Taking out a self storage space to call your own can help you declutter your home or give you more room for your favorite hobby. If you've never used a self storage unit before, you may not know where to begin. Here are some tips that could help ensure that your first experience with a self storage unit is a good one.
Consider Climate Options
Some self storage units are climate controlled and others are not. Typically, a self storage company will charge extra per month for the units that can be controlled to remain at a specific temperature range. If you are debating whether or not it is worth it for you, take a look at what you are storing. Older family heirlooms, especially antiques, may not respond well to extreme temperatures in the summer or winter. Newspapers may quickly yellow in bad conditions. In many cases, it may worth the extra investment.
Put a Specific Room in Its Own Specific Box
If you are downsizing and need to put some of the items you previously had in your house into storage, try to keep it organized both when boxing and then when deciding where to put the boxes inside the unit. For example, do not mix items that are from the living room into a box that is otherwise mostly dining room items. This will make it easier to figure out where everything is when you need it.
Additionally, if you have more than one box for the same room, stack these boxes together. The living room gets its own stack, the dining room, the bedroom, and so on. If you want to go to your unit and get something that was previously in a specific room, you want to be able to go right to one stack instead of having to sort through multiple boxes looking for the right label.
Don't Get Top Heavy or Messy as Time Goes On
You might show up at your self storage unit on the first day ready to get organized. However, if you will be keeping the unit for a long time, you might periodically add more and more boxes into the unit as time goes on. But "dumping" is exactly what you do not want to do. Take time to make sure that the biggest boxes are on the bottom when possible.
Contact a storage unit company for more information.