of pasta. They had been stored in zipper bags. I can't afford to do that again. But like I said it's up to your finances. If you have some old lumber maybe you can make your own shelves. I do suggest the rubber-maid containers or buckets since Mice are much less likely to get in them. It hurts to lose boxes and boxes of food because one of those nasty little buggers get in them and make a home there.

[ScrubbieLady]

How about stoing dry goods, paper products etc in plastic containers and outside. Put plants in front of them, label them potting soil or something like that.