An Artist’s Guide to Intelligent Storage
If you’re an artist, you probably know this frustration far too well.
Paint bottles that are just slightly too tall for the shelf. Sketchbooks stacked awkwardly because they don’t fit vertically. Paint tubes disappearing into deep drawers.
Paper edges bending in overcrowded cupboards. Tiny supplies getting buried behind larger jars. And somehow, no matter how much storage there is, it still never feels big enough to hold all that we have.
Most art cupboards are built using standard furniture measurements - but art supplies are anything but standard. That’s where the problem begins.
Over time, storage slowly turns into visual clutter. Things become difficult to access, materials get forgotten, and even maintaining the space starts feeling exhausting. And the irony is that artists often spend so much time carefully choosing their materials, but very little time planning how those materials will live.
I realised this after years of reorganizing shelves, shifting bottles around, and trying to make existing storage work. Eventually, I understood that the issue wasn’t the quantity of supplies- it was that the cupboard itself had never been designed around the supplies.
So while planning my new art cupboard, I approached it very differently. Best of all, it was my husband who helped design it for me :)!
Instead of choosing standard shelf sizes, we designed the cupboard around the actual dimensions of real art materials. Every shelf height, depth, and compartment was planned according to the supplies I use most often and the way I naturally work while creating.
It honestly felt less like designing furniture and more like solving a puzzle.
We measured bottles, mediums, jars, palettes, tape rolls, brushes, storage baskets, archival boxes - even oddly shaped supplies that usually never fit neatly anywhere. Once we had all the measurements, we grouped materials according to size, frequency of use, and accessibility.
That one decision changed everything.
The cupboard now stores far more than a standard design would have allowed, while still keeping everything visible and easy to reach. And visibility matters more than we realise - supplies you cannot see often become supplies you stop using.
One thing we noticed while planning is that most cupboards waste a huge amount of vertical space. Shelves are usually spaced too far apart, leaving awkward empty gaps above smaller materials. Eventually, those gaps become clutter zones filled with random stacked items.
So we intentionally created shelves with very specific heights. Some were designed especially for:
- watercolor jars and mediums
- paint tubes and ink bottles
- brushes and tools
- storage baskets and archival boxes
- taller spray bottles and irregular supplies
we also tried balancing precision with flexibility because artists constantly collect new materials. The cupboard needed to feel organized without becoming rigid.
Another thing we considered carefully was ease of maintenance. A storage system only works if it is easy to put things back into. If a shelf is overcrowded or difficult to access, supplies slowly migrate outside it. So while planning dimensions, we also thought about movement - what I reach for daily, what can stay higher up, and what needs immediate access.
The interesting thing is that there is no universal “perfect” art cupboard because every artist works differently.
A watercolor artist may need shallow shelving for paints and paper.
An oil painter may need taller compartments for mediums.
A textile artist may need wider storage for fabrics and threads.
A mixed-media artist may need complete flexibility because materials vary constantly.
That’s why I always recommend beginning with your actual supplies instead of furniture inspiration photos.
If you’re planning a customized art cupboard of your own, here’s the process I found most helpful:
- Gather all your most-used materials in one place
- Measure the tallest, widest, and deepest items
- Group materials by category and frequency of use
- Design shelf heights around real objects -not standard furniture dimensions
- Leave breathing room for future supplies
- Include a mix of open shelving, drawers, and flexible spaces
- Think about visibility as much as storage capacity
- Plan around the way you naturally work