What's Worth Keeping: Tips for Sensible Storage

Whether it's because they're going travelling, downsizing their living space, or having a large-scale renovation, most people need a storage locker at some point during their lives. To use the space you have available to you as efficiently as possible, though, it's important to store only the things you really need to keep. 

Three Things to Hang Onto . . .

1. Anything with genuine sentimental value. The best reason to take the advice in this guide to heart is to give yourself enough room to store all the things that really matter—mementos, memorabilia, and reminders of people and things that are important to you. Objects like that are irreplaceable, and it's important to hang onto them! The trick is auditing what you've got and asking yourself if you really feel strongly about all of it. Do you feel that you want to keep that particular piece of paper, or would a photo of it be just as good? Do you actually like that gift, or have you just kept it for ten years out of a sense of obligation to the giver?   
2. Quality clothes from decades past. One of the few things that genuinely do turn out to have some real retail value after time is retro or vintage clothing—and style is changing all the time. Right now fashion is having a sort of 90s revival, and the 70s and 80s come back in again every few years or so. Genuine vintage pieces—which currently include anything from the 60s or earlier—are always in high demand if you've got them. If you don't want to revisit your previous style concepts yourself, there are likely other people who will!  
3. Cabinets, shelving units, cupboards, and trunks. Even if you're not planning on keeping a piece of storage furniture in the long run, it's worth having it in the locker to help you keep everything else in order. Get the storage furniture in first and use it to hold everything else. Shelving is particularly useful, as it helps you to better employ your upwards space.

. . . and Three Things to Throw Away.

1. Physical-format media you don't want to keep. Everyone seems to hang onto DVDs, games, books, and CDs long past the point that they actually want them, but in the current technological climate, if you don't want them yourself there's a good chance nobody else will, either. It's not that these things aren't important and precious objects (very little is more satisfying than a big wall filled with much-loved novels), it's just that they're very common ones, and they need a great deal of storage space. It's worth looking into ways to donate or recycle what you don't want.  
2. Small electronics and appliances.  Perhaps the most common storage locker mistake is keeping things in them like microwaves, toasters, kettles and blenders—not to mention old laptops and obsolete technology. Unless your small appliances are particularly fancy or hold personal significance, it's almost certainly going to be more expensive to store them for any length of time than it would be to have them recycled and to buy new ones when you're ready.  
3. Large, easily replaceable items of furniture. Your square meters are likely to be at a premium if you're looking to keep everything extra you own inside one locker, so it's important to give serious thought to which of your larger items you need to keep. A cast-iron bedstead you've had for twenty years is one thing, but if you've got a flat-packed wooden bed you could replace instantly it's probably not worth all the room it's going to take up. Carefully evaluate each item and decide how much you actually need it or want it. 

Now that you have these tips, find a storage facility like Burleigh Mini Stores and get started with your organizing.