One of the biggest space wasters in my bedroom is old socks (when I say old socks I don't mean dirty socks, I mean socks that are a few years old and haven't been warn in a while) and football socks. I store my socks in the bottom draw of my bed side table. My sock draw is always to full of socks, however I can never manage to find sense in throwing any of them out each time I clean it out (which isn't often). When pulling my sock draw out, I noticed that there is a space under the bottom of my sock draw to the floor of about 9cm deep. My first thought was what a waste of space; however my second was I can use this space to solve my problem of having too many socks. So that’s what I did.

Step 1: First Step

The first step of changing this empty space into useful storage was to measure how wide the empty space is, 34cm. I then measured how far back the free space was, 41cm. I then cut out two pieces of cardboard, both 34cm wide with one 18cm long and the other 41cm long. The 34cm by 18cm piece of cardboard was cut out of hard cardboard. The cardboard's job is to sit on the bottom draw’s runner, above were I will store my old socks and under the bottom of my bottom draw. My reasoning for using two pieces of cardboard, one smaller and one longer, is because the smaller, stronger piece of cardboard, support’s the main piece of cardboard at the back of the draw as their isn't any runner back there (the runner of this draw isn’t metal or attacked to the draw, it is made of wood and just allows the draw to slide in and out of the draw while allowing the draw to be fully taken out of the bed-side-table. The draw doesn’t have wheels on it).

Step 2: Sorting Out

I then sorted through my sock draw and grouped my socks into categories; most used, school/work socks, barely used, soccer sock (only used 4 months of the year) and old socks (e.g. my first pair of junior soccer sock). I then neatly stacked the most used and school/work socks into my draw, and the barely used, soccer socks and my old socks into the empty space under my draw (making shore that they weren't stacked higher then where the bottom of my draw slides in). My reasoning for this is that I can easily access the socks that I wear more often.

Step 3: Covering Up

I then took the smaller piece of cardboard and slid it in on the runner of the bottom draw until it was at the back of the draw. I then took the larger piece of cardboard and slid it in the same way, although it covered all of the surface area of the space under my draw. This made a flat surface above the socks that I stored in the empty space making it look neat and ensuring that I didn’t stack my socks to high disallowing my bottom draw to fit back into its place. I then put my bottom draw back into its place as normal.

Step 4: Concluding

Storing socks underneath my sock draw has saved me heaps of room as well as time. I can now neatly store the socks that I use often in my sock draw without my draw being over full and jamming when I try to open it. I'm now saving time looking for the right pair of socks when I'm in a hurry as I can now easily find what I'm looking for quickly. Storing socks under my bottom draw isn't the only thing that can be stored there, anything can be (excluding items that are to large), I have even started to store things under my chest of draws, such as box's with my childhood toy's that I no longer use. Storing socks under my bottom draw of my bed-side-table is one of the best ways that I have developed to organize my bedroom. It saves room, time and money on buying more storageunites.