Is It Storage or Art? If It’s Hard to Tell, You’re Doing It Right.

What to do when you have too much stuff and not enough storage space? Celebrate it. Storing some of that overflow out in the open can be a good solution when you’ve got a small space with few closets.

Well-planned open storage — with wall shelves, pegs, hooks and other accessories — does two important things. “It’s provides functionality,” said Natalie Papier, the founder of , an interior design firm in Charlotte, N.C., and a host of the reality TV show “Artfully Designed.” And “it can look like art on your walls.”

Here’s how she and other designers turn what you may think of as clutter — that athletic gear, those personal mementos, your out-of-season coats and boots, old books and records — into something you want to show off.

Show Off Your Interests

Think of open storage as an opportunity to express who you are — especially when it comes to unwieldy items like guitars, bicycles and surfboards, which can be hard to stuff into closets.

For a client with multiple guitars, Ms. Papier did the obvious thing: She put them front and center, hanging them on the wall in the living room. “I was like, ‘Why hide those in a closet when they’re so important to you and they make a really unique statement?’” she said.