What’s a Collection?

What’s a Collection?

Your house is chock full of things and you’re being hounded by your wife or your parents or your kids to get rid of all your things! But is all that clutter really junk, or are you sitting on top of a mountain of items that can be classified and grouped together and showcased as a collection? A collection is defined as a group of items or things of one particular kind. And if you think that you may have a collection on your hands, you’ll be glad to know that collections are generally not seen as a hoard of useless items at all!

So how do you define what makes all these things a good collection worth the storage space it needs as opposed to a pile of odds and ends?

It seems like you have a lot of the same thing

It’s not quite a collection if they don’t all represent some similar idea across the board, or perhaps follow the same colour scheme or come from the same country. What makes these items form a collection could be something as simple as being made from a certain special material or different types of the same thing. After all, it’s not really a collection if the items are too random and don’t have a link to each other.

It doesn’t have to be useful items either; in fact, it can be a bunch of seashells you’ve picked up over the years, or even beanie baby stuffed toys! We’re sure you’ve seen Coca-cola bottle collections or a collection of snow globes or even a valuable collection of baseballe cards too! But of course the prettier the item, the more you’re going to want to show them off! And that leads us to the next point…

You have thought of or are already displaying some items

Maybe you’ve got all these dried up flowers in frames up on the wall. Or perhaps you’ve put up some shelving to keep your thimbles organized. We’ve heard of people who’ve got specially crafted cabinets to keep the humidity and heat out of your collection of Barbie dolls. But since a good collection almost always illicits some sort of wow factor when put together in the same place, why not display what you’ve collected!

It’s something that you’re passionate about!

Collections come and go, but the thing that makes a collection sustainable, is passion and longevity! Most collections start to look better when there are more and more of the item coming together in a group and while you need to stop eventually, don’t stop too soon! And if there is anything to motivate you, think about the thrill of the hunt – when you will have another unique piece to add to what you have. And certainly when you continue collecting, you’re sure to collect stories about the items too! That’s sure to make it all the more rewarding!

So don’t put off going through your clutter and have a look through your clutter and start sorting it out. Could be that it turns out that there are things that need to be thrown away but perhaps you’ve been secretly squirreling away pieces that are worth putting together to showcase to others. Maybe there are some collections waiting in your garage to begin a beautiful journey of collecting for you!

How to Clear out some Space – The Kitchen

How to Clear out some Space – The Kitchen

Kitchens may not always be the most cluttered spaces, we know of more than enough homes where their dinnerware sets are mismatched. Plates that were accidentally broken forced 2 separate dinner sets to be combined for service but that doesn’t mean that storing all the different sets fit magically together inside the cupboards. Au Contraire, it does sometimes pose a big difficulty for configuring the best arrangement for your items within. So here’s how you can clear up some space and/or make the space more efficient so that you’ll have a little extra room to play around with.

The best kept kitchens are those which are seldom in use. Not sure how true this may be, but I do know that a clean and sanitary kitchen is one that’s free of cooking debris and is also not too overly crowded by too much crockery and equipment.

Now it’s not uncommon to have utensils and kitchenware lying all over the countertops and lying unwashed in the sink, so we’re not going to be talking about the importance of loading up the dishwasher and keeping things clean. More about what happens when the cupboards have one too many sets of plates and other various china.

The pantry is the simplest place to start at where you can start clearing out things quickly and effectively to create more storage space for things. This is the easiest place to start because you just need to look for the items with extra vegetable bits growing out of them, and we’re not talking about blooming plants. If you see mouldy foodstuff and misshapen canned products, these are the first to go. Next would be looking for expired items of course. Similarly you can look through your freezer and refrigerator for leftovers and forgotten items in there to get rid of too. Unless you regularly clean out your pantry (which you should do!) this should take out quite a big bulk of products from your kitchen.

Under the sink are great spots for storing detergents and dishwashing liquids and other cleaning implements used to scour the much and grime off kitchen surfaces. You can install a shelving unit under there so that things will be neat and tidy and within reach. This will keep the harmful substances away from the edibles in the pantry and give the pantry a little more wriggle room.

Normally under counter shelving tends to be under-utilised, this is because of the irregular shape of the pots and pans. Installing hooks on the walls could be a good idea so crockery can rest hanging against the walls instead of taking up valuable real estate in the drawers. If you are okay to do an overhaul of your shelving and storage units installed in the kitchen, consider swivel racks for hard to reach corner cupboard spaces also help you to maximise the space that you already have.

And when all else fails, look to your countertops. If there is a sad amount of food preparation space, you can consider minimising the number of appliances which are not being used as frequently and putting them into storage. Good Luck!

