At a friend's house for dinner the other night, the host (who lives in a charming but tiny apartment) reached into the pantry to retrieve his mandoline. Before any slicing or dicing of veggies could happen, some injury occurred, due in part to the storage challenges of living in a tiny home.
A safe, competent guy, the host who harmed his finger (don't worry, he'll be fine, just a small cut), isn't one to store things haphazardly at all; it just happened that because of his small space and love of kitchen gadgets the spot the mandoline had been living seemed the logical spot.
This incident made us think of our own brushes with harm due to small space storage situations. There was the time a seemed-sturdy-at-the-time media table toppled over when a heavy TV was placed on it (back when TV's were bigger than a thin flat-screen sliver). There was the near-miss with a bottle of cleaner falling to the face when we had (not smartly) stored our cleaning supplies on a top shelf in a closet once. And a few other times we've probably blocked from our memory.
Do you consider safety — or more specifically, how safe it'll be to remove — when storing potentially dangerous items? Have you ever been accidentally injured from a sharp or falling object because you lacked a ton of storage space in a small apartment or home? Ever been injured by something not dangerous at all?
More home safety ideas to consider:
Better Safe Than Sorry: Design Friendly Safety Devices
Healthy Homes Are Safe: An Emergency Preparedness Checklist
Do You Know What To Do in a Home Emergency?
Making Your Home Safe: Tempered Glass
Good Questions: Earthquake Proofing Shelves?
(Image: Product Review: Benriner Mandoline)