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| Mike and Santa saluting in the "before" picture |
If you haven't seen the show, it's based in California, and the contents of a storage unit are auctioned off if the storage unit rent hasn't been paid for 3 months. Prospective buyers get to see the contents for only 5 minutes, and then they bid on the contents, hoping to find valuable items and make a profit.
And if you could view our storage unit for only 5 minutes, what would you find?
- U-Haul boxes (and if they could read my amazing labeling would know they contain books, art and photos)
- See through plastic bins of Christmas decorations, towels, blankets and books
- Carpet remnants
- A bike
- Furniture including a buffet, sewing machine, oak whisky barrel, rocking chair and small benches
- Large Plastic Santa and Snowman
- A wooden door (where I started removing the paint about 5 years ago)
- A garden hose
- An old gas can
And, the biggest prize of all...a 1973 Dodge Challenger!
And why do we have all of this stuff in storage? Well, it's the story of merging 2 complete households into 1 house and needing space for those items that didn't fit. When I first moved here after selling my house in Iowa we had 3 storage units. Later we consolidated into 2 storage units, and now the finish line is in view: only 1 storage unit.
And unlike those people who forget about what they have in storage, we know what's there. AND we try to organize it.
So Mike had the idea of building metal shelves for vertical storage and parking the Challenger under it. I know, I thought it was crazy too when I first heard the idea.
But after a weekend of building shelves and moving stuff around, I have to say IT WORKED!
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| Mike doing a trial run of the shelves outside the storage unit |
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| Holding shelves to see if trunk lid could open |
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| Metal shelves in place and Challenger parked under it! |
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| Front view of Challenger |
And yes, we still have the second storage unit which contains all the items we plan to sell on Craig's list. And if they don't sell, off to Goodwill or St. Vincent dePaul they go. And then....we will just have one storage unit! The end is in sight.
I'm relieved to hear that you are actively working on this, because I know the annual cost of these rental units can really add up! :-)
ReplyDeleteI have one stuffed closet here that is really yelling at me these days. I swear I've cleaned it out numerous times already, but it must just grow on its own when I'm not looking.
I always feel better when things are organized and the clutter is gone!
DeleteWow, that was an amazing idea. And I would love my garage to look the same way, all neat and organized. But unfortunately it is in the opposite condition. And now even our garage space has filled up forcing us to rent a long term storage unit. I hope that our things will fit in that, or else we will have to rent another unit.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, thanks for this blog... It really gave me inspiration..
Paul, good luck with your garage and storage units. It's amazing how easily things get out of control. If you invest in a few large storage bins it will make a big difference in organizing. I know I should probably have stock in storage bin companies since I've purchased so many.
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