Very small room. Pretty much dorm size. Solutions for storage

EliteLamer

I have been living in a small room for a while and I have 3 other roommates. I have a ton of stuff that I need to make fit and look good.. I am also trying to get a minifridge and limited plates,bowls and glasses to fit in my room. Due to the fact that no one ever does anything with the dishes. What are some creative ways I can unload the rest of my stuff with out putting anything on the floor? Right now I have two shelves up that look pretty and were cheap. Along with my my mounted flat screen.. I need more wall mountable options to get that fridge up and unload about 4 more boxes of stuff. One box is all video games.. I have a huge problem on where to put my extra sheets and dirty clothes.

NightDragon

By saying "without putting anything on the floor", I assume you just mean "use up more floor space".

If that's the case, you might consider raising your bed up higher, if possible, so you can fit boxes or tubs under it. A lot of people I know in college did this in the limited space they had, and it worked out really well.

Also if you have a closet, they've got these stacked-compartment cloth things you can buy that hang from the bar...so you can put shoes and whatnot in 'em and not take up any additional floor space, either.

If you can share a larger mini-fridge with your roommates (I don't know if they have their own or what) that could absolutely conserve space. Try to stack stack-able things if you can. If there's already a mini-fridge in the room, and it's sturdy enough, you could probably find/fashion something to go ontop of it to hold all of your dishware and such.

Dehumanized

Yeah, bed risers should be your first avenue of attack. Cinder blocks work in a pinch, if you wanna go with the authentic dorm room method.

DeathPrawn

Bed risers are a must (quick side-note: as tempting as it is, do NOT put your mini-fridge under your newly-raised bed.)

Also, you might want to look into wall-mounted shelves. My college has a great thing where they'll install shelving units in your walls and only charge you parts (support standards that go on the walls, brackets that go into the standards, planks of wood for the shelves). I got myself set up with a shitton of shelves for cheap, and now I have all the space in the world.

Raneados

an idea I did in college was to raise to bed to a very high degree, basically to Upper-bunk-bed heights, then you put your computer desk + stuff underneath it

tadaa, more space, maybe for a dresser or some sort of unit storage

wogi

Ok, I'll assume 100 sq feet, that's the smallest dorm I ever lived in. two of us in there... blargh it was bad.

First off, get your bed off the floor. Way off. Put your desk under it. Or a sofa. Or whatever. That's going to give you loads more space, with the mild inconvenience of having to climb up to your bed. Well worth it.

Second, Ikea. Oh man, they have some awesome space solutions. If you have a chance, go to an Ikea store, walk through their tiny sq foot appartments. (They might have some of this stuff online, I dunno)
The only reason I say Ikea is for the most part, they have shelves and storage stuff for cheaper than you could easily get the materials. The stuff is pretty well built, and not likely to fall apart on you.

Raneados

oh hell yes go to ikea and walk through their sample small rooms

fucking amazing, even if you don't care for their furniture, amazing ideas

Mojo_Jojo

Could you take a few photos and sketch out the room as is? It'll really change this from generic advice to something more useful.

BlindZenDriver

What height is the ceiling at? If it's high enough you can put a shelf over the door and perhaps the window as well. Those locations are often overlooked and will visibly take up little space because we focus on the openings instead. Here is a link to a random page illustrating it http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/look/look-a-shelf-over-a-door-061827

EliteLamer

matt has a problem

Lofting your bed and putting your computer desk under it along with a shelf or two is probably the quickest way to get more space.

EliteLamer

my room isn't high enough

dlinfiniti

are you allowed to drill into the walls?

matt has a problem

The bed only needs to be ~4 feet off the ground really, enough for you to sit under it at the desk. Unless you have some non-standard ceilings they're 8', which should leave you a good 3 feet of space to get on the bed.

wogi

Yeah, you'd be surprised how little space you need to loft the bed comfortably. Lofting it is really the best thing to do.

Spacemilk

EliteLamer wrote: »

my room isn't high enough

You may think that, but really you don't need to stand up under your loft (depending on what you put under there), and you don't need to stand up on your bed - heck, you only need to be able to sit up, at most. One year in college I had a loft that was high enough I couldn't even sit all the way up (I'm 5'6") and I was fine. I think I woke up once and sat straight up, but I learned quickly and never did that again.

Some configurations that work really well: (this is the point where I wish I could draw, and that I had a scanner, so I could sketch these out)

• Loft the bed, then put a sofa underneath. The height of the bottom of the loft needs to be about shoulder height. You can put padded runners under the loft if you're afraid of people bonking their head. Then you put a TV on top of your fridge, across from the couch. Tada! You've combined your bed and sofa space and you can watch TV from your sofa or the bed.
• Loft the bed and put your desk underneath. One configuration I saw at college was to have a desk and a closet under the bed. They were built in to the loft so they acted as supports. The walking space for the two was in between. It was a little cramped but it did work very well. You also pick up shelf space over the desk.
• Loft the bed, put the TV and fridge under it to one side, and a desk to the other side. Set up a couch or futon across from the TV. (you could even just do a single recliner)

The great thing about a lofted bed is that you can pretty much have a room that's only slightly bigger than the bed, and you can fit a bed, a TV, a desk, and a fridge underneath.

Throughout college I shared 120 sq. ft. rooms with one roommate and with lofted beds, we had plenty of space - enough for two beds, two desks, two closets, (desk and closet were not built into the loft FYI) a recliner, a fridge, and a TV. It's really amazing what getting a loft can do for your room.

wogi

Spacemilk wrote: »

Throughout college I shared 120 sq. ft. rooms with one roommate and with lofted beds, we had plenty of space - enough for two beds, two desks, two closets, (desk and closet were not built into the loft FYI) a recliner, a fridge, and a TV. It's really amazing what getting a loft can do for your room.

This- we had something similar, but with 100 sq feet, and closets built into the room, eating up about 10 sq feet.
If you have a built in closet, look at sticking the fridge in there.

EliteLamer

dlinfiniti wrote: »

are you allowed to drill into the walls?

That's what I have been doing