Why Walls Are One of My Favorite Organizing Tools

Y’all. I love a wall. More specifically, a windowless wall. Why? Because the organizing possibilities with it are endless. Whether you want to put more of your favorite things on display, add more storage to a tight space, or hang some art, walls won’t let you down!

Display the Things You Love

Walls are so great for displaying more of your personality. If you’re someone who is less of a minimalist and enjoys hanging onto many sentimental items, you have a few organizational options. One, you can store your sentimental items. Two, you can use the items. Or three, and most fun, you can display those sentimental items. What’s an easy way to do this? Find an open wall in a room you inhabit often, put up some shelves, and arrange your sentimental items as if they are pieces of art on those shelves.

Staging your personal, sentimental items in this way allows you to see and interact with the items you hold dear often. This may bring you a serotonin boost (can’t go wrong with that) and/or improve the design of your space. This can be done with sentimental paper items too. On your wall shelves, frame some of your favorite papers (love notes, crinkled class-notes from middle school, your favorite card from grandma, a movie ticket stub from college, a concert ticket for Tyler Childers, you name it!), and place those frames on the shelves. You don’t need to be too precious with it. What matters is that they are grouped together on those shelves.

Create Storage Without Adding Square Footage

Walls are also amazing for adding bonus storage to a tight space. I didn’t invent this concept, though. Ikea has this down pat. Let’s say you’ve minimized/decluttered your home and all closet/cabinet space has been accounted for, but you still have a couple categories that need homes. I suggest finding an underutilized windowless wall in a room that makes sense for your homeless categories’ functions, and throw up some shelves. Make sure the shelving spans the entire height and width of the wall- as much that makes sense within that space. In doing so you’ll have utilized your ceiling height to add some much-needed storage space.

The storage shelves that you add to your walls don’t necessarily need to look like storage shelves. They don’t need to be metro racks or heavy duty steel things. These shelves should first and foremost make sense for the space they are in (size-wise and design wise) and then they should make sense (depth) for the items they will be housing.

So, if you’ve been blessed with a nice, large windowless wall in your living room that you want to put your large collection of board games and Pokemon cards in, you can use Pax cabinets from Ikea (choose which door design is your fave), or Elfa shelves without doors for more of an open-shelf feel. Or maybe you want to have custom shelves built for the wall! Or you might find a cabinet that you like for the bottom portion of the storage and then install some open shelves above it, to get a mix of closed and open storage. There are MANY products out on the market and we will 100% find one that works for your space, design, and storage needs.

Turn Walls Into a Gallery

Windowless walls are also amazing if you’re something of an art collector and have many framed pieces gathering dust in your basement or a closet. If hanging framed art makes you nervous, don’t let it stop you. You can hire people to frame photos or prints as well as people to hang them for you. All you need to do is make the decision to do it, then pick out your open walls, and then hire professionals to get the job done right.

You’ll feel so much happier seeing your favorite things hanging on your walls everyday! This is personally something I want to get better at. I find myself always collecting pieces to hang “someday” and I’m currently realized that that someday is now.

So don’t wait! If you have lots of sentimental items you’d like to see more often, categories of items you’d like to store but don’t have closet space for, and/or framed pieces waiting for your touch, this is your sign to get them to a wall. Put those walls in your home to good use. I promise you won’t regret it!