Guitar Storage Ideas!
Here’s my guitar wall hangers to organized and display my guitars while making it easy to grab one and play!
When we were living in East Nashville, we had a cute little two-bedroom house, a whole storage attic, plenty of room for amps, a desk for recording equipment, and a closet for cases and extra gear. We could just leave music gear coming in and out from gigs in the middle of the extra room and never worry about it getting in the way! We were pretty happy with our set up, except that it was taking my husband about 45 min to get to work (and he had to drive home every lunch to let the dog out), we had a bunch of mosquitos in the back, and our house was very much a fixer-upper. However, made it pretty cute and made it work!
When my mom came and visited about half a year into our lease, she really wanted to go visit this new apartment complex though in town to see if it could be a good place for my sister to live. We went on the little tour of it and we felt SO FANCY! The places we had lived so far had always been more of “oh it’s not too bad and we can make this work” but suddenly we started imagining ourselves as “new apartment with a gym and pool and fancy countertops” type people. We found out for a one-bedroom it would be just a little less than our two-bedroom house… and we were sooo stoked! We were totally ready to give away a bunch of stuff we didn’t need and realized half of the things in the attic were just things we felt bad selling or giving away.
Look at that beautiful String Swing guitar stand behind me!
When we moved in though, we were so incredibly excited and found spots for most things. Our dog and cat adjusted quickly and John had so much time back in his day since we were living closer to his work. The only bad part was our gear seemed to be stuffed everywhere! I was constantly having random cases, pedals, capos, and picks all over the place, and since they didn’t really have their own spots, I was always putting things away in different places, and transitioning from setting up filming equipment for courses, grabbing gig equipment for playing out, and practicing was annoying because I was constantly having to dig through things and re-setting everything up.
I felt like I was wasting a ton of time, had a lot of clutter (which I hate because I can’t focus) and was always losing the things I needed.
SO recently, we decided to really prioritize making our apartment organized and especially figure out my music gear situation. I have been SO happy and excited with how much cleaner it feels and I feel more excited to work on things and practice because everything is laid out in a way that makes it easy to start!
In this blog, I wanted to give you some ideas so if you are looking for guitar storage in a small space, you can see how I organized mine!
How to store guitars/instruments/amps
I love how many guitars you can fit on this String Swing stand!
This was probably the biggest challenge because the issue with organizing them is there physically just wasn’t enough space! Here are my top options!
1) Displaying guitars and cases
I have been using String Swing’s wall hangers for the past few years and love them! I really like that you can choose your own wood color too so it coordinates with the rest of your space. I recently connected with them and they sent me their guitar stand to try which is equally amazing! They also have one for cases which I think would be a nice option too if you are gigging a lot and are constantly bringing cases in and out- it gives them an actual place instead of just taking up space on your floor. My guitars are all hung up on a wall that friends see the second they walk in which I love because it’s a cool conversation starter and a lot of people who play will pick one up and start noodling around!
Top Picks:
Learn more here!
2) Get a tall bed
Before we had our storage space (more on that later!) we stored all our cases under the bed. A tall bed was something we were very mindful of buying because we wanted to make sure we could stack two cases on top of each other. The taller the better, and make sure you don’t get one that has a bar under the middle that would prevent you from using that middle section. You also could get one that would be tall enough to stand all the cases on their side which would be wonderful!
3) See if your apartment complex has storage spaces
Because we didn’t want to spend more on rent and thought we could figure it out, we never got one of the storage units in our apartment. But this year we finally decided to treat ourselves (GO CRAZY amirite!?) and it’s been amazing. I’m super happy we did because not only is it temperature-controlled and easy to take instruments in and out, but also we’ve been able to just use our closet as a closet and not as Christmas/pet carrier/winter clothes/random DVD case storage!
Last thing is my midi keyboard- we have a coffee table that is open in the middle and it’s perfect! We just slide it in and out and then I just put it on my coffee table whenever I’m using it!
Storing mic stands and tripods
For a while, these were under our couch, but it wasn’t working great for me because I could never see what I was getting, and I also damaged my tripod once trying to get it out! Now I have a nice little basket in my storage closet that I lean everything up in. It works perfectly and I can quickly take stands and tripods out and just fold them up and pop them back in the basket!
Organizing Guitar Accessories/Cables/ Picks
Here’s my little box where I store all my guitar accessories!
Do you constantly find picks EVERYWHERE?! I have picks and capos floating all around my house, but can never seem to find them when I need them! I now have different boxes (some in my storage closet and some in my media consoles) holding random accessories that are all labeled and it’s helped me a ton to be motivated to put things away because they actually have a home! For more on this topic and tips on setting up your music space, I thought this blog from Redfin was really helpful as well!
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The gig bag!
Last thing! I always keep a packed gig bag by the door with strings, my iPad, extra straps, and more! It not only helps me make sure I don’t forget anything important when I’m going to a gig, but it also helps free up space in the rest of the apartment!
My bb! :)
I hope that these tips are helpful for you if you live in or are considering moving to a small apartment. It’s totally doable and I actually have really liked the feeling of cleaning out all the things I don’t need and having all my gear really organized. Let me know if you have any helpful ideas below or questions and thank you SO much for reading!! :)
