What is a Broom Cupboard?

A broom cupboard is a storage space in which brooms and other household items can be stored. Many homes feature a broom cupboard that is built right into the wall as a closet, while others feature external units that can be moved from one location to another if necessary. Most broom cupboard units are located in a hallway or kitchen, or some other out of the way space that will not interfere with daily movement through the home. Many homeowners repurpose the cupboard for other purposes if they do not have brooms and other cleaning instruments to store.

The size of a broom cupboard is generally quite narrow to prevent the closet from taking up excess space in the home. They were historically used only to house brooms and other tall, narrow cleaning instruments such as mops and buckets, so the closet is likely to only be about a foot to foot and a half (.3 meters to .46 meters) across and anywhere from four to seven feet tall (1.2 to 2.1 meters) or taller. These closets can be used to store a vacuum as well, though some vacuums are too bulky and wide to fit in the narrowest broom cupboard units.

Many homeowners have begun using the broom cupboard in their kitchens as extra storage for food or kitchen utilities. The space is valuable for other purposes beyond broom and cleaning instrument storage, so many homeowners install shelves inside the closet for foot, blenders and other appliances, or other kitchen items such as plastic bags, tin foil, and so on. The lowest part of the broom cupboard can be modified to include a trash compactor or simply a trash bin, though it is inadvisable to contain a garbage bin or trash compactor in the same closet as food and other objects used for preparing and cooking food.

Other homeowners still use the space to store cleaning supplies, though it is not uncommon for the space to be modified for more efficiency. Racks can be hung from the door of the broom cupboard to hold items such as garbage bags, ironing boards and irons, feather dusters, and so on. The cupboard can be fitted with shelves that slide out of the closet to make accessing smaller items much easier. Storing bottles of cleaning solutions in the closet can be made much easier by including slide-out drawers; some slide-out drawers even tilt downward to make it easier to access high drawers and shelves.