Hide toys, tidy away cables – and make friends with baskets: 11 clever home storage hacks

Modern home life is messy: between scattered toys, shoe piles by the front door and tangled cables, it can be hard to keep on top of the clutter.

We’ve asked design experts and home organisers for their best tips on how to hide it all, from furniture with charging drawers to hidden living room storage, cable clips and sleeves to an overlooked, hidden bathroom storage spot. And remember: storage baskets are your friend.

Conceal cables with clips, sleeves and boxes

Rachel Burditt, home organiser at The Declutter Darling, says clients often ask for help hiding the cables that dangle from lamps, speakers and TVs. Her solution? Using small cable clips (available from DIY stores such as Toolstation) to hold them in place on the back or side of the item. You just stick or nail the clip on to a hidden spot and feed the cable through it, keeping it out of sight. For cables that need to run along the floor, she recommends using cord sleeves – essentially jackets for your wires – that blend into your decor. She gets hers from Amazon, but you’ll find them in all DIY shops.

In areas where multiple cables are needed, it might be worth investing in a cable box. They’re neutral containers you can sit a block of sockets in, keeping wires and plugs hidden and stopping them from gathering dust. Muji’s white, steel cable organiser looks like a desk tidy and fits into even the most minimalist aesthetic.

“You can also get trays that attach under tables to keep wires tidy, which work well if you’ve got a home office,” Burditt says. Try Livivo’s under-desk cord organiser.

Amazon cord sleeves

_{£5.10 at Amazon}

Muji steel cable organiser

_{£19.95 at Muji}

Livivo cord organiser

_{£14.99 at B&Q
£14.99 at Amazon}

Create a ‘tech garage’

The games consoles, tablets, laptops and phones that litter surfaces while they’re charging can also be hidden. Interior designer Loren Kreiss recommends creating a charging drawer in a bedside table or chest of drawers. Drill or cut a hole in the back. Put a block of sockets inside, run an extension cord through the hole and connect them to the nearest power outlet. Then leave your chargers in the drawer, ready to go.

Interior designer Wesley Moon takes a similar approach with beauty devices: “I always build outlets into a drawer in vanity stations so things like hairdryers can stay plugged in.” This means they’re always tidied away. If you’re DIY-phobic, check out Wayfair, which has a range of cable management cabinets with holes pre-cut into the back. Try the stylish Holz Stainless Steel 2 with a ridged, moody black finish and a slot for wires at the back.

Holz stainless steel 2 cabinet

_{£125.99 at Wayfair}

Discover the magic of a small trolley

If you don’t have an office and don’t want your home to look like a student library post-6pm on WFH days, an easy way to clear away your tech, stationery and paperwork is a must. Burditt recommends using a butcher’s trolley from Ikea, such as the Räskog – a stack of three baskets on wheels that you can fill with your work essentials and then stow away easily. “They’re really small [61 x 28 x 38cm]. Mine fits in my under-the-stairs cupboard.”

They are also great for handbag collections, tool kits and more. Burditt recommends them for storing kids’ craft materials – allowing you to wheel the glue, glitter, felt tips, card etc out of sight after your little one has finished their masterpiece.

Want a way to store the artworks they’re making? “Get one of the My Little Davinci picture frames,” says Imani Keal, DIY content creator at @imaniathome. “They allow you to store up to 50 sheets of paper, and you can display the nicest one on the outside.”

Ikea Råskog

_{£25 at Ikea}

My Little Davinci multi-storage picture frames

_{£29.99 at My Little Davinci
£29.99 at Amazon}

Bulky kitchen appliances such as air fryers and toasters take up valuable counter space. “If people have enough room, a walk-in pantry with a dedicated worktop is a great place to store appliances,” says Emma Perkin, director of Emil Eve Architects. “But of course, that’s not achievable for everyone.”

For smaller kitchens, Perkin recommends adapting standard cupboards. “You can modify a tall, open-backed Ikea cabinet – for example, a Metod high cabinet – by adding a worktop-height work surface to one of the shelves and installing a plug socket. By removing or reducing the depth of the shelves above this (by either cutting them narrower or using shelves from the matching wall unit, which are only 360mm deep), you can create space for your toaster and air fryer inside a cupboard, with shelves for spices, jars and bottles above.”

Metod high cabinet

_{£146 at Ikea}

Store kids’ toys in furniture

“I don’t want plastic scattered everywhere, so I use hidden storage for toys,” says Burditt. She labels thin, flat storage bags – such as underbed grey storage bags from Dunelm – to keep puzzles, games and Lego under her sofa. “It’s all tucked away, but my kids know exactly where to find their things.”

For larger items, she says an ottoman works well. “Just close it up, throw a blanket and some cushions over it, and suddenly it’s extra seating.” With a capacity of 117 litres, you could fit plenty of Lego in Swyft’s cushioned storage 02 bench, available in velvet, boucle or linen.

Moon takes a similar, but built-in, approach. “In one New York apartment, we created a banquette along one wall. It worked as a dining nook, but the seat lifted up to reveal compartments underneath. Each child had their own section for toys, and we made sure the lids had spring mechanisms so they stayed open – no pinched fingers!”

