Create more shelving with faux shelves
Seems like you never have enough shelves. Many built in cabinets – especially under bathroom and kitchen sinks – are very tall, which means you have a lot of empty space above the items sitting in the cabinet. There are a couple of ways to take advantage of that space and create extra shelving without doing any carpentry or making any changes you can’t change back later.
Undershelf basket
The undershelf basket fits onto the shelf above, so it’s for spaces where there’s excess room under an existing shelf. These baskets – which cost from around $10 to $20 each, create additional mini-shelves. It’s as easy to grab stuff from them as it is from a “real” shelf.
Besides kitchen and bathroom cabinets, another awesome use for these is on bookshelves. If you have a tall shelf for books with another shelf above it, you can attach one of these and put a few sideways paperbacks or some knicknacks in it.
Yet another use: on window sills. If you have window sills that protrude into the room, you may be able to attach a basket like this to them. This is great if you have a window with a sill above your kitchen sink, bathtub or shower.
Mesh shelves
If your problem isn’t a shelf with no shelves under it but a big gaping cabinet with just a floor and no shelves – like you see under many kitchen sinks – there’s a solution for you, too. Mesh shelves, priced similarly to undershelf baskets, are basically steel mesh platforms on stilts that can hold a decent amount of weight. They’re typically stackable, so you can buy as many as will fit in the space you’re trying to make better use of.
These are great under bathroom and kitchen sinks, as mentioned before, but another interesting use for them is in an unused CPU cabinet on a desk. If you have a laptop or don’t use your CPU cubbyhole for one reason or another, some mesh shelves can convert it into a very useful space.
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