Along with the kitchen, bedroom is one of the largest storage areas in the home. Unlike kitchens, though, storage solutions for bedrooms are often overlooked beyond the inclusion of a closet and chest of drawers. The problem with this is that unlike the kitchen, where we store disposable goods in the pantry and fridge, the clothes and other belongings we store in the bedroom accumulate over time. The closet that was perfect 5 years ago becomes so crowded with clothes and shoes, you can't find anything you want today. Your formerly well-organised chest of drawers is now a bottomless pit, with dark and mouldy secrets hiding in forgotten corners of your drawers. Are there any options in bedroom storage other than a complete bedroom makeover?

Start with a Bedroom Stocktake

If you're looking for bedroom storage solutions, it's probably because there are some things that have been bothering you for a long time. Rather than just go out and buy a shoe rack to organise your shoes, why not start with a complete bedroom stocktake? That way, you can get a more complete picture of your needs and come up with a holistic solution rather than a bandaid solution.

Look for Available Space

After you've done your stocktake, have another look inside your closet, in your drawers, at your walls and even under your bed. You will probably be amazed by how much empty, unused space you have in your bedroom:

• A typical untidy closet will be crammed with clothes hanging off a single rod. Between the clothes and the shoe-strewn floor, there will be nothing but air.

• Are your dresser drawers half filled or are they filled to capacity?

• Take a peek under your bed and you'll discover as many or more cubic metres of usable space as there was in all the drawers in your room when they were empty.

• How much shelving space is going to waste on your walls?

Space Planning

Now that you have a more complete picture of your bedroom, you can start doing some intelligent space planning:

• Talk to a local cabinet maker about making some simple, inexpensive, yet very effective changes in your closet. If you divide your closet into segments, one can be used for shelving, another for two parallel rods for hanging shorter clothing items such as shirts and blouses and a third for hanging longer coats, dresses, etc.

• Did you know you can buy inexpensive roller bins designed for underbed storage? All those sheets that are taking up precious space in your dresser can easily be transferred to a bin or two and you'll still have room for bins for other items. Under-bed bins are perfect for children's toys, for example.

• Can you make use of some wall space to store some of the odds-and-ends that are taking up space on your dresser, your bedside tables or your bedroom desk? Have you thought about making use of some of the dead space between your walls? You can add a lot of shelf storage without even taking space away from your bedroom simply by cutting out sections of gyprock between studs and installing shelves in the cavity. A good handyman can take care of this for you in no time if you're not the DIY type.

The bed takes up more room than any other single piece of furniture in the house, but usually has to fit into a relatively small room. This can be a particularly big problem with children, whose needs grow as they grow. An older child may need study space, for example, but their bedroom is already filled to capacity. What can you do? Have a look at some elevated beds. The bed is placed at the perfect height for slipping a desk and chair underneath, creating a student "pocket office" without taking up valuable extra floor space.

For more bedroom design ideas, check out our photo section. You'll find hundreds of ideas there. Choose your favourites and save them on your own personalised inspiration board. After you've spent a few minutes exploring your options in bedroom storage, you should have no problem at all finding the solutions that work for you.