maybe squeezing out of a storage unit

[Zoe Girl]

i moved as some of you may recall to about 1,000 ft2 apartment and had been in a small 3 bedroom house and before that a very large 3 bedroom house. so i have been doing the downsizing for awhile, moving young adults out, making a lot of decisions. whew, i hit the wall a little bit with this last downsize when i got to things i am not comfortable getting rid of. that is fine, i don't have to after all. simple living is about OUR choices. my dad made some comment about how if you have a storage unit you have too much stuff. i live in a city in a small apartment, they are 2 people in a 4 bedroom house and a full size garage. yeah,

i have had a storage unit for the move and put in my 30 day notice because there are storage units at my new apartment building for much less. except after i put in my notice they didn't have any more units. so hmm, now what? i am getting creative with keeping what i really want and making it fit. i have a couple more days before my 30 days are up. i just got most of all the christmas decorations into 2 underbed boxes, i am so happy with myself! i have one closet that is about 3 feet wide and it fits all my clothes. i also have a antique dresser that has all my sewing materials in it. it is perfect, and if i get more i will need to give some away. A lot of this is changing the storage boxes i use to fit into my new place, compared to the large boxes i have always had. i even thought about a storage bench or other types of storage furniture.

in any case this is my process like eating the elephant, how to avoid storage!

[iris lilies]

how much is your storage unit?

Our lily society rents one for $500 annually. But it is very small, yet it has high ceilings. It is about 4' wide, and I don't know how deep, maybe 8' or 10' deep (?) Someone years ago built shelves to hold items all the way tot he top. Also, you can drive right up to it to load and unload.

[mschrisgo2]

I moved out of a 3 bedroom house, and I had a couple weeks wait until my new place was going to be ready, so Everything I owned, except for "like packing for a vacation" went into storage. I had 2 units, a 10 x 12, and a 5 x10. When I moved, I emptied the larger one into my new place. I found I had enough stuff that really didn't seem to fit to keep the smaller one. After a couple of months of paying for it, I started to get serious about what was in there. With careful evaluation, I realized I had some furniture to sell, which I did. That left me with a wall of bankers' boxes, 5 high, 10 long, 50 full boxes to be exact. I stood there one day looking at them, not wanting to sort stuff and not wanting to pay rent again. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could place the same row of boxes behind my bookcases if I moved them out 15 inches. So that's what I did: problem solved immediately! That was almost nine years ago; the truth is I still have 7 of those boxes (now floor to ceiling in the corner of my bedroom). I've gone through them slowly and discarded and integrated, and I hope to be finished this summer.

[Zoe Girl]

i have one small unit, just under $100 a month. i think that is a lot but i live in a city after all. the ones in my apartment complex are supposed to be $35 a month. when one comes available i will still get it, there are things like camping gear that i use annually, memories type things that i rotate around, etc.

i already did some really hard things like put a nice wooden bunk bed out at the street and then ended up paying for junk haulers to include that in a pick up. there was just no more time. So i am okay with having some boxes and junk around my apartment while i work this out but i don't want to pay another $100 this month.

[kib]

Hard, isn't it. I've been on a decluttering kick and I'm getting to that point where everything I pick up seems too sentimental or valuable or potentially useful to part with - or it's not mine to discard. Out of print books, expensive towels I will some day switch out when the old ones wear out a bit more - and they really Do wear out eventually, but it takes time! I'm not a hoarder, but the stuff I have now seems foolish to get rid of, but cumbersome to keep. 1000 sq would be a tight squeeze for the two of us + Stuff, I have to admit.

[sweetana3]

Stuff will expand to exceed the amount of space you have to put it in.

[iris lilies]

Stuff will expand to exceed the amount of space you have to put it in.

Yes, absolutely.

My latest rants with the lily society are: why the h*ll do we still have all of this damned stuff that we haven't used for years? And WHY must we drag it all, in 2 trucks and a van, to each show and sale when we don't use it? It's because no one wants to take responsibility for throwing away things. Well baby, they've met the Tossaway Bitch and that is me.

I will be cleaning out the storage shed. My goal is to squeeze down the "stuff" needed for a show to that which will fit into one truck.

One half of the stuff in our storage shed was built by or made by someone who was retired, had time on their hands, and liked spending an entire day setting up for a show and a sale. Ummmm, no longer do we have 2 dozen people to help with that, we have about 5 people total to help.

If this group cannot pare down, they will die under the weight of historical expectations.

[Gardenarian]

Congratulations on your downsizing and ingenious storage ideas!

It sounds like putting your stuff in storage served as sort of an "out box," allowing you time to detach yourself from some stuff and figuring out what you really wanted to keep. So in that way, it really worked out well - though it sure is hard making those "what stays/what goes" decisions.

I got the "out box" concept from Apartment Therapy (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-simple-step-to-success-set-up-an-outbox-january-cure-assignment-4-198802) - very useful!