Space Storage, Storage Spaces (Say that 10 times fast!)

Space Storage, Storage Spaces (Say that 10 times fast!)

Most people living on the world today will never journey to outer space. Even with the most rapid advances in spacecraft technology most of us will be stuck here on good old earth. But don’t think that that doesn’t mean the age for widespread space travel is not upon us. While it might not be happening tomorrow space travel for commercial purposes and even tourism is already in the planning stages. This raises an important question. With outer space being so hostile to human life, how will we survive? What can we bring with us to help us endure the rigours of space travel?

Fortunately for us aspiring Buck Rogers’ scientists have been studying these questions for decades. Starting back at the dawn of the space-age what supplies are necessary and how to store them safely has been an integral question in science of space exploration. What do you may not know is that this science as events into a business. Believe it or not there is now an industry devoted to space supply. Space logistics has gone from being the subject of study to a bustling business With billions of dollars invested in. Savvy business people long ago figured out that not only was space travel, so was the opportunity to make money supplying future space travellers with all they need to survive.

Modern technology has made the preservation of perishable goods and adaptation to harsh conditions of equipment a relatively simple procedure. This does not mean that anyone can prepare supplies for space travel however. Modern space supply chain entrepreneurs have to deal with the key limiting factor of space travel supplies – storage. Space travel, despite what you might seen science-fiction films is a very complex and delicately balanced Blend of science and technology with understandably little room for error. As such spacecraft are necessarily designed first for safety, and second for comfort. And safety requires a lot of equipment. The expense of building spacecraft and delivering those craft into space leaves precious little room for cargo. And since you only want to ship supplies into space as infrequently as possible, miniaturisation and weight optimisation are essential considerations for any business involved in the space logistics industry.

Let’s look at the international space station, a good place to start as it is most assuredly our greatest endeavour and helping people survive in the harsh conditions of space. At any one time there can be as many as seven astronauts living on the international space station and they’ll need to be fed (and watered) and these supply flights can only happen a few times a year. Flights can deliver approximately 3 tons of supplies, which certainly sounds like a lot. But when you consider that the bulk of this weight is fuel and breathable air understand how precious little space available there is for extravagances. Let’s look at the food requirements for six astronauts over six months. It’s hard to believe that even a ton of food could sustain that many people for that long. Companies in the space logistics industry have worked long and hard to figure out how to pack the most nutritional value into the smallest spaces. This again leads to the ultimate question of storage space on international space station is quite limited, with most areas being devoted to the scientific missions It was designed for. So out of necessity food items must be packaged and sized in a way to best utilise this precious storage space.

Expanding The Sydney Storage Facility

Expanding The Sydney Storage Facility

Having been with Super Cheap Self Storage from the very beginning, there have been lots of moments for the pioneer team of us when we started out. Lots of ups and downs for sure but one of the best moments that has stuck with me vividly until now must be the moment when we moved into and signed the lease for our current facility in Sydney.

We were really excited because we had come so far from our humble beginnings and were really making a name for ourselves across Australia. Our clients loved what we were doing for them in terms of the services that we were providing and we were finally in the black – enough to upgrade our facilities and equipment and go all the way in proving to everyone what we are able to do for the self storage industry!

We have really been blessed with good patronage over the years that we have been in operation. Our clients have been very loyal, sometimes taking out a second or third storage unit for their items, and definitely without their generous referrals to their friends, we would not have been able to come as far as we have today. That being said, we were really starting to get over run with our old location and needed to source for a bigger place fast! And when we finally moved into our new premises, we were really just so excited to push forward in our work – the place just had so much capacity and it was so big!

With our new floor space, we knew we could fit in so many more of our plywood storage units, so after a quick inventory, we aggregated that we could fit in at least another 60 to 80 more storage containers and that’s because we also stack them high. We discovered that there’s just so much opportunity in being careful and frugal with the space that we have at our warehouses and even with such high density storage, we’ve been able to come up with a system that makes it efficient and effective for all our customers. With our new additional units, you’ll definitely see us pushing to maximise occupancy and make the most of this new land that we have!

Together with our new storage units, we also bought a couple of new vehicles as demands for the portable part of our services increased. The head of our transport team at that moment was a chap named Riley who lived in the outskirts of the city and he had a tough time saying goodbye to our old truck which he was exclusively driving. It was big enough to take 3 storage modules on its own and he had some good times making drop offs and deliveries with that old truck. But it was time to move on and soon enough, he fell in love with our new fleet of vehicles!

We’re really looking forward to continue expanding and sharing with more people across Australia and the world about our storage services and hope that we’ll have more of these stories about how we built this company to share with you in time to come!

