Creating home storage solutions that can change and develop with you as your family grows is important when you have little kids. One of the hardest things to store, aside from toys, is sports equipment!

To solve this problem, we not only have to think outside the square but outside the room with these decorating ideas.

Children’s sports are constantly changing. The obvious sports are ball orientated. Along with this are the things that go with them such as bats, goals, protective equipment, the list goes on.

From a young age, my son always wanted to take his favourite ball to bed with him until cricket came along and then the bat made it in there. The number of things in his bed was getting out of control so I had to start setting rules early otherwise I would never be able to find him in the room.

The first solution was to get a bed with room underneath for trundle storage. This had a divider in it and one side was used for sports equipment and the other side for toys.

The next step was to allocate a shelf in the garage for the rest of his sports equipment. This meant he could have his favourites with him until it was time to rotate them to the garage when something fell out of favour.

If you don’t have a garage, look for other solutions such as balls in net slings which hang behind doors. These can go in the bedroom or on the back of the laundry door.

Sports equipment can have a terrible habit of ending up at the front or back door. If this is the case you can get a bench seat by the front door (if you have the room). You can store the basic balls and footwear in there and it also becomes a great place sit when you’re putting on your shoes.

If you don’t have the space, get a waterproof chest to put by the back door. This gives just as much access on a daily basis without cluttering up the house or making the kids go to the shed on a rainy day.

Now we move onto the bike. We are a pretty big cycling household with five bikes (at this stage) hanging from the roof of the garage from very simple hooks. Being at the back of the garage they sit perfectly over the bonnet of the car without loosing any room.

There are also brackets that go on the wall, where you hang the bike from the front wheel to give you maximum space. This is great when you have the two-wheeler kind but what about the tricycles?

This is where teaching your kids good habits it the perfect thing. Create your own bike bay to the side of the back door. All you need to do is mark out lines in the ground. Whether you use hardwood planks on the grass or draw lines with chalk on brickwork, just creating simple bays to ‘park’ their bikes with make a world of difference to your yard.

Kids love to feel like they are a grown-up so tell them to ‘park’ their bike before they come inside. This gives them a sense of fun but also gets the trikes out from under your feet.

As I sais earlier, the key to storing sports equipment is to think outside the box so your storage solutions are not only functional but fun for the kids, too.