Ann Moore-Spencer

Small spaces, large spaces alike of­ten have the chal­lenge of find­ing space to store stuff. The em­pha­sis is on get­ting rid of the clut­ter. Very of­ten the ad­vice is to sort and get rid of as many things as pos­si­ble and to store what re­mains out of sight. Let me present a rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cept – stor­ing your pos­ses­sions in plain sight!!

Not every­thing should be seen

Open shelv­ing is in­ex­pen­sive and an ef­fec­tive method of stor­ing items in plain sight. But not all items are wor­thy of dis­play. Choose care­ful­ly. When you se­lect your items wor­thy of re­main­ing in plain sight, please do not try to use every avail­able space. This will seem chaot­ic and def­i­nite­ly not dec­o­ra­tive. For a more at­trac­tive dis­play on open shelves, ob­jects must have some 'per­son­al space'. Leave at least one-third of the space free or for pure­ly dec­o­ra­tive items. Let open shelf stor­age seem de­lib­er­ate and at­trac­tive by pay­ing at­ten­tion to gen­er­al light­ing of the shelves them­selves and fo­cused light­ing on dec­o­ra­tive ob­jects.

Kitchens

If you have good look­ing pots and pans hang them from the walls and ceil­ing from at­trac­tive pot racks. Use open shelves for col­lec­tions of dish­es and glass­ware. This idea is not for a chaot­ic amal­ga­ma­tion of ves­sels. I do not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a matchy, matchy din­ner set or pot set. But, to be ef­fec­tive, all items in the dis­play or col­lec­tion should re­late to each oth­er at least in colour. The same idea ex­tends to small ap­pli­ances on coun­ter­tops. But store the ap­pli­ances where they will be used. Fruit in bas­kets are a clas­si­cal ex­am­ple food stor­age con­tribut­ing to dec­o­ra­tive eq­ui­ty. Emp­ty your ce­re­al, pas­ta, grains, spices and oth­er dry goods in­to co­or­di­nat­ing bas­kets, con­tain­ers and can­is­ters on open shelves or coun­ter­tops. If you are short on closed cab­i­netry, this is an at­trac­tive so­lu­tion.

Din­ing Rooms

Stor­ing vin­tage or 'spe­cial' dish­es in glass front cab­i­nets is a cus­tom that we can re­late to even though we may have ceased do­ing so. Some peo­ple's ta­blescapes are based on a full for­mal ta­ble set­ting com­plete with linen and cen­tre piece. This is a clas­sic ex­am­ple of stor­age in plain sight. Vin­tage or an­tique dish col­lec­tions can be dis­played on the wall or in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to cen­tre­pieces on the din­ing room ta­ble or con­sole or buf­fet ta­bles.

Liv­ing Rooms

Noth­ing makes a room feel more com­fort­able than hav­ing items di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to the own­ers' lifestyle vis­i­ble. The tray for the re­mote con­trols on the side ta­ble next to the re­clin­er, mag­a­zines and books on the shelf or floor be­low the cof­fee ta­ble, cro­chet or knit­ting yarn in a bas­ket on the so­fa, for in­stance. The key is to en­sure they are neat­ly or­gan­ised and stored in some­thing at­trac­tive that co­or­di­nates or com­ple­ments the d&ea­cute;cor. It must not look out of place. Of course you have to keep these items to a min­i­mum. Too many and it will look as though the area is due for a good tidy­ing.

Bath­rooms

A re­al­ly in­ex­pen­sive way of mak­ing a bath­room look dec­o­rat­ed is neat­ly fold­ed and dis­played colour co­or­di­nat­ed bath linen. In­clude some soaps, pot­pour­ri (if that is your style), bath salts and oils in dec­o­ra­tive bas­kets, bot­tles and trays that are com­pat­i­ble with your dec­o­rat­ing style. Open stor­age can be un­at­trac­tive and look like clut­ter when items are stored away from their pri­ma­ry area of use. Fab­ric in box­es be­low the din­ing ta­ble, mail on the kitchen counter, school bags in the liv­ing room .... How­ev­er that prized silk ki­mono or vin­tage ba­by clothes may look re­al­ly great in the fam­i­ly room wall if dis­played cor­rect­ly. Re­mem­ber to keep items to a min­i­mum and well or­gan­ised. Your 'in plain sight' dis­play will look de­lib­er­ate and well ap­point­ed. High­light items with light­ing, at­trac­tive and unique con­tain­ers, hooks or shelv­ing.