Hooks and poles, very handy

Faced with a lack of space, the smartest thing to do is go up. Japanese do this very well, from lofts in small apartments to clever hanging shelves in kitchens. There are a myriad of easy solutions to your storage needs in Japanese shops. I decided to take a camera tour of my house to show you some of the hanging solutions that we've used to help declutter our house.

First we have the entry. You can see a white pole. It is not connected to the walls, it is spring loaded, we use quite a lot of these around the house. There isn't anything much hanging on it at present, but it is a good place to hang wet rain coats or visitors winter coats.

On the left is our vertical wire net. Hanging from it is our key rack, name tags, bike helmets, and other bits and pieces including bags at times. It is braced between the floor and wall. It tends to be more crowded in the winter, with extra outside clothes hanging on it.

Then we have the kitchen. Suction hooks and rails provide excellent hanging space for a variety of objects, including cutting boards, a funnel and tea towel.

 

And a plastic basket holds essentials like plastic wrap, baking paper and foil. It is attached to the side of the microwave with magnets.

The lounge room is not immune. In here we've used the "picture rail" to hang "pictures", using purpose designed hooks. No holes in the sandpaper walls here.

The laundry and bathroom are great places to hang things. These don't usually come with towel rails in Japan, you have to make do.

These plastic hangers are what I hang my washing on before taking it outside to the washing poles (they're folded up for storage in the photo). Japanese houses don't come with washing lines either, you usually provide your own poles.

Shower cap hanging on a suction hook. Bucket hanging from a pole.

Here a curtain, hanging on a spring loaded pole, discretely hides a shelf, that is also not attached to the wall. Toilet supplies live here.

This calendar kept falling down, so we used a suction hook instead.

And finally our bedroom. Hooks on the same sort of "picture rail" as the lounge room provide extra clothes hanging spots.

An over-the-door hook holds my gown in winter.

And another pole holds washing, especially on rainy days, or gym clothes, as it is holding here.

So there you go. I know that Australians use some of these solutions, but the 'pole' one not so much. It is very common here, though. And those 's' hooks are everywhere too. Very handy indeed when space is a bit tight.