5 Innovative Storage Solutions for Small Spaces

If new to your floor-plan vocabulary, a flex room is an anything and everything room. Meant as a second family room, this space has the flexibility to be whatever you need it to be. Whether an office, game room or pantry, this room lets you add to your living space whatever you feel is missing.

Built right into the shower wall, a shower niche lets you store all your shampoos, soaps and scrubs right where you need them. While a shower organizer may not suit the design style of your bathroom, a niche can be tiled to match the rest of the shower. This way it blends in as an elegant and effective storage solution for bathrooms that often get cluttered with products.

Pull-out cabinets are a great way to take full advantage of the depth of your lower cabinets. Designed like a drawer housed within a cabinet, the pull-out function means you won't have to dig around the back of the cabinet to find lost items. Pull-out cabinets let you survey all that is stored within the cabinet easily and conveniently. They work great under sinks for bins and large cleaning supplies, or to store heavy items like pots that are too heavy for upper cupboards.

Store sponges, soaps and pot scrubbers in this sneaky little cabinet. Angling out from just below the sink, it’s an innovative way to use a kitchen façade that often gets overlooked. While small, it’s a great place to store those little odds and ends that get lost in larger cupboards and drawers, and having all clean-up utensils in one easy-to-access place makes it easier to keep your small kitchen space mess-free.

Recessed cabinets are a great option for extra kitchen storage. Behind sinks or running along counters, they can be used to store items that would otherwise take up precious space. Acting as an extension of the counter itself, recessed cabinets keeo everyday cooking items like oils and vinegars, knife blocks and utensil jars within arm's reach. Open cabinets can be tiled to match the kitchen backsplash, while cabinets with sliding doors neatly hide it all away.

Urban growth and renewed zest for city living has people from all walks of life making the move to condo and apartment dwelling. But while this transition might mean reducing your square-footage, it doesn’t have to mean compromising on comfort. Many new developments are incorporating savvy storage solutions for these small spaces, letting everyone from downsizers, to first-time buyers and retirees maximize their living space.

"Condos keep getting smaller and storage is always in high demand," says Alexis Rule, a designer with Onni Group. Rule recently designed the False Creek development Block 100 and offered bcliving some of her innovative design ideas for small spaces.

These five storage solutions create "specific places for you to store your items in a more organized fashion."