Lista’s storage systems help organize to make perfect home

The family's craft and computer room features a pair of large stacked shallow depth cabinets built into a wall— the lower cabinet with drawers, the upper one with open shelves.

Peter and Amy Favat were going to build a house with all the design traits, features and amenities that they always wanted -- in short, the house of their dreams.

In fact, the couple decided that, not only would they build their dream house they would do so in front of hundreds of thousands of television viewers.

The construction of their new Weston, MA, home, from design to completion, was featured on the 2008 season of the Emmy-winning PBS home improvement series, This Old House.

Despite having many traditional elements, including a rustic barn-inspired design, the Favat house is remarkably innovative in many ways. 75 percent of the house, including wall systems and room modules, was pre-fabricated in a controlled workshop in New Hampshire, and then brought to Weston to be assembled and finished on site.

Another unique aspect of the Favat home is the modern "industrial" storage equipment you'll find in unexpected places throughout the residence.

"We wanted the house to combine different aesthetic elements," Peter explained. "The industrial storage furniture from Lista was exactly what we were looking for."

Based in Holliston, MA, Lista International is a leading manufacturer of storage and workspace systems.

The company has a strong presence in business-to-business markets like manufacturing, MRO, healthcare and education, but over the last few years has made great in-roads into the arena of "personal space" —home garages, craft centers, hobby workshops, etc.

The Favats' decision to use Lista equipment throughout their home exemplifies how Lista can make a personal space more organized, attractive and productive.

"Lista makes high-end cabinets and drawer systems that we use to store everything from snowboards to art and computer supplies to my workshop tools and parts."

"Lista makes high-end cabinets and drawer systems that we use to store everything from snowboards to art and computer supplies to my workshop tools and parts," Peter said. "I think it's probably a non-traditional way to use the product, but it totally works for this house and for this household."

Lista storage equipment is a central component of many different rooms in the Favat home: the storage closet for outdoor and recreation equipment; both of the kids' bedrooms; the multi-purpose craft and computer room; and Peter's workshop.

The outdoor/recreation equipment closet features the Lista Storage Wall system on facing walls of a long narrow space. The Storage Wall system, with its combination of drawers, shelves and roll-out trays, allows users to store large and small items together in an organized manner. For this closet, and other rooms in the house, Lista's Vice President of Sales, John Alfieri, provided the Favats with design blueprints that made sure that everything in the house that required storage had its own storage space.

"The storage system in the recreation equipment closet lets us have easy access to all our gear," Peter said. "Even big and bulky items can be stored in a neat and organized manner— the shelves are ideal for stuff like snowboards, snowpants, sleeping bags, snowboots and anti-freeze. On the roll-out trays, we store everything from footballs and lacrosse sticks to propane canisters and lanterns. And then in the drawers, all sorts of balls and smaller items have their own compartments."

Lista’s modular drawers differ from any cabinet drawers you might find in an office, closet or workspace. First, they come with drawer partitions that can create custom compartments to store and protect items with no wasted space. To further maximize cubic space, the Lista drawers feature full-height sidewalls.

This, in conjunction with the drawers’ full-extension capabilities, means that the entire drawer space can be utilized—front to back, side to side, and top to bottom. For small to medium items, one modular drawer cabinet can hold as much as three to four sections of shelving.

Kids' bedrooms are traditionally messy. But thanks to Lista mobile drawer cabinets in each room, the Favat kids usually have very neat and organized rooms— which their parents greatly appreciate.

Amy Favat said, "There is a lot less clutter in our children's bedrooms thanks to the Lista cabinets. There are also spots for everything, so the kids don't lose their things."

The Favat's son, Cian, has two cabinets in his bedroom, and their daughter, Juliette, has one in hers. Both cabinets are mobile, and they lock to protect all the kids' personal items.

Amy explained, "The kids like to lock up their special stuff. And now they have a safe place for all their electronics, like their cameras, i-Pods, cords and chargers. These are the kind of things you don't want out all the time. Also, Juliette uses her cabinet as her nightstand. She thinks it looks really cool."

Peter Favat's new workshop is a huge improvement over the workshop he had in his previous home.

Peter Favat's new workshop is a huge improvement over the workshop he had in his previous home.

"My old garage workshop had a mixture of random storage solutions — a lot of plastic containers and milk cartons."

The new workshop features a Lista mobile industrial workbench with a cabinet pedestal and an adjustable riser shelf for keeping items within easy reach but away from the work surface. There are two mobile cabinets in the shop, home to everything from wire spools to hand tools. The workshop also has a storage cabinet with roll-out trays and double doors, which is home to big, bulky items and electrical equipment.  The full-extension roll-out trays provide easy access to all of Peter's power tools.

Finally, the family's craft and computer room features a pair of large stacked shallow depth cabinets built into a wall— the lower cabinet with drawers, the upper one with open shelves.

The lower cabinet, with its deeper drawers near the bottom and 2” drawers toward the top, provides easy access to all manner of art supplies, photography equipment and computer equipment.

"Everyone in the family does some sort of art project every now and then," Peter Favat said. "We use a lot of art supplies. Everyone has cameras too. The Lista cabinet works incredibly well to organize all of the supplies and peripheral equipment."

Amy Favat explained further, "This cabinet also holds things like gift wrap, stationery, and a huge range of hobby supplies. It is completely full. There's one entire drawer that organizes all of our art supplies. You open it and there's markers, crayons, paints, glue, rubber stamps, anything you can imagine— all neatly laid out and easy to reach. Before we had one big closet with everything thrown together into one jumble. Now it's completely organized."

The entire Favat family is better organized in their new home, and Peter gives a lot of credit to his new storage system.

He concluded, "I've never seen anything that organizes as well as the Lista equipment. The drawers in the cabinets throughout the home totally maximize space. It's truly amazing how much they hold."

It's clear that, not only have the Favats found their dream home, but their possessions of every size and shape have found an ideal home as well.