Start downsizing clutter in your life by going through your storage spaces!

Start downsizing clutter in your life by going through your storage spaces!

It can be a great mystery how we accumulate so many possessions so quickly. Sometimes you can entertain yourself by picking up a random objects and thinking, “where did this come from?” or, “how long has this been here?” If those answers don’t come easily you might be one of those people who just likes collecting stuff. Nothing wrong with that but eventually you’ll find space is limited. Then of course there’s all that stuff that we didn’t collect ourselves. Things accumulate over the years. Unwanted gifts. Objects inherited from family members and good friends, that end up being white elephants squatting malevolently in the corner just to the side of the television set. The boxes, cables, instructions, paperwork, packing foam, and boxes that you didn’t buy, but came free with other, more important stuff, you did. Let’s be honest there is no reason you can’t shed some of these possessions if you really want to.

For some of us it’s a requirement. With so many people working at home these days we often have to become our own file room attendants just to keep the paperwork organised. Closets filled with boxes of dusty documents and stacks of professional literature litter our “home-offices”.

Take heart. You’re not a pack rat, or a hoarder, you’re just living a modern civilised lifestyle. Nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever the reason for clutter in your life there’s no reason that you have to live with it. Take a moment to sit back and look at the mountains of stuff around are there entire piles or even rooms full of things you don’t need? If so do yourself a favour and clear up some of that clutter. It’s easier than you think.

The best place to start is with the items you’ve already put into storage! Boxes that sit unopened in closets and attics left over from the last move. Junk from the last job that’s become pointless and outdated. Broken or obsolete electronics that were expensive and therefore difficult to part with. Suitcases full of clothes for climates you’ll never visit (or at least not soon enough for the style to hold up.) The ever present “junk drawer” that keeps growing and growing with “things you absolutely can’t get rid of”, but haven’t been through in years. These are good starting point.

Clearing out your long unexplored storage space will give you back the space you need for things that are actually necessary in your day-to-day life. What most of us don’t consider about the things we put in the long term storage is that eventually some of these things will become obsolete. Of course we would like to hang onto as much of our past as we can , but unless we occasionally go back through that past we will never be able to separate what we really like to keep and what became useless long ago. As a matter of fact there is really no better place to start Downsizing your clutter then in these long forgotten boxes.

Packing up your kitchen appliances for storage.

Packing up your kitchen appliances for storage.

It has long been said that the kitchen is the heart of every home. It is where families come together to share and prepare meals numerous times every day. It is such an essential part of our daily lives that sometimes we forget how very important the utensils and tools we use in the kitchen can be. When preparing your kitchen appliances for self storage it is important that we take special care of these expensive and important items.

Kitchen appliances should be cleaned thoroughly and, very importantly, let to dry completely. Any moisture left on appliances will result in mold or deterioration due to rust. Large appliances such as your refrigerator and your dishwasher should be cleaned inside and out and left open to dry all the interior surfaces completely.

Shelves and racks from the interior of large kitchen appliances should be removed from their normal positions and secured together with string or plastic wrap. You can then place these items back inside the interior of your refrigerator or dishwasher being sure to take them securely so they do not move when your appliance is being transported.

For refrigerators with automatic ice makers it is important to make sure all water has drained from the automatic ice making system. Check your manufacturer’s instructions that came with your refrigerator to find out how to best do this on your particular model. You should also take care to empty the evaporation tray at the base of your refrigerator if your model has one.

The same attention to the drainage of water should be performed on your dishwasher. Check the manufacturer’s instructions to find the drainage ports on your particular model. It may be advisable to flush the system with compressed air through the water intake valve in order to assure a complete emptying of your dishwashers internal plumbing. Again check your manufacturer’s instructions to make sure this is an acceptable method.

When moving such large appliances you will of course want to secure their doors shut completely to avoid damage during transport. However it is important that once these items have reached the self storage facility and you have positioned them where they will be stored that you leave the doors slightly ajar, perhaps secured with a small piece of cardboard providing In the door while a strap goes around the appliance holding the door in a semi open state. This will keep the interior of your appliance safe from the formation of mold or mildew.

Smaller kitchen appliances should be individually wrapped in plastic to protect them from moisture or dirt and placed in boxes alongside any additional attachments these appliances may require. Those appliances with metallic moving parts should be cleaned thoroughly and these metallic surfaces be wiped down with a rag coated in machine oil. This will protect your metallic machine surfaces from rust and grime. All appliances, large and small, should have their electrical cords coiled tightly and bound together with string or plastic ties. Avoid securing your electrical cords with tape. It may be convenient at the time but tape will eventually leave an unsightly sticky residue on the cord after you remove your appliances from storage.

