If you've just moved into your first home, you'll want to make sure that you can use your loft to store lots of items safely and efficiently. Here are 7 tips for organising loft shelves to declutter your new home.
Do you have a house that has a loft but you have no idea what to do with it?
The loft is the perfect place to store all your occasional things out of sight. Having an organised loft shelving system can make your life easier and save you time trying to retrieve the things that you’ve stored in your loft.
With the loft, you can declutter your overcrowded areas in your everyday living spaces. It reduces the stress from hoarding. It’s a chance to transform your go-to storage area into a clutter-free organised zone for all your occasional use items.
Need advice on how to organise your loft to take full advantage of its features and benefits? We’ve got your back. Here are some tips for when you’re planning and organising your loft for storage.
1. Boarding Your Loft
If it hasn’t been done already you should start with loft boarding. This provides a safe access platform when you’re moving around in your loft and increases your available storage space.
To board your loft, start by getting all the right tools and materials such as protective gear. Measure the space in your loft and use the most cost effective board sizes for your area.
When you board your loft, add Loft Legs to raise the boarding to prevent squashing your insulation. This will ensure your loft insulation performs to its optimum potential, ensuring all the heat in your home is not lost through the roof.
2. Planning the Loft Space
Go through all your items and categorise them if you’ll be keeping them, selling them, or throwing them away.
Take a look at your loft and plan out how you will be using the space and where you will be placing your items within the space. Sketch out your loft space so that you know what space you have available and so you know how much storage you can fit into your loft.
Make an inventory list near the loft entrance so you can quickly see if the item you need is up there. A good tip is to store regularly used items nearest the loft hatch.
3. Label Your Boxes
Whether moving or storing items, labels help a great deal to keep track of where things belong and make it easy for others to know what’s inside.
Don’t store clothes or photo albums in bin bags as this can cause them to mould or attract insects. Storing your items in boxes with lids will protect your belongings from the different temperatures and humidity that can be found in a loft.
Find sturdy plastic containers so you can stack them and take advantage of the vertical space. Use labels to make it easier to find your items or you can try organizing them through see-through or coloured boxes. For example, use green boxes are for your Christmas decorations and yellow boxes for spring items.
We recommend putting labels on all sides to prevent getting confused when you place the box back.
4. Add Hanging Rods
Most houses have a slanted ceiling or roofline, so placing rods for hanging can make good use of this hard to use vertical space.
If the loft is clean and you feel comfortable storing your clothes there, it’s an ideal spot for holding your off-season clothing. Make sure to place them inside plastic protectors to prevent specks of dust from sticking on them. Your clothes will be off the floor and it will give you more space to store your boxed shoes, coats, and the like.
5. Create Loft “Zones”
Store all the containers of a certain category together. For example, keep the boxes with children's toys all in one corner. With zones, it’s easier to check where your items are, and saves a lot of hunting for the stored items.
Consider all the items you will need and how regularly you will need them. Assign zones in different colours so you easily find and organise them in your inventory list.
6. Extend Your Loft Space
You can add additional storage space in your loft by building in as many loft shelves as you can between the trusses. The more trusses in your loft, the more shelves there can be. Loft Ledge is an easy, convenient way to create shelving in between trusses.
Having separate shelves will allow you to grab from the bottom of a stack without having to move everything on top of it.
Try not to put too much in the loft as overloading it can be dangerous. New build homes in the UK are designed and built to carry a storage load of 25Kg per square metre plus the weight of a person accessing the loft.
7. Maintain the Organization
You may think that you have finished after organising all your things in the loft, but you have to make sure to maintain the organisation in your loft so it doesn’t become cluttered over time.
When you get new items, always discard what you no longer use instead of putting it in the loft. If you grabbed something from your loft, make sure to always return it to where you got it from.
Organise Your Loft Shelves Now!
Once you’ve finished organising your stuff on the shelves in the loft, you’ll realise how much it benefits the other less cluttered rooms in the house. Though it’s hard work, it will benefit you in the long run.
Feel free to check out at our products that will make your loft more practical and comfortable. Whether you need lighting, a downlight cover, Loft Legs or creating shelves between trusses with our Loft Ledge you will find it all here.
If you want more information or you have questions, don’t be afraid to contact us here!