A Storage Concept for Your Home: Order You Never Have to See

What a storage concept is

A storage concept is a plan that assigns every item in the household a place that suits the way it is used. That sounds banal, yet it is the opposite of how most homes come about. There, furnishing comes first, and only afterwards does anyone look for places where things might fit.

The difference lies in the sequence. Buying furniture answers the question: which cupboard do I like? A storage concept first asks something else: what actually has to go in here, and when do I reach for it?

Order does not come from more cupboards. It comes when everything lives where it is needed.

For the M. family, this meant that the jackets belong in the hallway, but the winter coats do not. The sports kit belongs by the front door, not in the children's room. And the suitcases that have blocked the bedroom wardrobe for years need a place of their own, not a gap wedged between the jumpers.

What does it cost to carry on without a plan? Every day you lose a few minutes to searching, and every week another piece of furniture is added that solves nothing. A cupboard bought in haste then sits in the wrong place for a decade, and the clutter behind it grows. So where do you begin?

The first step: an honest inventory

Before we draw anything, we count. This is the least popular and most important part of the planning. We walk through the apartment together and record what is there and what is staying.

1. Clothing. Running metres of hanging rail, number of shelves for folded items, drawers for underwear and linen. Separated by person and by season.
2. Shoes. Pairs per person, separated into everyday and seasonal. The number almost always comes as a surprise.
3. Books and media. Running metres of shelving, plus formats. Art books need different depths from paperbacks.
4. Household. Vacuum cleaner, ironing board, cleaning products, clothes airer, tools, provisions.
5. Rarely used items. Suitcases, Christmas decorations, sports equipment, documents, keepsakes.
6. Things that may go. A renovation is a good moment to part with them.

For the M. family, the inventory came to about eleven running metres of hanging rail, around 60 pairs of shoes and nine metres of books. These figures are the basis for every further decision. Without them you plan cupboards by feel, and feel almost always underestimates.

Organising storage by frequency of use

The most important principle of a storage concept is to organise by frequency of use. What you need daily sits within easy reach and on your way. What you rarely need can sit further away, higher up or lower down.

In Viennese Altbau apartments with ceilings over three metres, this is a great advantage. A floor-to-ceiling fitted wardrobe still has almost a metre of space above 2.20 metres, ideal for seasonal and annual items. With a good ladder or an integrated ladder rail, that space becomes genuinely usable. And which room should show the first result?

The hallway: where order begins

The hallway decides whether an apartment looks tidy. All the routes come together here, and everything without a fixed place ends up here.

For the M. family, we replaced the chest of drawers and the coat stand with a continuous run of wardrobes. Because the corridor is narrow, it is only 40 centimetres deep. The jackets hang on pull-out hanging rails set across the front, and the shoes sit in shallow tilting compartments. Each family member has a compartment of their own at eye level, the children at theirs. A small bench in an alcove makes putting on shoes easier.

Picture the morning after the change. The children find their shoes in one second, a sensor light switches on inside the wardrobe, and the hallway is empty again before the door has even closed.

What matters in the hallway:

• Shallow depth, generous width. Better 35 to 45 centimetres across the whole length of the wall than 60 centimetres over two metres.
• A place for the moment of arrival. A small shelf for keys, post and phone, ideally with a socket.
• Ventilation for shoes and wet jackets. Joints or ventilation slots in the fronts prevent odours.
• Light inside the wardrobe. A sensor light saves the search early in the morning.

How the entrance area is designed as a whole is described in our article on arriving at the entrance. The other rooms need their own answers.

Room by room: where storage belongs

A storage concept looks at each room in terms of its role. Not every room has to take in the same amount, and some rooms should stay almost empty.

Bedroom and dressing room

In the bedroom you need clothing for everyday use, but not the entire stock. Where there is space, a dressing room of its own or a wardrobe zone in the passage to the bathroom is worthwhile. We show at what point this pays off in our article on the walk-in dressing room and its dimensions. A wardrobe needs an interior depth of about 55 to 60 centimetres for hangers. For folded laundry, 40 is enough.

Kitchen and provisions

The kitchen is the room with the highest density of objects. Here, pull-outs, interior layout and corner solutions decide how usable it is. You will find details in our article on the inner workings of the kitchen. Anyone who stores provisions in large quantities benefits from a small pantry, which relieves the kitchen considerably.

Bathroom

In the bathroom there is almost always too little room for towels, spares and cosmetics. A bespoke vanity unit with drawers instead of doors and a tall cabinet in an alcove usually solve this better than individual bathroom furniture.

Living room

The living room should have little visible storage. A bookcase wall or a sideboard that takes technology, games and papers is usually enough. What matters is that cables, routers and chargers get a closed space with sockets.

Children's room

Children need storage at their own height that grows with them. Open shelves and large boxes work at three, closed cupboards at twelve. In our article on the children's room that grows with the child we show how a wardrobe can survive those years.

The forgotten room: household and technology

Almost every apartment lacks a place for the things nobody wants to see: vacuum cleaner, ironing board, clothes airer, cleaning products, tools, glass for recycling. They migrate into the wardrobe, behind the bathroom door or into the corridor.

A small utility cupboard solves this. A width of just one metre and a depth of 60 centimetres is enough, provided it is well laid out. A socket inside the cupboard for the cordless vacuum is important and should already be provided for in the electrical planning. If a washing machine and dryer need to be accommodated, we clarify water, drainage and ventilation early with the plumber.

For the M. family, this cupboard ended up at the end of the corridor, in an alcove that previously held a bookcase. The books have moved to the living room, where they belong. And when it comes to the cupboards themselves, a real choice awaits.

Bespoke fitted wardrobe or system solution

Whether bespoke fitted wardrobes or system wardrobes are the better choice depends on the apartment. In a new-build with straight walls and standard heights, a good system can work. In a Viennese Altbau with crooked walls, window alcoves, radiators and high ceilings, it quickly reaches its limits.

A bespoke wardrobe uses every centimetre: up to the ceiling, into the corner, around the chimney breast. The fronts can be matched to the colour and material concept, so the wardrobe reads as part of the architecture instead of a piece of furniture standing in front of it. This is where our Viennese joinery tradition, which began in 1935, comes into play. Our workshop, Tischlerkultur, has made such built-ins for three generations and builds them in its own workshop, in step with the planning by Richard Atelier. You deal with one contact person from the first line to the handover.

A detailed comparison can be found in the article bespoke fitted wardrobe or system wardrobe. If you are interested in surfaces, our article on veneer and solid wood offers an honest appraisal. We show examples of finished wardrobes on the fitted wardrobes page.

Invisible does not mean impossible to find

A good storage concept makes order invisible, but not inaccessible. Handleless fronts, flush doors and wardrobes in the wall colour make an apartment feel calm. At the same time, everyone has to know what is where.

What helps:

• Interior lighting in deep wardrobes and dressing rooms.
• Pull-outs instead of fixed shelves in areas where you would otherwise have to reach to the back.
• Matching boxes on upper shelves, labelled or organised by colour.
• Deliberate empty space. Plan for roughly ten to fifteen per cent free room, so the order does not collapse with the first new purchase.

A wardrobe is well planned if it is still not full after five years.

That last point is often overlooked. Families grow, hobbies are added, children get bigger. In our article on the apartment that grows with the family we show how to build in these reserves.