Take This Stuff and Store It!

In the immortal words of Henry David Thoreau: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Wonderful in theory, but where did Henry put the croquet mallets when it was sleigh-riding season? His first drafts? That sweater that his mother made him? His baby pictures? We all have stuff that's neither beautiful nor useful--right at the moment. Most of it can't be tossed; it needs to be stored. But in this world of little time and even littler space, storage can be a tricky business. So we asked HGTV's storage experts to help us solve some common storage dilemmas.

In spite of our good intentions, most of us do not put the vacation snapshots in a photo album the minute we get home. Instead, our prized pix end up lost (the undeveloped film that rolls under the car seat or gets eaten by your purse) or thrown into a big pile with last year's graduation shots. Some better ideas:

• If you're going to toss the photos in a box, at least label a separate box (with a tight-fitting lid) for each event, child, year or whatever. Store the boxes on a closet shelf.
  
• To keep your photos in good shape, buy boxes specifically designed to hold them. Stack the photos on their sides. These boxes often have dividers on which you can identify that bunch of photos (vacation '98, kindergarten '92).
• Boxes with cover slots to hold a photo can be left right out on your coffee table. Keep a photo album handy, too. You can slip a few photos in each time you watch HGTV.

Few of us have enough room for a full-fledged home office. Instead, we tuck a computer into a guest room corner or have a desk in the kitchen. Unless you want your guests reading your phone bill or your paperwork used for place mats, you better be darn organized. One solution is to close off the space somehow, with a rolltop desk, a tall screen, curtains or doors.

Chris Casson Madden's home office is in a closet. "I put two French doors on the closet and placed a board across two file drawers. My laptop is in there. This whole thing can be closed off--you can't even see it's in there," Madden says. For extra storage in a tight space, three shelves go up to the ceiling above the desk, and a light fixture is built in. "On those shelves I have little teeny matching wicker baskets where I keep everything. It looks great," she says. Other office ideas:

• If you're short on file storage, hide a filing cabinet under a table, says Shari Hiller, co-host of Room by Room. "Cover a low filing cabinet with a round particleboard top and a skirt that falls to the floor. This is an ideal place to keep things infrequently needed, and people would never know what the 'table' really is."
  
• Pens, scissors, rulers, Post-it Note pads, envelopes, business cards, staples and clips--all can be kept in boxes that you buy or make.

Follow these tips and next season your holiday decorations, kids schoolwork and summer clothes will no longer be in that mystery pile in the basement.

• Give each child his or her own filing cabinet or set of plastic drawers to store a year's-worth of schoolwork and art. Take charge of report cards and other special things and keep them in your own plastic drawers for each child.
  
• For Christmas-item storage just break down and buy the great big plastic oversize containers with lids in green and red. They won't crush like cardboard, and the colors tell you what's in them.
  
• Plastic-covered metal grid shelves let air circulate through off-season clothes. A school locker can also be used to store clothing.
  
• Don't forget under the beds, says Kitty Bartholomew, host of Kitty Bartholomew: You're Home. "You can get risers and raise the bed, then store seasonal stuff out of sight. Buy boxes with wheels or get wheels with heavy-duty tape that you can attach to cardboard or plastic boxes. Then you just skootch the boxes in and out from underneath the bed."

If you've ever been looking for a tennis racket and had your snow skis fall on you, you know what a challenge storing sports equipment can be. Today there are storage racks and shelves built just for sporting goods, and carts, baskets and plastic boxes can hold the overflow. Try these ideas:

• Before you store: make sure equipment is in good working order and is ready to put away. Gloves should be oiled, for instance, and scuba fins should be protected from heat, which can cause them to dry out and crack.
  
• Use wall space to hang whatever you can. Racks with pincers can hold bats, rackets, lacrosse sticks, etc. Vinyl-coated storage hooks can hold jump ropes and ski poles. Try Velcro to attach tennis rackets.
  
• Turn overhead space into storage. Place skis on garage beams, or use overhead brackets.
  
• Tall wicker baskets can hold items that are less than twice the height of the basket (or else it will tip over).
  
• Balls can be stored in wire baskets, plastic bins or on bat and ball shelves available from sports stores. The key: Keep balls off the floor.
  
• Bags that can hang off hooks are handy, says Room by Room's Matt Fox. "When I was little we stored everything in duffel bags; now rip-stop bags are even better. Each child can have his own bag for soccer ball, shin guards and shoes, for instance."
  
• An old school locker is perfect for hanging baseball bats. The cubby up above can hold caps, mitts, balls.

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