“I used to get asked when I was a kid, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ … In the privacy of my own head, the answer was I wanted to stay at home and play house,” Surendra said in a recent interview. (He also appears on HGTV Handmade, the network’s home for DIY-expert content on YouTube.) “And, in an ironic way, I have found a way to do what I wanted to be when I was a little kid.”
Surendra’s tutorials, which are frequently set inside his impeccably curated New York City apartment (video), document how to make pottery, tackle esoteric crafts, do laundry, cook, and organize. Though aspirational, they offer more than soothing deep dives into his daily life. Surendra’s aesthetic feels within reach, and his message is clear: You too can live this way.
Earlier this year, Surendra rented a storage unit in New York to house the overflow from his three-closet apartment, and he decided he wanted that space to look and feel as beautiful as his home. It took several months and involved a few daunting tasks along the way, including hauling heavy-duty metal shelving into the unit. But figuring out how to best store some of his most valued possessions was a process he found motivating.
We met with Surendra to find out how he planned his storage in a way that works best for him. Not all of his advice will be right for everyone—and not all of it lines up perfectly with the advice of Wirecutter’s own experts. Yet we thought getting a glimpse into his style and learning how he curated his space was inspiring.
Upon walking into his storage space, I was momentarily struck—first by the design of the room and the sense of peace in the air, and second by the thought that no single room in any house where I’d lived was as thoughtfully planned as this storage unit in a Midtown Manhattan warehouse.
“It’s very common for people to have a feeling of dread when they think of having to go through their stuff to find something,” he said. “The goal is to not have that feeling of dread, but to have the opposite feeling, to feel excited about going into your storage to pull something out. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
As a result, Surendra’s storage space feels more like an archival library than a cramped unit in a warehouse. It’s filled with clay pots, antique housewares, prized items of clothing (including his Mathletes jacket from Mean Girls), and gilded frames ready to receive new art—all of it so museum-like and thoughtfully organized that you inevitably find yourself browsing as you would in a gallery.
Below, we share the steps Surendra took to execute that vision, along with how you can emulate it—whether you’re working with a basement, an attic, a rental unit, a garage, or other space.
