apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

nope. i look at it as this, if i have to store it, there is no sense in keeping it.

I solve my storage problems by buying progressively bigger houses. And by having parents with an attic.

And thank you, Laure, for dropping the royal "we" for this post. I realise it's against AT protocol, but sometimes "we" just isn't appropriate.

I downsized from a 3BD townhouse with basement to a 1BD apt. and have had stuff in paid storage for a couple of years. I was finally able to thin out my possessions this month, which will be my last in storage. It feels great to only keep what you need and use!

I store in plain sight. I put things in baskets on top of bookcases. I created drawers at the bottom of my bookselves. Since I live alone I don't do Christmas or any other holiday decorations. I find I am visually overloaded every year. But of course I break about mid December, collecting branches from Christmas trees. Take them home soak them in water make a large bouquet and hang hand made ornaments.
Look everywhere (Muji, Pottery Barn, Craigslist, local department stores) until you find a box or basket that you can stand looking at all year. I like the frosty white plastic, semi clear, light passes through if used in the open, easy to clean and always cheerful. It has to be strong and stackable, make sure it is small or large enough to be multi-purpose. So when you get over that or this collection it can be used again.

Aside from one rubbermaid box with Christmas decorations at my parents, everything I own fits into my 450 sf studio. When I initially moved into it from a much bigger house, I had furniture and washer/dryer etc in a friend's garage, but slowly got rid of them. The washer/dryer were the hardest things to let go, until I realized that I could by a nice digital camera with the proceeds.

The top shelf in my closet has matching storage boxes that amazingly are not full of stuff (in fact a couple are empty). When I got rid of everything it was such a freeing experience.

I went from a 2B/2B to a studio and had a ton of stuff. I've slowly parted with most of it, and this recent Fall Cure helped a great deal. I do have a small storage "locker" above where I park my car. I was just in there looking for Christmas decorations and realized that I can let go of most of the stuff in there too. So, I will finally be rid of stuff I don't need and have plenty of storage for the things that mean a lot to me and I can't use right now. My parents are 3,000 miles away, so I can't store stuff there.

We purged so much in our recent move, but we still need our garage. My husband has so much stuff - most of it for his projects and hobbies. But we're both completely moved out of our parents houses -- probably because the parents are clutter-bugs!

I am in the middle of a big purge right now, but like Blandwagon, I solved the storage issue by moving from an apt. to a house, to a bigger house. I won't allow myself to go any bigger - it's ridiculous for a single person, so I'm paring down and getting rid of the things I really don't need. Right now is the garage purge. It seemed to end up being a stopping point for things that didn't need to be in the car and never made it into the house. How else to explain ribbons, books, and a stockpot in amongst hoses, ladders, and tools?

My storage space in my building is about ready to burst at the seams...

...I need to work on that purging project next.

I moved from a 1200 sq ft halfplex w/a 2car garage to an 800 sq ft cottage with no garage. My "extra" bedroom is my storage. I hate that. I have benefited from the clutter clearing ideas from that talk show host whose name starts with an O. I am doing much better, now you can walk all around the rest of the space. I leave things at the curb for the scavengers, love living in an almost city.

Having a full size garage is a blessing and a curse with the temptation of seemingly limitless storage space.

Participating in the Fall Cure gave me the push needed to clean and organize my garage from top to bottom. Many items were purged, either making their way to friends or to the Goodwill. Old paint, varnish, etc. were dropped off at Hyperion Treatment plant for proper disposal.

Thanks to clear, labeled bins, my holiday decor is easily identifiable. Snowboards and surfboards are stored in the rafters.

The free space is amazing and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Another huzzah for dropping the royal "we." I always think that the A.T. staff live in one giant flat like The Monkees or something.

Oh, and my extra stuff is still at my ex's.

I (and my two dogs) live in a small house - about 900 sq ft. There are two bedrooms and each has a reasonable-sized closet and there is storage space over the washer/dryer and and a bit of storage in the closet where the furnace and water heater are. I have a sizeable hobby collection that I have stashed everywhere and the second bedroom is lined with bookcases for my books and everything else is crammed in the house - no other storage. The closets are packed within an inch of their lives, I have a high bed so plastic tubs of linens fit underneath (no linen closet and tiny bathroom), all of my clothes are in the bedroom closet or in drawers (off season clothes packed to the ceiling in tubs on the closet shelves). I have a small china cabinet in the kitchen which holds a lot of dishes and table linens - there isn't that much storage in kitchen cabinets.

It is snug, but everything fits in the house and I don't have any storage elsewhere. I do have the pack rat gene. I try keep on top of getting rid of things that I don't use and I have reduced my collection and kept only the things I loved best. I still have a lot of stuff, but it isn't out of control.

If you don't have built-in cabinets, you may want to prowl craigslist and try to get a couple of armoires (vintage or modern - whatever works with your decor). They can hold a surprising amount of stuff if you pack them carefully and they are often shallow enough so that you can readily lay your hand on things stored in them.

for me, if it isn't something in active use, it's in a (not crammed) cupboard, drawer or closet waiting to be used.

my bf pays crazy money to store beautiful things she does not even remember. wish i could get her to sell it off and use the moolah, or at least inventory it and come up with a plan for all that swag.

No and I don't think I ever would. Unless I knew it was temporary, for less then a year or so. Otherwise, whats the point? If it's not close by you will never use it.
I do however have some things that are seldom used down in our cellar so I have enough storage at home and I guess then it is easier to say that.
I do however constantly purge stuff and a friend of mine recently said: you always seem to have things to get rid of. and it's true.

