You have just built your dream house from colonial house plans that are perfect. The house is beautiful, the rooms are in the perfect location, the kitchen is on the cover of one of the national housing magazines, and you can’t wait to move in. As you pack up the old house, you get rid of all the old stuff you’ve been saving for years and never used. You have a garage sale and you get rid of your junk, your treasure. The rest goes to a charity that will put it to good use. There is only what you need in your new home, the house of your dreams. As you pack, review where the belongings will go in the new place. You realize you don’t have much storage space in the new place. Now what?
It’s never too late to add storage and organization to a home, whether it’s a two-story or ranch home plan, you can always tidy things up a bit. It’s actually a good time to take a look at building organizers before you move. If you have interior walls that are not load-bearing, perhaps you could add through shelving or closed shelving. If it’s on a two story, is there a stairwell with space under it that isn’t being used at all? Could it be locked up and used for storage? Maybe even turn the area into a closet if there’s space. This would also be a good time to build shelves in your clothes closets and make them much more useful. There are custom closet organizers or DIY closets that you can buy and install yourself. If you’re handy, maybe you could make your own custom cabinets.
If your southern home plans called for a garage, have you thought about built-in cabinets in the garage? It offers plenty of extra storage space and is clean and looks tidy. Now would be the time to build them or have them built. You can get them with or without doors. There are also many other garage storage ideas. You can have freestanding shelves that can be moved as needed. There are shelves that go over the garage doors that are great for storing those items that you only need once a year for the holidays.
Even getting non-permanent organizers can make sense, so that when you move, everything will have a place and you’ll know where it is. Moving to a new house can be confusing as you never remember where you put everything. With a little planning ahead and thinking about where everything will go before you move, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to find everything.