The best way to avoid a cluttered house or a disorganised workspace is to contract the services of a self-storage company to store the stuff that you need on occasion but gets in the way of your daily routine. One of the best ways to use these units is placing the items to be stored using a vertical distribution system. The following are a few pointers you can take to use the space available on your unit more wisely:
Placement of Furniture
The arrangement of furniture is often perceived as the most complicated task when it comes to the use of a storage unit. A little patience goes a long way to use the space in the best possible way. One best trait of modern furniture is that almost everything can be taken apart or disassembled. Mattresses are best placed against the wall. If you are dealing with a bed, you can take apart its pieces and lean them against the mattress. Setting the header of the bed frame first will make things easier for you.
If your plan is to store tables and chairs, you need to look at how they can be taken apart. Tables usually are set on top of a leg frame that can be placed against a wall, while chairs probably need to be stacked one on top of the other. Using their L shaped build can make things easier. If said chairs are built using plastic resins you can set them on top of the other, they won’t lose their shape. Couches are a bit more complicated. They are usually assembled as a single piece so the best way would be to stand them up and lean them facing a corner of the unit.
A Quick Recommendation
It probably goes without saying, but if these items are going to be stored for a long time, you will do good to cover them in plastic wrapping to avoid outside elements from damaging them. Unless you are using a temperature-controlled unit, most of these items are still exposed to the effects of humidity, dust and the natural degradation they experience with time. The same applies to store stuff like clothing, bed sheets, and blankets. The best course of action regarding these is to use plastic bags with shut-in mechanisms like the ones used by Ziploc bags.
Placement of Boxes and Bins
When you store items inside a unit, it’s unwise to throw them in and be done with them. The best use of space is when you store the items that had to be put away using stacking boxes or plastic bins. They both work great, but if you are storing items that need preservation against the elements, the plastic containers are probably a better option. If your budget only allows for boxes, please don’t use worn out ones, get sturdy new moving boxes of the same size to ensure extra stability. Before storing the boxes make sure that the items are correctly classified, tagged and bagged based on your needs. This will make it much easier next time you’ll want to retrieve something again.
Once you have placed everything on the boxes or the bins that are going to the storage unit, you need to follow basic physics to get all in place. The best way to store everything is by placing every box on top of the other according to size and content. It’s smart to make sure that the heavier items go to the larger containers. You don’t want to place a box containing a bowling ball on top of a box containing glass items. That’s why classifying the content it’s so important before storing it. Place the larger containers in the bottom of the room and build your stack from there. Make sure your piles of box and containers are steady and stable. A wobbling stack will give you troubles in the long run.
Follow these simple suggestions, and you will find that it is easy to maximise your vertical space and store more items in your storage unit.
