About Storage – Using Small Spaces in Large Houses and Large Spaces in Small Houses
by MUJI 無印良品

If only the house were a little bigger, then it would get tidied up… have you ever looked at the inside of your house, which never seems to be tidied, heaved a sigh and thought this? But talking to an expert on storage, the problem in whether a house is tidy or not doesn’t lie in the size of the house. The point is “using large houses in a small way and small houses in a large way”. It seems that you come to grasp the trick to storage when you figure out these words, which seem like a Zen riddle.

Using small spaces three dimensionally

This is a photo of a hallway wall storage unit with a shallow depth in the home of the expert on storage. It’s used as a place to stock condiments and the like.

Using a small storage space effectively means being thorough and using up every available inch of space. Storage spaces may be hard to use, with depths that are impossibly shallow, or the opposite, being too deep such that there is space left over in a half-baked manner. Doing nothing about this and just storing things away means that it is easy for space go to waste; putting things of different heights and sizes away means that there is empty space on top of things. While they may be sorted at the time, trying to squeeze things in on top of each other makes them hard to take out and hard to put back in – this kind of thing often happens in day-to-day life.

To use storage space so that there is no space wasted, you need to come up with a way to use it three dimensionally. In the photo, poles have been put across the space, and small jars have been arranged on them. By going further and arranging them so that you know what things are at a glance, then it makes it easier to put them back – this is the trick to storing things in a neat and tidy fashion.

In the home of this expert, as in the photo, condiments and seasonings have all been put into bottles or cases. For kitchen items, things have been divided into amounts enough for a few days, and only small bottles are kept in the kitchen. Doing this means that space in the kitchen is not taken up. Storing things means arranging things in a fashion such that they are readily usable, something that is impressive.

Creating a room where nothing is placed

It’s the complete opposite with large houses, however. You create one room in the house where nothing at all is placed. You make the decision to not put things in that room, and make every effort to keep it that way. For many people, the amount of things that they have gradually increases in proportion to the size of their houses. Even with a big house, having things take over spaces means that rooms become smaller, too.

At the expert’s house, the living room was such a room. Despite it not being a particularly large space, there weren’t many things around and so it looked very big. So as to ensure that things aren’t brought into the living room, the expert uses a “shoreline protection” strategy. Upon returning home, books go in the bookcase, documents in the document case – things are stored straight away in their given positions. Mail is sorted into things that are needed and things that aren’t in the entry hall, and things that aren’t needed are disposed of right there, using the small garbage bin in the entry. Inside the storage rack in the entrance, a space has been set aside for things that temporarily don’t have a place. In this way, taking things into the living room is prevented.

By deciding “I’m not putting anything in the living room except furniture”, it is possible to increase the storage efficiency of other parts of the house. And by deciding on a set place for everything, you don’t buy things that are a waste, and you don’t always have to be searching for things. Overflowing things get thrown away with good grace. It’s something that is rather difficult to do, but deciding on a storage space encourages the decision to “throw away”.


Using large houses in a small way and small houses in a large way” means “use small places in a big way and big places in a small way”. They’re wise words. How about giving it a try, and using small spaces efficiently? You’re bound to discover new storage ideas.