Living in a rental has many advantages, but storage is usually not one of them. Lucky renters may be provided a separate storage unit in their building, otherwise you might need to rent a storage unit for surplus items.
We are sharing our best tips for making the most of your storage space so you can pack away seasonal items safely and retrieve them easily.
Pack: Pack seasonal items together so you can remove an entire container instead of digging through boxes in the storage unit.
Hang: If possible, use hanging storage containers for clothing items. The pieces will keep their shape better, and finding and removing specific pieces will be much easier.
Take Inventory: As you pack to put items in storage, number each container and make a list of each box’s inventory. It is a tedious process, but you will thank yourself when you want to remove something from storage later.
Elevate: If you are using a unit that is on ground level or below, consider placing wood pallets on the floor before loading your containers into the storage unit. The pallets will protect your containers from water damage and pests.
Organize: Create towers of storage containers based on their contents. For example, place all your Christmas items in one tower. When it comes time to switch out seasonal items, you can remove one whole tower instead of trying to pull containers from all over.
Label: Make sure each container is labelled on the side, and that the labels are facing out. If you label the top of each container, you will have to dig to read the labels.
[tweetthis]Packing tip: Label the sides, not the tops! Once stacked, boxes can be hard to read. #movingtips[/tweetthis]
Whatever you choose to store in your storage unit, this checklist should help make it as useful and organized as possible. ForRent has you covered with more tips on storage solutions for cramped spaces, so be sure to check it out!