Dunelm storage bags

_{£5 at Dunelm}

Swyft storage bench

_{From £299 at Swyft
From £340 at John Lewis}

Hide your home gym gear in a throw basket

If you want to keep heavy dumbbells to hand in your living room without ruining the aesthetic, hide them in a sturdy, shallow throw basket such as H&M’s large handmade seagrass storage basket. “Put the weights at the bottom of the basket, and then use it to hold throw blankets on top to camouflage them,” says Keal.

H&M storage basket

_{£19.99 at H&M}

If you want to get fitter without joining a gym, check out our guide to the best home exercise kit

Conceal litter boxes and dog crates

“You can place a litter box at the bottom of a cupboard, getting a carpenter to cut in a discreet entry hole for your cat,” says Perkin. “We designed one against an external wall with an air vent leading outside, helping with ventilation and keeping things smelling fresh.” B&Q has a range of cupboards and cabinets designed to hide cat paraphernalia, such as the Feandrea decorative litter box cabinet, which has a flexible internal space where litter trays, cat beds and bowls of food can be tucked away.

Moon took a similar approach to Perkin when it came to integrating a dog crate into a design for a client. “We built it into an end table beside their sofa,” he says. “Instead of a basic wire crate, we used a decorative metal grille – similar to what you’d see on an air vent, but with larger openings for airflow. He used New York-based Architectural Grille to make custom-designed sides, working with a carpenter on the frame. “We bolted it to the floor so its table surface didn’t wobble when the dog moved,” he says.

Lots of furniture designers are selling similar dog crate furniture on Etsy. Tolotun dog house makes mid-century modern dog crates that look more like kooky 1970s display cabinets. Meanwhile, Kurr Pets’ dog and cat beds and houses, made of Baltic birch plywood and jewel- and pastel-tone fabric, would blend into a contemporary flat.

Feandrea litter cabinet

_{£50.99 at Songmics
£78.39 at B&Q}

Tolotun dog house

_{From £279.56 at Etsy}

Hide your gas meter and boiler with shelving

Burditt has a simple idea for keeping an exposed gas meter concealed, which she used for a recent client. “We got a picture shelf and put that underneath it, and then got a few big prints to put in front of it.”

Perkin says: “Hiding an ugly boiler inside a cupboard can make a massive difference. There are lots available specifically for this, or you could incorporate the boiler into a larger cupboard, perhaps with shelving around it for additional storage. She recommends Lark & Larks, who make tall cupboards specifically designed to conceal boilers, starting at £75.16. “You need to make sure you leave adequate space around and in front of the boiler for ventilation and access.”

Photograph: brizmaker/Getty Images

Lark & Larks boiler cupboard

_{£75.16 at Larks & Larks}

Discover secret hiding spots in your bathroom

“You know the panel on your bath? On some – usually the wooden ones – you can actually slide that out and use the space behind it,” says Burditt. If not, she recommends installing a Ceramica bath storage panel, which turns the space around your bath into a hidden cupboard with a sliding, lockable door. She says this is good for storing kids’ bathroom toys, spare beauty and cleaning products and loo rolls.

Perkin says if you’re planning to renovate your bathroom and you’re getting a concealed cistern and wall-hung toilet installed, you have an opportunity to put in hidden storage. “You’re building out the wall anyway for the cistern to sit behind,” she says. “So you can get a carpenter to build in recessed shelves above the cistern, with mirrored doors flush with your new wall.”

Ceramica panel

_{£119.99 at Plumb World}

Keep your hallway paraphernalia under wraps

Try Ikea’s Trones storage cabinet. “They are only 18cm deep and work in every single space,” says Keal. It looks like a clean white box, and was designed to store shoes, but she uses it to hide her wifi router, incoming post, her dog’s leash, food and toys. “And you can use the top of it to put a little basket or drop your keys on.”

And for the shoe littering? Perkin says if you’re undergoing renovations and you have a generous living room next to the entrance hall, “you could look to borrow a bit of space from this to create recessed shoe and coat storage from the hallway.” Like Keal, she recommends fold-out racks for storing shoes away in narrow spaces. More than 10 pairs of shoes can be tucked away in the five-tiered steel Logan shoe rack from Sklum (£209.95). Wayfair also has a range of similar shoe tidies, such as the Sheringham six-pair storage with a wooden slatted finish.

Ikea Trones cabinet

_{£25 for two at Ikea}

Sheringham shoe storage

_{£78.99 at Wayfair}

And for everything else?

Whether they’re wardrobes or kitchen units, Perkin recommends always building cupboards up to the ceiling. “We will often try to avoid any form of cupboards or wardrobes that stop below, because it creates a dust trap and you’re just wasting space that you could use.” While that space might be hard to get to, it’s a great place to store the things you only need every now and then – boxes of Christmas decorations, for example. You can do this by stacking two standard kitchen units on top of each other.

“I always recommend getting a bed that’s at least eight to 12 inches off the ground,” says Keal, “so you can slide suitcases and other items under it.” Dusk and Loaf both have great options with vast ottoman storage. “It’s the perfect space for things you don’t need access to all the time and want to keep out of sight.”