I still have a bunch of stuff in those rubbermade bins at the moment. One of them is all of our bulk art supplies (stuff like paper, bristol, velum, mounting board, etc) and I think theres one or two that have some of our antiques and my wifes porcelain dolls we dont have a place to put at the moment.

Theres 4 of them in the back of the house that we put everything we wanted to get rid of in a yard sale but havent done yet.

Its all slowly getting thinned out and found places for, we just bought our house a few months ago and dont have any furniture for the most part (coming from an apartment too small for any real furniture and college) so its a process I guess. Nothing in paid storage though, I never liked the idea of keeping things in those unless it was temporary during a long move.

I managed to clear all my stuff out of mom's basement and attic. At some point moving back and forth, and she considers me the biggest packrat ever, I did make some decisions about what to keep and what could go. Especially after moving back in with the parents in 1997 after the fire, by the next time I moved out, I had sorted through everything I'd left in the basement, so she can't pin that mess down there on me no mo'.

I currenty live in 450 square feet, and luckily have a bounty of closets without taking away from the living spaces significantly. My last places was about 600 or more sq. ft., but with only one sort of big closet, and difficult to arrange with the doorways all through the shotgun apartment. We could put stuff in the basement, but... it was a creepy, unfinished space. That apartment felt a lot more crowded, but then there were two of us living there.

Rubbermaid tubs have got to go eventually. I have a closet of bins with fabric in them, which I want to go on shelves, and donate a lot of what just doesn't appeal to me, which I kept just because it was fabric. This is not high on my priority list. I don't generally feel as though I can't fit in here. It's a puzzle, but I can fit everything I need in here and still have plenty of room to walk around. The kitchen also provides abundant storage. Everything for the bathroom fits inside the bathroom. My furniture needs to be added to and/or changed in a few circumstances. I don't like to have to throw things out or donate them if I don't have to. I know what I'm sick of looking at, but I've never had to part with something I love because it wouldn't fit in my apartment, or store it off-site.

Amen to dropping the "we"--thanks, Laure!!!

I also have close to zero closet space, plus recently down-sized from a 3BR house w/full basement (dream!) to a 1BR apartment w/a 6x8 storage cage.

Purge, purge, purge is my new mantra (and yet despite recently divesting myself of 1/3 of my books, my s.o. had the cohones to ask if I *really* needed the Lenin Anthology).

Another *grand* AT idea (thanks, Maxwell!) is to keep paperwork/bills at the office. Really helps keep the paper clutter down.

We have some artwork at my mothers house on the other side of the country, mostly because we were worried it would be destroyed in the move. Once we buy our own place it will move in with us

With respect to the "container of Christmas ornaments" problem, well, laying in a container for 11 months is one of the things they do. You can get rid of them, you can cherish and reuse them, or you can do without any, or you can buy or make new cheap stuff every year and get rid of it, just like you get rid of a live tree. I have a half-sized under-the-bed box of a variety of Christmas ornaments (vintage and other corny stuff I've collected or inherited over time) that I've always kept pretty well organized and not felt like they were taking up a lot of space, and keep in mind, as I've mentioned, I don't put a tree up every year, so they're in the box about 35-47 months at a time before they're in use. Light, easy to keep, easy to pack (it's already to go), fits in a closet or under my bed. Of all my excess possessions, it's the category I least need to think about.

No, I would never pay for storage.

I am super organized so I don't ever end up with the problem of not enough room. I do this by continually purging. Also, I return presents if I know that I won't use them. If there isn't a receipt, I give it to Salvation Army. I swap and re-sell my media.

It is great to be able to live without many belongings.

I have christmas decorations and old art supplies at my parents house, but everything else fits in my little 370 sq ft studio. There is technically room to store the decorations in my studio, but I have never lived anywhere post-college that is big enough for a tree. They are staying there so I don't have to keep moving them from apartment to apartment.

Just moved from a smaller house to a bigger one with less storage. I'm now trying to stash all my art and craft supplies prior to a SERIOUS purge, ideally with a yard sale. (But December in New Hampshire just doesn't qualify as yard sale weather. Especially today, with half the state including us, without power. Nice to have my "domestic partner's" job to come to, where the computers work.

Stuff has taken over, and it's really hard to sort with everything already in my face. sigh.

Sherry, it's worth it to donate things now vs. waiting for yard sale weather, if you have nowhere to put it in the meantime. Or sell it on craigslist.... don't know how popular that is in NH. I don't have a yard or a digital camera, and I just say goodbye to a relative headache of trying to unload things on paying customers (who may or may not come, or pay me enough to bother overall) by carting stuff over to Goodwill. I try not to think of my perfectly good stuff as an asset, it works.

OK, here's motivation: you can donate up to $4,999 dollars worth of stuff a year and take a tax write-off without fear of audit (just value things appropriately) and give them something to sell to finance their charitable works. So, in the time left this year, go through, figure out what you NEVER use and, if it is in good shape, donate it! Check that the thrift shop is still accepting donations, because everyone waits until the last minute. And then do the same next year.

Sell what you can - although you may need to really drop the prices, given the economy. I'm selling my CDs online and have had to really drop prices to generate sales. But better to sell and the dollars add up. And figure out creative places to display things like your pottery: perhaps a shelf near the ceiling?

I don't think I'd keep paid storage unless I had something awfully valuable that I was saving for when I bought a home....like passed down antique set that would be a wrong to break up but doesn't fit in my apartment sort of thing.

When I moved out my mom made me pack up everything. So recently I've been trying to purge and have come up with 2 bins of stuff from childhood, you know those hand print things, a myriad of elementary school photos. I'm thinking about bringing them back to my parent's place and put it in the garage.