Organizing a Storage Unit

Until a week ago I had never had the need for a storage unit, nor had I even thought about organizing a storage unit. When we moved to the Pacific Northwest we decided to rent short term to give us an idea of where we wanted to settled. We are renting a small one-bedroom apartment for the short term. Moving from a large four-bedroom house to a tiny apartment meant we needed to put many of our belongings in a storage unit.

My son-in-law found a wonderful clean and dry storage unit just a few miles from our apartment. He even found pallets for us to place our belongings on so the boxes were not sitting directly on concrete. We rented two storage units so there would be plenty of space to organize.

You might wonder what organizing a storage unit involves? We decided ahead of time that we would place all the boxes and furniture along each side with a narrow aisle down the center. That way if there was anything we needed before we purchase a home we should be able to find it.

We made our desire known to the moving company and they assured us this would not be a problem, and they would organize the storage unit the way we asked. My husband met the movers at the units and explained to them how we would like the units organized. Again they assured us it would not be a problem. After hanging around watching that the movers did indeed move things the way we would like he felt he was in the way and came back to the apartment.

About four hours later the movers came to the apartment with the little bit of furniture and the few boxes that we would unpack in our small apartment. They said the storage units were all set and they went on their way. The next day when we went to check out the storage units were we surprised! One unit had barely anything in it and the other one was packed high front to back with no aisle in sight!

Lesson learned, don’t leave the movers unattended to unload the truck and be sure to check their work before they leave. Luckily the moving company was sympathetic and allowed us to hire someone to help us re-organize the units. After about ten hours each unit is organized with an aisle down the center. All the boxes are up on pallets and nothing is stacked higher than it should be.

Organizing a storage unit is not hard but it’s a lot easier to organize it from the beginning rather than have to touch all the boxes again to re-organize it! Have you ever used a storage unit? How did it work out for you? I’m hoping we’ll be moving into our own house in 4-6 months. In the meantime I’m taking a beak from boxes!