Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Under the bed storage for Malm

This is a long overdue post because we've been using these under the bed storage boxes for a few months now. But they're great! Our current place feels just right for us, but at 400ish sf we definitely had to do a lot of downsizing and we still came up a little short on storage. We got more ruthless with our clothes, which means we can fit everything we own into one dresser and one closet. But because the bedroom is small we had to put the dresser in the closet, which meant there was absolutely nowhere for our shoes to go. Neither of us was quite ready to commit to living with two pairs each, so we went searching for other options.

We've had a low Malm bedframe for the last decade and it's served us well. It's survived three moves without any sign of distress. The only downside to the low bed is that you can't get storage containers to go under it. I prefer not to store stuff under the bed, honestly, so that's never been an issue. But when you're living in a small space, that real estate suddenly becomes very valuable.

If you get a higher framed Malm, you can actually get drawers that are made specifically for the bed and work perfectly with it. For a hot second (okay, fine, two days) we actually considered getting rid of our bed and buying a whole new one just so we could have the drawers. But all we really needed was space for our shoes and I knew we didn't need large drawers for that.

We looked for storage boxes that would work, but the clearance on the low Malm is just about 4 inches and we had a hard time finding anything decent.

Instead, Dustin built out some simple wooden boxes for us in just the right dimensions. Because they are sliding in and out on wood floors, we added strips of felt on the bottom edges so they'd glide easily.

underbed shoe storage
{apologies for my incredibly non-inspirational shoe collection - shoes are 100% not my thing so I just wear them into the ground and then dread shopping for new ones}
shoe storage

They aren't tall enough for heels, but you can easily lay them sideways instead.

The next step is going to be adding a dust cover. I plan to just get some large pieces of felt, tack them down in the back and then weight down the front edge so it drapes nicely over the front of the box. This way we can easily pull the cover back to access the shoes but it will keep dust out. (Um, yeah. I still haven't done this but I'm happy to report that dust hasn't been a big issue)

I'm so happy with how these turned out and they're actually easier than our previous closet storage solution. Instead of leaving my shoes in a pile by the door I'm pretty good about putting them away as soon as I get home.

12 comments:

  1. Shoes are also not my thing and I also wear them into the ground and then despair when I can't find the exact same pair years later. Enter: Ebay. I've had good luck replacing things with their exact replica, found in the depths of Ebay.

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    1. Ha! I'm too lazy for Ebay and always just end up buying something, anything, when J. Crew or Madewell do the additional 40% sale items sale. And lately I've been hitting the Lands End sale for shoes as well. Makes me feel extremely middle aged, and their shoe selection can be super hit or miss, but I have a couple pairs that have been absolute workhorses and I paid very little for them because the sales are so good.

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  2. I love this! We also live in an apartment with limited storage, and our hallway is tiny. We just upgraded to a Pax-wardrobe in out bedroom though, and as materialistic as it may sound, it has made my life a little bit better :) I store most of my shoes in there, but I'm thinking about adding some storage under our bed too.

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    1. I miss our Pax wardrobes! They work so well and I loved getting mine set up exactly right for my stuff. The beauty of customization!

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  3. I was so excited when I saw your post, because we have the same bed and then I was so sad when I realized I had no one to build me cool under the bed storage. :( We bought one from Container Store, but it gets stuck and it drives me nuts. I'm hoping to just rearrange the closet so more of our shoes fit in there, because I hate it not working right now.

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    1. Yes, having someone to whip up projects like this is an unfair advantage!

      Would you be interested in tackling it if I got exact measurements and instructions for a tutorial? It was a really fast project and doesn't require much woodworking experience at all!

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    2. Yes please! That would be an awesome low investment project for us to try our woodworking skills. Let me know if you need my email or if you get it automatically. Thanks!

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    3. Okay, it might take me a couple weeks since I have to coordinate with D! I can't see your email, but you can email me at rachel.heartoflight@gmail.com if you want. I'll post the tutorial on the blog once it's ready. It won't have pretty progress pictures, probably, but it should be fairly easy to follow!

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  4. This is great! Where do you guys have the space to execute projects like this? We had wanted to frame out our bathroom mirrors using trim and all those simple looking tutorials online...and we have had the pieces of trim taking up room in our guest room for over TWO years because we don't have anywhere but the living room to stain them. Ugh, condo living in LA.

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    1. We are lucky and have a patio and small yard in our current space! So we do all our projects there. In our old place we didn't have any outdoor space but we used our parking space for a lot of projects (and also did stuff in the apartment, which is a bummer, I agree!).

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  5. Can you share the dimensions of your drawers? I'm hoping to do a similar project :)

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