A few months ago, we wrote about Double-Duty Furniture: The Trunk. Obviously we love decorating with trunks, but during our spring cleaning, we were actually debating getting rid of ours. We decided to keep it (because it's so old and worn &mdash in a good way), but, we're not sure how purposeful it actually is.
If any item requires as much space as a trunk, then we question the purpose of it. Living in a narrow rowhome in Philadelphia, you have to be like that. Rowhome dwellers (much like small apartment tenants) don't have the excess room to just bring in a new piece of furniture and forget about it.
But, we realized the storage capabilities of having a trunk. Just about every bookshelf we have is filled, maybe we could take some of the weight off of those.. We also thought about using it as storage for old papers and documents in our office, or maybe even filling it with extra blankets and using it as a coffee table in our living room.
Obviously there are a lot of possibilities for a trunk, but we were wondering what other people use their trunks for. So &mdash what do you keep in your trunk?
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We use ours to store blankets. It's in the living room, so we just open the trunk, get the blankets and curl up on the sofa watching TV.
http://notyourgoddess.blogspot.com/
a portion of my cd collection.
I don't have a trunk, but *really* want one. I'd put blankets, sheets and pillows for extra guests and myself too.
It's where I store the vintage textiles I'm hoarding, old family photos in broken frames that I don't have the money to reframe, right now, and tchochkes from relatives that I love, but don't have room to display, right now. And the trunk was my grandfather's when he was in the US Navy in WWII, so it's not going anywhere!
I keep a portion of my sneaker collection in two separate trunks. As part of a DIY project I lined them with Cedar and it works well. I have a feeling next spring the sneakers will be out and my gf's sweaters will be in the trunks.
www.the-dormers.com
When I was a kid we stored board games and VHS tapes in a trunk.
I use mine to keep all my board games and whatnot easily stored. Closet space is at a minimum in my loft apt.
Mine are really old and smelly, so they are devoid of stuff. I need to get rid of them but I love the way they look. They do waste space though.
I store power tools and oil painting supplies in the storage ottoman I use as a coffee table. It's perfect - the stuff is easily accessible, but not pretty and hidden away.
My boyfriend and I are downsizing from a big one bedroom, where our trunk is half filled with stuff I really should throw away, to a studio with literally no storage (read no inbuilt cupboards, closets, underfloor or loft storage), where it is going to store all of our bed linens, extra pillows and sewing materials and where it will also double as window seating with pillow I have made to put on top of it. When we bought it this winter I originally thought it would just be decorative (and actually it sometimes gets in the way at the moment), but I am so glad we invested in it with our moving coming up.
I'm (rather insanely) making all the flowers for my wedding from fabric - and the trunk in our living room is perfect for keeping my supplies in. http://mastandmoorland.wordpress.com/
Ours is more like a chest, but we keep all our Dungeons and Dragons stuff in there. Which is convnient becuase we aren't always playing at our place and it makes it easy to take with us.
the unsightly things..like a dvd collection.
Handbags are in the trunk, and I use it as a coffee table/game table when I have guests over
I have stacked graduated trunks as a bed side table. Great look and good for long-term storage. Perfect for the higher bed too.
Once upon a time, I had my mother's trunk from when she went off to college. I filled it with blankets & linens. I also used it as extra seating on occasion & as a table regularly. It was pretty multi-functional.
We have a couple of trunks. One is full of xmas stuff, and the other has extra bedding, blankets, etc. Both serve as tabletops. The xmas trunk is our TV stand and the bedding one has office printers and similar gadgets living on top of it.
My trunk is a bedside table that holds my lamp and alarm. I sleep on a futon so it is the perfect height for it. I would like to change the colour of it though, at some point someone thought it would be great to spray paint it bronze (including the leather straps).
In our trunk, I put our luggage and my "old" purses that I still keep in rotation when they're needed. We place it right next to the front door, opposite a tidy row of cute shoes, so we can sit on it as a bench at put shoes on as we leave. Also, we have a woven basket for umbrellas and sunglass cases on top.
Mine serves as a linen closet...since the linen closet was removed to make the bathroom bigger.
rotating throw pillows
board games
picture albums
old yoga mat?
half finished art projects
maybe I should purge.
What is that chair?
I used to use my trunk as a coffee table which meant it was always covered in stuff. So I would have to put the pile of stuff somewhere else to get the thing out then move the pile back. Some kind of mental twitch like oh I'll put something in there that I NEVER need but now that it's inconvenient I must have it now! ha
Junk.
Rage. Rage and guest linens.
I have something like this in the guestroom. It contains the guestroom linens and a bed pillow. There are two pillows on top for seating/to put on shoes.
