Children's Belongings Storage Planning Checklist

Photograph the entrance as it actually is on an ordinary weekday evening, and list everything in the photograph that belongs to a child.

A photograph taken without tidying first is the most honest storage brief a household can produce.

List every buggy, pram, scooter, balance bike, bicycle and car seat, note which are in daily use and which are waiting.

These are the items that decide whether a hall works, and the ones most often left out when storage is planned.

Note which of those items leave the house every day and which sit unused for weeks, since the two need different places.

Something used daily has to be reachable without moving anything else; something waiting can go anywhere.

Write down what regularly comes into the house wet, muddy or sandy, and where it currently goes when it does.

Wet and dirty items have a different requirement from dry ones and are usually what damages a hall floor or a wall.

Note anything by the door that has been outgrown and is waiting to be passed on, sold or thrown away, and how long it has been there.

This is a real and recurring category in a family home, and giving it a place is often what frees the rest of the hall.

Note where bags, coats and shoes are actually put down when somebody comes in, rather than where they are supposed to go.

Designing for where things land is far more successful than designing for where they ought to land.

Write down what has to be found, put on or picked up on a weekday morning, in the order it happens and by whom.

Written as a sequence it becomes obvious which items need to be in the same place and which are in the wrong room.

Note which things are regularly lost or searched for on a weekday morning, and where they usually turn out to have been all along.

Where something is always found is often where it should live, and the household already knows the answer.

Count the bags that leave the house on a weekday — school bags, sports bags, instrument cases, lunch bags — and note where each lives now.

Bags are bulky, arrive all at once and are almost never counted before somewhere to put them is designed.

Count the coats and pairs of shoes in use per person in each season, rather than working from an average.

The real count in winter is usually much higher than a designer would assume, and it is easy to establish.

Note the paperwork, forms, kit and reminders that have to be dealt with on a weekday and where they currently collect.

This paper has no home in most properties and ends up on a kitchen surface, which is a storage brief rather than an untidiness.

Write down what comes back into the house in the afternoon and where it is put, since that is often a different set of things.

The evening return is the other half of the same sequence and is usually where the accumulation actually happens.

Walk the property and separate what is genuinely in use now from what is being kept, and note roughly how much of each there is.

The proportion is usually surprising, and it changes what kind of storage is actually needed rather than how much.

Write down where children actually play in the property, in which rooms and at what times, rather than where the toys are kept.

Storage far from where play happens does not get used, and the gap between the two is the usual problem.

Note the largest single toys and pieces of equipment, and whether each is played with where it is stored or carried somewhere.

Large items dictate the size of storage far more than the quantity of small ones, and they are easy to count.

Note which things have many small pieces, where those pieces end up, and how they are currently kept together.

Small-piece storage is a different problem from bulk storage and needs to be named separately in a brief.

Write down which things are tidied away daily and which stay out, and whether that is by choice or because there is nowhere.

The distinction between chosen and forced is what a designer needs, and only the household can supply it.

Note how the quantity changes across a year, including around birthdays and holidays, and whether anything leaves the house at those times.

A household that plans for its lowest point runs out of room predictably, and the cycle is easy to describe.

Count roughly what each child actually wears at the moment, by category, rather than counting everything in the wardrobe.

What is worn is a much smaller number than what is stored, and a wardrobe designed for the larger number wastes the room.

Note what is being kept because it will fit later, how much there is, and where it is currently stored.

This category has no natural home and ends up under beds and in lofts, which is fine if it was planned rather than improvised.

Note what has been outgrown and is waiting to be passed on, sold or donated, and how long things typically wait.

Giving this a defined place and a size limit is what stops it spreading into every other storage in the property.

Write down what happens when the seasons change, who does it, where the out-of-season clothes go, and how long it takes.

The seasonal swap is a recurring event that needs space at both ends, and it is almost never designed for.

Note which clothes a child needs to be able to get to themselves, and observe what they can currently reach without help.

Observing what a particular child reaches is concrete and specific, and it is better than any general assumption.

Count any uniform, sports kit or specific clothing that has to be found on particular days, and note where it lives.

These items are needed at a fixed time and are the ones whose absence causes the most trouble on a weekday morning.

List every regular activity anybody in the household goes to, and what has to go with them each time.

Starting from the activities rather than the objects produces a complete list, which starting from the cupboard does not.

Note the largest and most awkwardly shaped items on that list, and whether each one currently has anywhere in the property it actually fits.

Instruments, sports equipment and large craft items are what a general cupboard cannot take, and they need naming.

Write down what comes back wet, dirty or needing to dry, and where it currently goes when it does.

This is a different requirement from storage and is usually being met by a radiator or a floor somewhere.

Where wet kit is regularly dried indoors, ask a qualified professional what the room needs and confirm locally rather than treating it as a storage question.

Note which of these things has to be found quickly, on which days of the week, by whom, and what happens when it cannot be found.

The day and the person matter, because they determine both where it should live and how high up it can be.

Note anything only used a few times a year and whether it needs to be in the main part of the property at all.

Separating frequent from occasional is the cheapest way to free up the storage that is hardest to provide.

Write down what is shared between children and what belongs to one of them, since shared items need a neutral place.

Shared possessions stored in one child's room generate a particular kind of daily friction that is easy to design out.

Watch each child getting something for themselves and note what they can reach, what they climb on, and what they ask for help with.

This is an observation about a specific child in a specific home, which is far more useful than any general assumption.

Anything a child climbs on, and anything that could be pulled over, is a safety matter for appropriately qualified advice and the manufacturer information for that item.

List which groups of things you want each child to be able to get and put away themselves, and which you do not.

Stating this deliberately is what turns storage into something the household uses rather than something an adult manages.

Note anything that has to be kept away from children, and take the question of how to that to a qualified professional rather than deciding it here.

This is not a storage-planning question and should not be answered by a planning checklist of any kind.

Anything that has to be kept away from children is a safety matter for appropriately qualified advice; nothing in this checklist addresses it.

Write down how what each child can reach is likely to change, and whether the storage being planned would still suit them.

Storage installed for a young child and used by a teenager is the common case, and it is worth planning for deliberately.

Note honestly whether things get put away, and what makes the difference between the places where they do and do not.

The household already has this evidence in its own home, and it is more reliable than any theory about storage.

Ask the children themselves where they would put things and what is annoying about the current arrangement, and write the answers down.

They are the users, they have opinions, and the answers are frequently practical in a way adults would not have guessed.

Group everything you have counted by where in the property it should live, rather than by what kind of thing it is.

A designer works room by room, so a list organised by room is immediately usable and one organised by category is not.

Gather each group physically together in one place and photograph it, so its actual volume is visible to a designer rather than described to them.

One photograph of everything in a group settles arguments about how much space it needs faster than any count.

Note the largest single item in each group, since that is what determines the size of whatever holds it.

Storage is sized by its biggest occupant rather than by its total contents, which is a distinction worth making in the brief.

Mark on the list which groups have to be reachable by a child, which by an adult, and which can be anywhere.

This is the instruction a joiner most needs and the one owners most often leave to be inferred.

Write down which groups are expected to grow, shrink or disappear over the next few years, and which are permanent.

Storage that is right now and wrong shortly afterwards is the usual outcome of a brief written from one moment.

Ask the joiner or designer what else they would find useful, and add it in the form they ask for.

They will usually say, and providing it in their form rather than yours saves a round of questions.

Whether any wall, floor or ceiling will take a particular fixing is established on site by a qualified professional, and should be asked before anything is designed to hang from one.