It’s important to keep your self storage unit organised. When you go to access it, you want to be able to easily get to the items you want. If you’ve dumped everything in there willy-nilly, you could find it hard to locate and retrieve the items you need. Organising your unit can also allow you to maximise space and could also prevent items from getting damaged. Below are just a few tips on how to neatly organise your self storage facility.
Make sure items you need to access regularly are near the front
It makes sense to keep the items you need to access regularly near the front and the less used items near the back. This will prevent you from having to waste time digging through stuff to get to the items you need.
For example, if you do a lot of travelling and you keep your suitcases in self storage, you may want to place these suitcases near the front. Things like Christmas decorations that only get pulled out once per year or toys/clothes that you plan to hand down to children/grandchildren one day should be placed at the back.
Keep similar items and sets of items together
Items that you’ll likely need to use together should be stored together. For example, store your drill and drill bits together – don’t store them in different boxes so that you’re wasting time rummaging around.
Similarly, if you keep all your winter clothing here, store this all together so that you can keep track of which items you have. If items like winter hats are spread out into different boxes, it’s easy to forget how many you have.
Make sure all boxes are labelled
Labelling boxes is a great way to help you identify the contents at a glance so that you’re not spending unnecessary time rummaging through boxes.
Make sure that labels are suitably descriptive. If there are lots of different items in a box, consider creating a bullet point list of all the contents.
Create walkways
Depending on how large your self storage unit is, it could be worth creating walkways so that you can more easily access items towards the back. These do not have to be particularly wide walkways – so long as you can comfortably walk down them to access items near the back, this is all that matters.
Walkways are particularly important with large units. You don’t want to spend an hour moving out boxes just to reach something at the back.
Consider the weight of items when stacking
In a small storage unit, it may be necessary to stack some items to make the most of the space. Just be careful as to what items you stack on top of one another. Heavy items should always go at the bottom – you could damage items by placing heavy items on top.
Be careful of placing heavy items on couches or on top of the chests of drawers. The constant pressure could end up causing this surface to permanently sag or even break. Only stack light items on these surfaces.
Consider installing shelving
Shelving can prevent you from having to stack boxes and items. It could also allow you to make the most of the vertical space in your self storage unit.
It’s worth investing in freestanding shelving units that don’t have to be fixed to walls – as a self storage unit is rented, you typically won’t be able to make permanent modifications like adding floating shelves. Make sure that shelves are the right size for your belongings – too little space between shelves could make it impossible to put taller items like boxes on these shelves.
Don’t cling to clutter you’ll never use
A self storage facility should not be treated as a dumping ground for clutter. All of the items in your self storage should have a purpose. Realise when you are simply hoarding items so that you can get rid of items.
What should you do with these items that you don’t need? First, you should check if any of them are valuable as you may be able to sell some of them. If they’re not worth much but still in good condition and likely to be of use to someone, consider donating them to an op shop. If you’re hanging onto items that are of no use or value, consider whether it’s time to throw them away. Take photos of items that have sentimental value but are otherwise gathering dust – this allows you to preserve your memory of them. You may also be able to create digital copies of old photographs or old books.
