Utilizing space for food storage in tight areas

As I have stated in several post; grandson lives with us during the week while daughter attends nursing school in the next county over.   My only spare room to make him a bedroom was my storage room which at one time used to be a bedroom when we first built the house.  Some people have closets bigger than this room which is 11 x 10.  I had boxes and buckets stacked haphazardly all over this room so I had my work cut out for me.  


I started by pushing everything to one side of the room so I could put up shelves.  To begin with I purchased 3 shelving units from Walmart.  Once I started loading them I knew I was going to need more shelves.  I went on line to order shelves for the units and with shipping, just a few more shelves were going to cost me more that what an entire unit from Walmart did so I ended up buying 2 more units just to get the shelves.  I think each unit was around $30.00 but it put up almost 10 feet of wall to wall shelves.  I didn't want grandson to feel like he was in a pantry so I went to Lowes and bought 3 sets of accordion like doors that you are supposed to mount in a doorway but I used anchor bolts and put them in the ceiling.

Now you see the food....

Now you don't!

Since I mounted these from the ceiling instead of a doorway they do not reach the floor.  I have been trying to come up with something to extend these panels to the floor but no ideas yet.  If you have an idea I would love to hear from you.

Yep...the carpet is a mauve color and is worn out.  I hope to put wooden floors in here next summer when the grandson is out of school.


I used 10 gallon storage boxes for rice, dehydrated vegetables and fruits.  They are stacked by grandson's bed which is one of the old hospital beds that belong to our son.  Since the hospital bed will rise higher than regular beds I use the space underneath to store part of my son's 6 month supply of Jevity which is for his tube feedings. 


the 10 gallon containers are bright greens to go along with the camouflage curtains I found on a sale table for $4.00.  I am going to add Velcro to the fronts of the storage containers for grandson to attach his collection of mask, Spider man, Iron-man, Hulk,etc 

I bought a solid wood chest of drawers off of Craigs List for $60.00, A TV from the Flea Market for $10.00 and an Xbox with 10 games from Ebay for $30.00  There is 5 cases of wheat stacked beside each side of the chest that equals 330 pounds of wheat.  The next time I am at the Dollar Tree I am going to get some type of kids wrapping paper and cover these boxes.  I have also thought about maybe the shiny white paper and see if dry erase markers could be used on it.  Grandson would then have an art area for drawing and writing.

I bought this plastic roll around tool box for grandson to keep some of his favorite toys in.  I think it was around $20.00.  He can roll it into the family room or even out on the porch to play.

A basket sits in the corner to hold a few more treasures and a little camp stool I picked up for $2.00 at Dollar General completes the room.  Grandson has not complained at all for the space he has to share with our food storage.

We do have a closet in this room which I am not going to show you inside yet...on one side it has buckets from floor to ceiling which hold more powdered milk, rice, sugar, flour and beans.  There are shelves along the backside and top I stick items on that I have not inventoried into the storage.

This bedroom/storage room is ever changing as I am constantly trying to improve the food storage situation.