Good Questions: Water Bottle Storage

Meghan isn't too fond of our city's tap water and asks:

Since the water in LA isn't my thing, I've been having water delivered in 5 gallon bottles. Problem is, I live in a tiny one bedroom and don't have the storage place to hide them away. Short of stacking old milk crates, which is a little too craft service for me, is there any storage system available? They are way too heavy and bulky for anything I've found so far.

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Hi Meghan, storing five gallons water bottles takes up a lot of room, but as one wise Derek Zoolander once emoted: "Water is the essence of life". But if you're going to efficiently store your H20, the most space economical solution we've seen are these 3-tier Water Bottle Racks. The design keeps them safely in place, with rubber feet to protect your floors and prevent movement. You could even hide the bottles from view by fashioning a slipcover around the rack's frame with an attractive fabric, if you're crafty (as illustrated above).

Have you considered an under-the-sink filtration system, which provides filtered water for a much more economic price, while freeing up valuable space currently taken up by your water storage/dispenser? Installation is fairly easy and there are plenty of brands to choose from. At the least, you could just add a sink faucet filtration attachment or a filtering jug for your fridge instead (which we use in our small apartment).

Comments (4)

I've been really happy using a brita water filter.

Otherwise I know that you can get smaller 3 gallon bottles from arrowhead. They might be easier to stack/hide/store and definitely easier to mount onto the cooler!

posted by laure on June 5th 2007 at 8:42am
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these metal racks are nice... I like the plant shelf ones
http://www.tmadeproducts.com/tmpshop.asp

posted by babbling on June 5th 2007 at 11:17am
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The photo on the left doesn't really have a slipcover, right? It doesn't seem feasible to craft something around the rack's frame that would look that neat, since the bottle spouts stick out beyond the frame in the front. Even the rounded sides seem to stick out from the frame a bit.

posted by Sea on June 5th 2007 at 1:05pm
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I like the pur brand in-faucet mounts. It allows me to not have to worry about dropping the 5 gal bottles every time I need to change the tank.

You could also go with the plain pine shelving from Ikea. They are supposed to hold quite a few pounds from what I remember.

posted by theninthcloud on June 6th 2007 at 7:49am
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