For many people, their first time in their own home is when they go to college or university. Students quickly discover the importance of storage as they struggle to get all their possessions into a small room in a student hall or house share. Every spare cupboard in shared accommodation is usually claimed, particularly those in the kitchen. One of life’s eternal mysteries is confronted as the impossibility of getting a large packet of cornflakes into your tiny kitchen cupboard is discovered.

Then the improvisation starts. Planks of wood and bricks are acquired and turned into bookcases. Sad to say, these building materials are often acquired in the same way as the ubiquitous traffic cones which seem to occupy pride of place in many student rooms.

However, you do not have to pay a fortune for practical, good-looking storage solutions. At BiGDUG, we can deliver it to your door, so you can buy precisely what will be most effective without worrying whether or not you can get it into your car.

Student life is an exciting time. However, it is only the first ‘home of their own’ for the scholars. If they buy the right storage solutions first time, it will last them into their first home and far beyond. It is worth taking time to consider what items can be stored on shelves or in cupboards and working out what items of furniture will be most useful and will be of most benefit.

Aesthetics are sometimes forced to take a back seat when finances are an issue. When unexpected expenses have an impact on your budget, looks and luxury often turn out to be expendable. Despite your best plans for furnishing your house, a restricted budget might see you considering a cheaper, lower quality option.

It is under such circumstances that you may consider purchasing budget furniture, which is widely available. Whilst most of this type of lower quality furniture and portable shelving units can be used to serve a purpose temporarily, before long you can see why such furniture is so cheap. If you are not careful, you could find yourself throwing away money on makeshift shelving and flimsy storage racking that is not fit for its intended purpose, or could even cause an accident.

Our extensive range of portable racking units at BiGDUG could be just the thing you are looking when it comes to quality furniture at the right price. Our metal shelving and storage racking are popular, and offer superior quality at the most affordable prices, proving that economic furniture does not come at a price of build quality or looks.

When your budget prevents you in investing in expensive shelving units for your new home, attractive, high quality portable racking units can take their place without having an impact on your budget. Being aesthetic, practical and easy-to-assemble, the new range of natural pine wood and metal shelving can help in getting your home organised, without the accompanying hefty price tag.

Every so often, the lounge becomes a battle zone. Old newspapers and magazines will sometimes be spearheading the offensive, protected by the insistence of various household members that they had not yet finished reading that magazine or the crossword puzzle in last week’s newspaper needs to be completed.

It is essential that storage is considered as soon as possible in order to maintain organisation within any environment, as this will assist in giving all items a designated place to be found. By simply creating ease through storage, people can become less stressed as they avoid having to plough through all manner of items before reaching what they need.

Most councils now provide a collection service for anything made out of paper, and even those annoying catalogues that keep arriving from a mail-order company you only used once, several years ago, can be condemned to the recycling bag.

Drawers, cupboards, shelving units and paper racks are all potential hiding places. Old bills, bank statements, mortgage and insurance documents for example will sometimes lurk here. Any kind of paperwork that you know may be needed in the future could be stored in a box or container that was to have been thrown away and stored in the loft.

It is also a good idea is to use a marker pen to clearly label the box and what its contents are before consigning it to its temporary resting place. The inventive DIYer could use odds and ends of wood or other materials to build storage racking into which the boxes could be organised.

Remember that magazines, especially hobbyist ones might be of interest to somebody else and there are plenty of second-hand shops run by various charities that will be able to sell them on. Set aside a separate bag to sort these into.

The contents of the upstairs rooms can be quite alarming at times. The bathroom, for example, will often have windowsills, shelving units or cabinets filled to bursting point. Take cardboard or plastic storage boxes in there and put everything in it that isn’t nailed down.

Put the box outside the bathroom if you are sharing the house with anyone else, and insist they sort out what they do and do not need. If you find a bottle of tablets or liquid and no label, make sure you dispose of it responsibly if you are not sure what it contains.

Now you can clean the shelving and cabinets properly. Once you’re finished, find a space in the bedroom to take out the contents of the box and throw away anything either past its use by date or simply not needed.

Next, tackle the spare room. Charity shops sometimes post collection bags and you could take one with you to dispose of anything that someone else might be able to use. Creating shelf storage space in a closet is surprisingly easy when old t-shirts, dresses and other items of clothing are cleared out.

Odd socks, threadbare clothing and towels are sometimes collected by the council as long as you store them in a separate bag for textiles only. If old shoes or slippers that are falling apart have been stored out of the way in the spare room, you may find a local cobbler who will take them and they can be recycled.

Implementing storage solutions for your household is a sure-fire way to keep on top of the many belongings you have, and keep your home tidy and organised all the while.

Lightweight angle iron shelving units are simply a low cost version of its heavyweight cousin. These light steel systems are strong enough to be used for household storage when they are stabilised and braced. It is unfortunate that on many occasions they are not properly stabilised or braced. In this state, they are unsafe.

As with the heavy angle iron systems, a shelf should be installed at ground level to form a rigid box structure. If this is not done the legs might buckle and topple the entire unit. If this leaves you a shelf short, then make use of a light wood frame to replace the bottom shelf. It is also possible to use more than one shelving kit to give you the option of either a taller unit and therefore more shelves or the same height of system but the shelves will be twice the depth affording more shelf storage space.

Alternatively, you could use wooden shelving systems. They are a lot more flexible than metal shelving. It is possible to make them any size or shape you want and this allows you to install them in any space you like.

Wooden shelving systems also have a more attractive appearance than their metal counterparts. Uprights and shelf edges can be rounded and bracing made decorative which makes them ideal for indoor use. If they are to be used indoors it is recommended that you finish them with wax or varnish. Paint is likely to scratch easily and will spoil the appearance.

