How to Organize Your Storage Unit

For businesses and individuals looking for full-service storage facilities, All My Sons Moving & Storage provides everything from expert professional packing and secure transportation to top-notch security and flexible contract options. 

Are you loading your own self-storage unit for a household or business? Whether you’re stashing your belongings temporarily during a relocation or looking to use a storage unit for the long-haul, organizing your storage unit right off the bat helps cut down on the time you spend searching your unit for items and protects your belongings from accidental damage.

Cramming your unit to the brim will just give you a headache later. Take our advice and spend some extra time organizing your storage unit before you lock it up.

Save time, save money, and keep your belongings extra safe by following these simple steps to prepare your items for storage. Remember, even if you are using storage temporarily and you have your move-out date already scheduled, any number of unforeseeable circumstances could extend your stay. For this reason, you should pack a storage unit with the long-term in mind.

• Declutter and Downsize: The easiest way to save space and money when renting storage is to make sure everything that goes into your unit counts. Take the opportunity before you move your items into storage to evaluate your belongings or business inventory. Ask yourself if you can declutter or downsize and offload the items you do not feel like you should keep. Once you have less stuff to manage, you will be able to rent the smallest unit that can comfortably accommodate your items.

• Purge Items You Should Not Store: Every storage facility keeps an extensive list of items you should not store. These include items that can attract pests like food or house plants and items that are a serious liability for the storage facility like fireworks or toxic chemicals. Review your storage facility’s contract and make alternative arrangements for anything in your inventory that you are prohibited from storing. Also, watch out for items that might not be expressly prohibited but would not do well in long-term storage that is not temperature-controlled such as items that freeze or melt.

• Choose the Right Unit: Your needs will differ depending on what you’re looking to store and how often you will need to access your items. A large drive-up unit could be good for hardy furniture you want to be able to access quickly, but it might not be the best choice for delicate photo albums or temperature-sensitive collectibles. Consider these five questions you should ask yourself before you rent storage space to help determine what type of unit to rent.

• Prepare Your Items for Storage: Once you have decided exactly what you are storing, it’s important to adequately prepare your items for storage. Items should be clean and dry to help prevent mold damage and keep them from attracting pests. Protect furniture from dust and dirt by wrapping it in breathable furniture pads or cotton sheets. Remove batteries from electronic items and consider packing with desiccants to cut down on moisture in your unit.

• Invest in Sturdy Containers: Items going into storage for the long haul should be stored in sturdy, weather-proof containers. If your storage unit contains items that you need to search through often, such as a business inventory, you should consider investing in clear plastic bins so that you can easily see what’s inside your containers at a glance.

• Label Boxes and Bins Clearly: Start your organization efforts right when you pack your boxes and bins and make certain to label everything clearly. If you have extra money for packing supplies then you might try purchasing different colored tape to differentiate your boxes by room or by whether or not the contents you packed were fragile. 

Your items are prepared for storage, and you’ve chosen the best unit to meet your needs. All the sturdy boxes and bins are labeled, and now is the time to start packing your unit in earnest. 

The best way to organize your storage unit is the way that will help you access anything you need quickly while still efficiently holding your items so that they do not get damaged. As you prepare to pack your unit, keep your long-term needs in mind.

1. Create a Storage Unit Inventory

Whether you’re storing on a short-term basis or packing a unit for the long-term, it can be helpful to be aware of what exactly is going into your unit. If you are creating a household or moving inventory, mark the items that are going into your storage unit. You can use a household inventory app like Itemtopia or NAIC Home Inventory if you do not want to create a spreadsheet or paper list.

If you run a business out of your storage unit, you should always aim to keep a business inventory so you know precisely how much stock you keep of certain items or what assets you possess in the event you need to make any insurance claims. There are a number of software programs available for small to medium-sized businesses to help them manage their inventory such as BlueTally or Sortly.

2. Map the Unit by Ease of Access

Consider the items you are putting into storage and how often you will need to access them. If an item will not need to be accessed often or not until your move-out, then you can likely put the item in the very back of the unit and stack other items on top of it or in front of it. 

Items you need to access frequently should go closer to the front of the unit or have enough space in front of them so that you can grab them when you need them. 

3. Use Shelving or Stack Efficiently

When stacking boxes and bins, always stack with the heaviest containers on the bottom and lighter containers toward the top. If you have furniture pieces that will support the weight of your boxes, you can stack boxes on top of those. Just keep in mind that if you need to access the furniture pieces before the boxes, you will have to do some re-packing of your unit later.

If you run a business out of your storage unit and access it often, invest in some shelving. With shelves you’ll keep your containers off the ground, which is especially important if you are preparing your storage unit for winter, and you’ll have a clear, accessible path to all your containers. Orient the containers so that their labels face outward, and you’ll be able to run in, find what you need to retrieve, and close the unit again in a jiffy.

4. Utilize Vertical Space

Your storage unit likely has a high ceiling. If it is safe to do so, you might be able to orient some of your items so that they fill the vertical space, such as putting a couch on its side to stand it upright. Make sure the items you stack in high places are lighter so that they pose less risk to other items if they fall. For example, you could put a few pillows or couch cushions on top of your bookshelves.  

If you are using vertical space in your unit often, you should probably keep a small step ladder in your unit so that you can reach high places when you need to.

5. Leave Aisles for Navigation

This step goes along with mapping your unit for ease of access, but if you are in and out of your unit often then you might consider creating some aisles of empty space in your unit so that you can easily navigate to the items you need. 

Combine aisles with shelving to make the perfect storage unit setup to run your small business. With aisles between shelves, you’ll be able to run in, grab what you need, and close up the unit again without digging or displacing items that need to stay in storage.

If you need storage during a relocation, consider full-service storage solutions from All My Sons Moving & Storage. All My Sons Moving & Storage operates 90+ locations across the United States and offers households and businesses customizable moving services. If you’re looking for full-service storage solutions for an upcoming relocation or for the long haul, you can count on All My Sons Moving & Storage to handle all the details from the packing to the heavy lifting. Call 1-866-726-1579 to find out if there are storage facilities near you or get started with an online quote.