I used to store my sweaters in my trunk. Then I changed those out for spare blankets. Now my trunk houses my knit and crochet yarn and needle collection. Don't get rid of yours. It is such a great form of storage!
i keep packing material for my shop....bubble wrap, tissue paper, some flattened boxes. it's nice because they are right 'there', but out of sight at the same time.
Linens, blankets, extra pillows for guests.
I keep a silver trunk in the bottom of my closet. It holds my out of season clothes, well a portion of them anyway, and I stack shoes on top of it.
Halloween Costumes, whole and in part!
I just love the idea of being able to pull fabulous, crazy, theatrical things out of an old trunk, I admit it. But, really, where else would you store them that's as much fun?
I converted my brother's old Lego trunk into a fabric-lined linen trunk.
We use ours as a coffee table, and it stores video game consoles and games.
Fellow Philly rowhome dweller here. Yes, we have a trunk in the living room, too. Just keep it right under the window and put all our cuddle-up blankets in there... because it's not like you can actually use the laughably miniature closets in these old houses for storage!
Ours is more like a chest, but it serves double duty as a coffee table and linen closet.
I've tipped ours up on one end so it's like a little cupboard, and easily accessible. Our contains dvd boxed sets and a basket of remote controls.
Mine has been used for everything from a TV stand to a coffee table to luggage (of course). Currently it's used as a printer table (kind of low but I won't get rid of it for the world) and has a ton of office supplies in it.
We have a large old trunk on the porch.
We use it to store pellets. For the stove. The giant 40 pound bags.
And in the summer we use it to stash the slip-n-slide, ugly plastic toys and the picnic blanket.
We use ours to store board games and card games. We keep it in the family room and it doubles as our coffee table. It even works as a game table for ones that don't require a lot of room :)
my trunk was my old childhood summer camp trunk but now it's for out of season clothing
my husband has all his childhood memorabilia in his! It is fun to sometimes rummage through.
My husband and I keep all our high school and college memories that we can't bear to get rid of. Yearbooks, his band hat, old birthday cards...
I don't have a trunk exactly but my cedar chest holds all my "memory" type things I don't have anywhere else for. Photo albums, old yearbooks, scrapbooks, awards, etc. This also helps me keep a limit on that stuff, since there's a finite space for them.
**LOL** jacksonlalonde.
One chest stores the peripherals for Rock Band/RB2 for Xbox. It's a vintage MCM Lane cedar chest, thrifted. I replaced the self-locking mechanism so that it cannot lock automatically when closed.
Another chest currently holds bulky, but beloved, stuffed animals, and has had its lower hasp removed (and repainted on using paint) and air holes drilled for kid safety (we have two young boys).
They have been used for many things, but most successfully for items that see a lot of use: toys, blankets, files.
Adding casters under the chests has helped when it's necessary to shift them around.
My grandmother gave each of my cousins a trunk when we turned 16. She purchased them from her next door neighbor who handcrafted each one. I love the history, but wish the top were flat - it's rounded, so it won't allow for double duty like a coffee, side table, or extra seating. I store present-wrapping supplies in my trunk - paper, paper, paper, cards, scissors, ribbons galore, bags, and tissue paper.
We have a trunk gifted to us by my friend's mom that she bought in Hong Kong years ago while living there. I hate to admit it but I SO want to get rid of it. We simply have nowhere to put it.
"Rage. Rage and guest linens." -- jacksonlalonde
That's beautiful! Hm... good idea, too.
I also live in a rowhouse, but we have trunks. One is the giant steamer kind and it stores extra blankets, our sleeping bags, and board games. One is footlocker style, and it stores my fabrics, plus a giant pile on top. I'm thinking about stacking a second one on top of it for the excess. The other is also footlocker style, and it is in the bf's office, and who knows what he keeps in there! I try not to think about it. It's also handy, though, because it is right under the window leading out on to our balcony (read:fire escape) and acts as a step stool.
They are just so cheap, you can always find nice old worn in ones at garage sales.
edit: we have 3 trunks.
Bounty.
a mass of effects pedals for our instruments, and a collection of my husband's circuit-bent toys.
We have all of our gift wrapping supplies in our cedar trunk, which was a gift from my parents when we moved to our first place years ago. There's everything from tissue paper to wrapping paper to last-minute host/hostess gifts, etc., in it. It 'triples' as a window seat in our front living room, and a breakfast nook bench! They're great pieces of furniture. :)
Splomo, adding casters is a good idea. Those things get heavy.
It's definitely an excellent place to put those winter quilts :)
I have a wooden trunk that I will always keep because it was made by my great uncle for my great aunt as a hope chest in the 1920's. It's been a bench at the foot of a bed and a coffee table and it's held everything from filing to throw pillows.