Loft Storage
Don’t you just love the breezy, open feeling of a residential loft? What most lofts don’t offer is built-in storage, and if there’s one thing that every city-dweller needs, it’s storage for their personal items. Looking at one of my favorite examples, a San Francisco loft that won a Design Excellence Award, here’s how you can address that need to hide away the relics and tools of daily life.
Feature Built-ins
Create a beautiful place to store and display china, books, and collectibles that fits into or around an architectural element. As you can see in the photo below, we made a feature of a rolling curved bookcase that wraps around this loft’s spiral staircase, making it feel like a real treat to use the stairs. We painted the interior casework with lovely high-gloss orange paint, and the exterior facing the living room in a faded metallic stencil pattern, for a sophisticated look.
Design by Kimball Starr / photo by Joe Fletcher
The entire height of the bookcase is attached with a piano hinge that swings back and forth on hidden floor casters, giving access to interior shelving and maximizing the available floor space. As seen on the left of the image above, the small recessed alcove repeats the orange color for a sense of harmony and rhythm, and the shape of the wall echoes the shape of the bookcase.
Laundry Storage
Because a loft is so open, there often isn’t a separate laundry room. It makes sense to place your laundry nearby or in your loft’s kitchen, for the best use of plumbing and electrical facilities, but how do you conceal the mess and contain the noise?
Design by Kimball Starr / Photo by Eric Rorer
The washer-dryer storage solution shown above was another moveable wall concealed as a column, in the same loft. Similar to the bookcase whose shape it repeats, this faux column slides on casters to reveal a stacked washer and dryer unit right next to the kitchen, complete with interior shelves for storing laundry supplies. What could be more convenient?
Are you a loft owner who needs custom built-ins or other storage solutions? Let’s talk!
Kimball Starr Interior Design is a San Francisco award-winning loft design firm that provides contemporary design for residential interiors throughout Northern California and Nevada. Contact Kimball today for a complimentary consultation!
