How to Safely Store Away Your Items for The Winter
There's a lot to be excited about as we draw closer to the winter season, from the holiday's, setting up lights & decorations, shopping deals, or just spending time with your loved ones. However, the change of season also means that it’s time to store away all your clothing, furniture, and other seasonal items that are meant for the warmer parts of the year. In this article, we’ll walk through some tips on how you can safely store away your items to protect them during the winter months.
1. Remove Your Winter Items from Storage
Before we begin packing away your summer & fall items, it’s recommended to first take all your winter stuff out of storage. While this may leave your home or storage unit in a state of disarray for a short period of time, it’s a crucial step to beginning the transition and assessing how much space & storage materials (boxes, bins, etc.) you’ll need.
2. Prep & Clean Your Summer Items
With your current storage space clear of your winter items, you’ll now want to start prepping your summer for their seasonal storage. This is actually a very important step as cleaning your items will help prevent them from growing mould, mildew, or attracting pests. For this, you’ll want to wipe down your furniture and clothes or steam clean them (just make sure they are dry before storing them) and sanitize any other items such as appliances, sports equipment, tools, etc.
Another popular choice is to add some preventative measures to help deter any pests. Many choose to add mothballs, cedar chips, lavender, etc. to their items or storage bins – all of which are great pest repellents.
3. Packing and Storage
The packing process is crucial to ensuring that you not only preserve your items through the winter, but it will also allow you to easily organize and find what you’re looking for in the spring or summer. For this, we typically recommend against standard cardboard boxes (when storing things for the long term) as they can contribute to mould growth and pests as they can collect moisture.
If space is an issue, you can also use a vacuum sealer to condense your clothing and other soft/fabric items. If your items are both clean & dry, this will be the best way to store them away over the winter months as they’ll be placed in an airtight and waterproof plastic bag.
You can also find rubber or plastic storage bins at most large retailers or hardware stores (typically at a low cost) to place your larger items in. You may also want to consider picking up some stackable bins (or winter storage containers) to save space. We also recommend that you label your containers as well, this will make it much easier to unpack or find what you’re looking for later.
Lastly, for your furniture and appliances, you’ll want to make sure that you properly wrap them and add padding to any areas that may be susceptible to damage after you’ve cleaned and sanitized them.
4. Decide Where to Store Your Things
Now that you’ve cleaned and packed all your belongings for storage you’ll have to decide where you want to keep them. Depending on how much space is available in your home or apartment, you may choose to keep it in your garage, shed, basement, or spare room. If you don’t have that extra space available, or just want to get it out of your house to prevent the extra clutter – you can also choose to keep it in a storage unit.
At Go Mini’s we provide portable storage units for the winter that can be delivered directly to your home when you need it. With us you'll always have a winter storage unit near you since our portable storage units bring the convenience of a storage locker right to your front door. Whether you’re planning to store away a few things, or a lot – we have multiple sizes available to suit any storage need including our 12’, 16’ and 20’ containers. You can easily pack your belongings at your own pace so and the best part is that when you’re done packing you can choose to keep it at your property or have us store it away at our secure facility until you want it delivered back again!
Visit our portable storage page to learn more about our portable storage containers or click here to get your free quote today. Our customer service team is always happy to assist with any of your storage needs in the greater Toronto area and beyond!