Maximising Your Self Storage Space

Maximising Your Self Storage Space

Most self storage facilities will actually have gone through with you a quick questionnaire to help you gauge the size of a storage unit that would best suit your needs, and we know that now you have the extra space, it seems like you don’t need to worry too much about how to utilize your new self storage unit. But it really doesn’t hurt to take on a bit of organization yourself. Take it from us that it helps to keep items accessible inside to make things easier for you in the long run!

Arrange Items for Easy Access

If you’re going to be packing your self storage unit, it makes sense to have a bit of a think of whether what’s going in needs to come out any time soon. And when you need to access these items, how are you gonna do it? Keep items that are you foresee you’ll need to the front of the unit so you don’t have to wade through items and reorganize things in order to pull the item out. But where possible, try to keep a bit of a path in the centre of the self storage unit so that you can walk through if you need to search for things.

Stack Upwards

While most self storage units are limited in terms of floor space, you can always make the most of your vertical space by stacking upwards. Especially for furniture! Long and bulky items can be stored standing on their sides so they take up less floor space too, chairs should be stacked one on top of another if they fit. Just make sure to be careful by stacking the heavier items at the bottom and lighter things above. We don’t want a tower of things crashing down! You can also ensure that your boxes are sturdy by filling them up fully so that they are more stable and wrapping the more fragile items in bubble wrap to protect them in case there are any accidents!

Fill up all the Holes

We hope that you still have a fair bit of space let in your self storage unit to walk in and out of, but in the case that you’re really going for the kill with this one and filling her up to the brim, make sure you spot those holes and use them! Towels, bedsheets and pillows and other soft cloth material items can be packed into trash bags to keep them clean and stuffed into empty spaces.

Don’t discount underneath and behind couches, bedframes and cabinets – these are good cubbies for long and thin items like brooms and other long-handled items. You can also find a lot of empty spaces inside cupboards and drawers. Even inside old refrigerators and washing machines there is a lot of hidden real estate where you can stow away things in too!

Do take the time to look through your things and make out an inventory if you’re unsure of how much space you really need. As we mentioned, most self storage companies would be happy to help you calculate the volume of your things and set you up with a self storage unit that’s sure to meet your needs! But otherwise, with a little arrangement, we know that you can keep things in order so you still have lots of space in time to come!

Subtropolis offers more storage space than you could ever need!

Subtropolis offers more storage space than you could ever need!

Hundreds of feet below suburban Kansas City lies “the world’s largest underground business storage facility” or as it’s more commonly known, Subtropolis. A former limestone mine that has been excavated to open an underground space of 55,000,000 ft.² Subtropolis has been on offer for storage and business use since the 1940s. The weatherproof storage facility has a constant climate of dry and temperate weather perfect for long-term storage of everything from green coffee beans (the only facility of its kind in the United States) to fleets of vehicles as large as tractor-trailers and double-decker buses. Clients include the US Postal Service which stores it’s collection of millions of stamps and major film studios, who use the climate controlled storage to preserve classic films in their original format.

With over 1000 acres of storage space Subtropolis is far from full. Huge pillars of limestone support the many tons of rock that serve as the facilities roof. By constructing walls between pillars rooms are formed for individual clients. Some clients have installed underground factories and production lines for which the facility provides uninterruptible power service. It is hard to fathom the two sides of this massive storage facility. It only comes into perspective when you consider that the site has 2 miles of railroad tracks serving it and 6 miles of underground roadways. Despite having dozens of clients taking up hundreds of acres of space Subtropolis still has massive areas yet to be developed.

And of course you can’t beat an underground vault for storage security. With 24 hour video surveillance and walls hundreds of feet thick it is the perfect place to squirrel away your most precious possessions. The entire facility is also protected by a state of the art fire suppression systems and serviced by a 24 hour maintenance crew. While the company is reluctant to give any details you can rest assured that many of these hard to access and well protected secure storage spaces are used for holding valuable items in a place offering the greatest peace of mind.

It’s not just storage safety that attracts customers, but it is the location nearly in the center of the contiguous United States that appeals to many businesses looking to Keep large amounts of inventory close at hand. Proximity to major freeways and an international airport make this location a perfect choice for even international corporations with large storage needs.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of keeping inventory or running a business out of Subtropolis is the low level of environmental impact it creates. Not only do businesses not need to create extra ways for the production of construction materials required for a normal business storage facility, the constant temperature and humidity means no large overhead costs for heating and cooling or humidity control. Workers employed by businesses in Subtropolis seem to greatly appreciate this predictability in internal weather. By being able to drive from home straight into the business facility workers never have to worry about getting wet in the rain or freezing In the dead of winter on that long walk from the car to the office.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Wardrobe

Getting The Most Out Of Your Wardrobe

Not everybody is blessed with the storage space at home for a walk-in wardrobe or even a section of one and worst still if you are renting and have to deal with bad built-in cupboards. But having a small closet is not the end of the world! There are a lot of things that you can do to maximise you wardrobe space and get lots of clothes and things in there!