Unfortunately, with shelving units there are safety issues that need to be addressed. It needs only a bit of common sense and a little extra time and effort to ensure your assembled shelves or shelving systems do not cause any problems where safety is concerned. When assembling or making wooden shelves, goggles and safety shoes should be worn as well as appropriate clothing.

Metal shelving units, in particular, can be a safety hazard. Indeed, in the industrial sector, lack of bracing makes their use illegal. This, however, can be fixed by adding some way of restraining the unit. Attaching them securely to a wall would probably be the least expensive option. Since racks are mostly supplied without enough bracing anybody bumping into them heavily may cause it to fold over sideways and the result can be tragic.

Unstable shelving units that are not against a wall may very well topple over and cause a serious injury to anyone caught in their fall. It is recommended that a strip of wood is attached to their top and is connected to another shelving unit or secured to the nearest wall.

If metal racking is fixed separately from other units or the wall, it must be well braced to make a totally rigid unit. Any movement in the joints at all will eventually cause the bolts to loosen and come undone.

Wooden shelving units must always be attached to a wall or firmly braced if you intend to use them as a free-standing unit.

Most householders will prefer to make alterations to their properties themselves, but the advice of a qualified interior designer can be really useful on occasion. If floor space is limited and storage room is needed, a designer will be able to assist in making the best use of the available wall area.

The professional organisation British Interior Design Association (BIDA) has a website that is extremely easy to use and will give the home owner information about various interior designers and suppliers. It also provides a handy database listing designers with expertise in the commercial sector.

In the home, an interior designer will help enhance whichever room he or she is asked to refurbish. Designers will also offer advice on how to make storage racks, shelves and shelving units blend with the room’s decor. The designer will also deal with plumbers, carpenters and electricians, where necessary.

The cost of hiring an interior designer is, however, something that many home owners find prohibitive. Redesigning a lounge, for instance, may cost as much as £10,000. Since some designers charge for travelling expenses, it may be prudent to find somebody as local as possible. Unfortunately, choosing somebody who charges less money may compromise the quality of the work.

There is an obvious alternative to hiring costly interior designers, and that is the DIY option. It is possible to obtain guidance from other sources of information. This guidance should open your eyes to a plethora of choice. When it comes to the living room, a wide range of storage racking solutions may be of utility. For example, open bookcases, TV units, drawer units and so on.

Many internet users will limit themselves to searching the auctions websites when trying to find DIY bargains, such as shelving offers, for instance. The best known auction sites have developed protocols to protect both buyer and seller, especially when expensive tools such as power drills or jigsaws are being retailed.

A more effective method of finding bargains such as shelving offers or cut-priced tools is to use a web search engine. There are many of these engines available and they mostly have similar ways of working. The web search engine works by retrieving information about web pages using a web crawler – an automated browser that follows links on the sites, then displays a list of the relevant web pages.

The best way to locate the website with bargains is to use a facility known as ‘advanced search’. Clicking on this link will take the user to a screen that allows him or her to enter a phrase or query and to ask the search engine to exclude certain words from the search.

The user is advised to utilise the time limit feature common to most engines. Basically, the user will ask the engine to only look for the search phrase that has been active on a website recently. In this way the search engine will ignore sites displaying offers that may have occurred quite some time ago, but have not been removed as the webpage owner has not recently updated the site to reflect this change.

It is always makes sense to purchase shelving units and shelf racks from a firm which specialises in shelving solutions, as items from other sources may often disappoint.

A spare bedroom has a plethora of potential uses. The installation of a floor to ceiling shelving system against one wall, for example, would be an excellent way of storing book, DVD or CD collections. DIY websites will stock these systems which can usually be added to if the buyer wishes to extend his storage space.

The shelving units are usually available as self-assembly, in various attractive wood or white finishes.

Assuming the shelving system has adjustable shelves, then part of it could be used for document or file storage. With the addition of a computer desk and desktop computer, the room becomes a small office for those who work from home.

A sofa bed is an ideal way of making a temporary guest room for visitors. When not being used as a guest room, a small TV, DVD player and sound system will create a perfect place to relax on the comfortable sofa and watch your favourite movie or to chill out listening to music.

If you wish to use the room simply as a storage area, then plan carefully how to utilise the space effectively. For documents, papers and files, a range of plastic, lidded storage boxes are available in different sizes. The boxes may be stacked on the bedroom floor or stored on shelves. Plastic boxes are extremely versatile in that they may be used to store any number of different items; children’s toys, photo albums or camping equipment such as portable gas stoves, hurricane lamps and sleeping bags for example.

With the rising domestic fuel costs, it is always a good idea to invest in any way of conserving energy in the home. One such method is to build a porch to cut down the loss of heat when the front door is opened. Porches are also a useful way to provide extra space.

Some of the benefits of having a porch include the fact that in bad weather muddy shoes and boots can be removed and left there to avoid tracking mud onto the lounge or hallway carpet, and a well-designed porch will add to the market value of the house. Installing shelves in the porch will give extra storage space for odds and ends, such as shoes, gardening items, spare light bulbs and a tool box, for example. As well as shelves, the householder might benefit from using a shoe rack. In wet weather, the porch is also an ideal place for coat hooks and an umbrella stand.

A porch should be design to blend in with the house’s appearance. For instance, its roof must be the same as the existing house’s roof. If a sloping roof is to be used, it should have the same angle of pitch as that of the house. The materials used to build a porch have to match those of the house.

The internet is a source of a wide range of porch designs, as well as storage solutions for these areas, such as shelving units and storage racking.  You can examine different styles until you find one that interests you. This done, you can contact a reputable building company for a quote.