As I sit here thinking about how much space I am going to leave behind when we move to MS I can't help wondering how big or small the place we find down there to live in. And where will I put all my preps supplies when we do find a place. Right now I live in a 1900 sq ft house. I will be lucky if I can get a 1000 sg ft house down there. And if by chance we have to move in to a mobile home I won't have even a 1000 sq ft. So I am going to have to rely on the way I hid my storage for years when we live in a 3 bedroom 12 x 60 mobile home.
It was not easy but I was able to keep 6 months worth of some things and a year's worth of others in the 12 x 60 mobile home and no one knew it was there except my husband, our kids and I. The biggest trick I used was to buy furniture more for function then for looks. One of the first pieces I bought was an old buffet kind of like the one pictured below.
Next I bought two new metal trash cans. I had my husband cut two circles of 3/4 inch plywood just 2 inches bigger in diameter than the top of the can. I place one can at one end of the couch and the other one next to the living room chair. I filled one with bags of sugar and the other with bags of flour, placed the plywood on top, covered with a pretty ruffled floor length table skirt and then placed a matching lamp and a couple of pictures on each table.
My washer and dryer were in a little alcove in the hallway and there was no storage in that area at all. Lucky for me my bil was working in a mobile home place where all they did was build mobile homes. He was able to get the materials to make me a small cabinet over the washer and dryer for me to place laundry and cleaning supplies.
The bathroom had no storage except for a small area under the sink and the medicine cabinet. So it really didn't have any storage all all. I found a tall narrow dresser at a yard sale one day for $10. It was just about the same size and the one below. It was just small enough to fit in the bathroom and not block the door so I bought it. In this one I kept extra my blow dryer, curling iron, bath soap, combs and brushes, extra toothbrushes, tooth paste, wash clothes, hand towels and bath towels. I placed a wicker basket on the back of the stool to store a few rolls of extra bath tissues.
My last area of hidden storage was in our closet. The closet took 3/4 of the one longest wall in our bedroom. Why more space then what we needed for clothes. At one end was the open to get into the water heater so we could not put any thing there but at the other end there was a 2 foot x 18 inch floor to ceiling space we did not need. My husband built shelves in that space and that is where I stored out of season clothes, extra clothes for the kids to grow in to and sewing supplies.
My whole point in this post is to show you that no matter how small your place is you can store at least 6 months worth of food if you pick your furniture for function more that looks. Even then if you watch out you can find some really nice pieces cheap that just need a little TLC you can proudly display them and have hidden storage at the same time. You can have pieces of art ( furniture are works of art, at least old pieces are) that are beautiful to look at and enjoy and the hidden storage you want as an added bonus.
Prepping Granny