Storing hard crusted bread
I recently read somewhere (I forget where) that if you're only storing it for a day or two, standing the loaf cut-side down on a cutting board worked fine. The crust stays crisp, and the cut edge is protected and doesn't go stale.

Storing it that way much longer than a day or so probably would risk going stale.

Unfortunately, we don't get to do this much as we can't eat one fast enough to get away with unprotected storage like that. So we have to live with increasingly soft crusts in plastic bags.