1. Be organised!

This might seem a given to being able to get every shirt and sock into your cupboard. But it also helps you to locate items within your closet easily. If you’ve ever struggled to get to work on time, you’ll know that knowing where everything goes can be crucial to shaving off a few minutes off your morning routine! Invest in dividers and pull out drawers if your cupboards don’t already come with them. The organization should help you keep your items to a segment of the wardrobe and leave more storage space for other things!

2. Use all the available storage space

Even matching hangers can sometimes make a world of difference in squeezing things in. Matching hangers will press flush against each other and help you to fit in more hangers on the rod. And if you find that there’s a lot of empty storage space in the hanging area of the closet, you can install extra rods so that you can make use of the wasted space to put up more shirts, pants and dresses! You can install rods on the doors of your closet as well for scarves and belts and other loose items that need to be organized.

3. Put away what you won’t use until you need them

You probably don’t need all your summer hats and flip flops in the winter, and you definitely don’t need the winter duvet and sweaters in the summer either! Save the space by vacuum sealing these items and putting them aside, perhaps under the bed or the store room until the season comes back. You can also make a fair bit of storage space by stacking your shoes outside of the closet rather than within as well!

4. Declutter every few months

A good tip that we picked up is to hang everything on the rod backwards and once you’ve worn it, turn the hanger the right way around. At the end of a preset period, say about 6 months, everything that wasn’t turned the right way back around probably won’t be worn in the next 6 months either! This includes the things that don’t fit anymore, or things that fit but really aren’t too comfortable. Send all these things into storage or have a garage sale and earn back on some of those things you’ve spent money on!

We know that you can make the most of the storage space in your home just by taking these few steps to clear things up! Make your living spaces more efficient by checking out the items within and really going through what you can keep or give away every once in a while. Remember that you can always move your things into storage if you need to hang on to something for a little longer.

How to Clear out some Space – The Store Room

How to Clear out some Space – The Store Room

Following up from the previous article from this series about the Closet, today we’re going to talk about the Store Room.

Although a vague name for this kind of room, in some houses it could mean the Garage, and in others it could be an Attic. It could just as easily be any other storage room that is specifically put aside for storage of knick knacks and items that don’t specifically belong in other rooms.

The Store Room

Depending on who’s in your family you could have so many different combinations of items here. The fathers and husbands normally stash their tools and hardware here. The kiddies have clothes racks and bicycle and sporting equipment. A fair amount of cleaning equipment like the heavy duty vacuum cleaner and mops and brooms could be kept here too, along with all the gardening shears and hoses and other such apparatus.

The easiest way to create space in the garage is to organize things into its separate categories.

For the garage, or coatroom, a mudroom bench and coat racks could easily help you to segregate the dirty items you may want people to leave at the entrance to your home so that snow and dust and mud doesn’t get tracked into the house. Besides also providing a comfortable place for people to sit and tie their laces or slip off their boots, it will also help family members to keep track of their footwear instead of having them strewn all over the entranceway.

The traditional way of keeping tools would be in a box which can sometimes become a BIG group of boxes if you are really into your handiwork. Although we know of many people who have fantastically created and sleek workspaces for screws and nails and the like, pegboards are a cheap and ingenious creations that help you to organize your tools in a vertical manner so that you don’t have to worry too much about tools being cluttered together in a drawer.

Sports equipment cages are also very useful; if you’ve got kids that play sports, there are bound to be basketballs, netballs, hockey sticks, skiing gear and all sorts of bulky odds and ends. Also not just for your sports equipment, but also as a see-through container which allows you to easily stack unbreakable items together. You can group those vacuum-sealed packs or the extra futon in here or stash away leftover wood and metal scraps together.

Overhead shelving is also a great way to create additional storage space. If you are more handy with motor mechanics, you can even make the shelving mobile so that it becomes easier to stack items on and swivel them out to a higher and out-of-the-way location. Do remember not to put items which are used too frequently up here if not it could be more of a hassle to keep putting up and taking down these items!

And when all else fails, there is always a storage solution to immediately open up spaces up to the size of entire rooms for you to store your items until you can decide what to do with them. Good Luck!