5 Creative DIY Shelf Ideas for Small Spaces

Do you live in a small home or condo? If so, you’re probably intimately aware of how difficult it can be to keep all of your personal items put away, organized, and out of sight. It can all seem a little bit impossible, can’t it? However, with a few smart ideas and some elbow grease, you can seriously upgrade your small home’s storage capacity. Let’s dive into some space-saving solutions.

Creative Shelf Ideas for Your Small Space

#1: Use Those Stud Spaces Wisely

If you think about it, your walls have tons of unused space behind them. They’re mainly filled with insulation, but there might be some wires and piping—so tread carefully with this tip. DIY home projects should be safety-forward, and you should know where your electrical and plumbing run before deciding to saw into your wall. However, if you can identify a good place or two, busting out several alcoves in between your wall’s studs can majorly boost storage space. This tip is great for bedrooms, bathrooms, and even kitchens!

#2: Add Storage Behind Doors

Doors tend to open in a way that creates “pockets” of unused space. However, with some clever thinking, planning, and handiwork, you can create shallow shelves behind doors that will get used more than you might think. You could even create a wedge-like shelf so that when the door opens, it’s flush against the shelf itself. Doors aren’t open or closed 100% of the time, so don’t miss a chance to create a fun space that you can enjoy when you’re quietly tucked into your room as well. 

#3: Use Joist Spaces

If you have a basement in your small home or condo, you already know that it’s prime real estate for storing things—in fact, you probably have many things down there that you wish you could have upstairs. However, there’s a lot of storage that you aren’t even using—and storage that will stay dry even if you have a basement that is known for getting wet.

Up in the floor joists, there’s so much space. You may not be able to fit large items up there, but you certainly can fit bins, extra toilet paper, home improvement supplies, and much more. Shelfology’s got the customizable shelving solutions to work with your vision for the space. Get creative with what you put up there!

#4: Use the Top of Your Closets More Efficiently

Most closets are built to be extremely inefficient. Most people don’t have dozens of full-length dresses and coats hanging in their bedroom closets. This means that there’s wasted space – and that wasted space is everywhere. If you’ve ever tried to stack linens in the top of your closet, you’ll know that things get a little bit wonky and slide sideways everywhere. 
Yeah, not fun.

You can get around this by building custom shelves in your closet. You could even set up a double-stacked hanging rack system to save that space, too. A closet makeover could be just the thing to free up extra space you need!

#5 Choose Shallow Shelves

It may seem like a no-brainer, but most shelves are 8 - 10” deep and smaller spaces can’t always handle that depth. Shelfology offers shallow shelves at 6” deep and picture ledges at 3-5-and 7” deep. Less depth doesn’t always mean less storage, though. Using smaller shelves gives you the opportunity to show off special items or collections that might get lost on a deep shelf. By taking advantage of the appropriate scale ratio, your tiny treasures will shine in their rightful place. 

Did any of these spark an idea or pique your interest? We hope you are now armed with ideas for how to make your small space more livable and easier to store your items!