As a homeowner with a family, you may find it easy to end up with a lot of items to store. This is perfectly fine, until you start running out of storage room in your home. Instead of letting it get to the point where you are filling up rooms with extra furniture and boxes, you should get a storage unit. But, it is understandable to want to save as much money as you can on this particular expense. You might think that you need to get a 10x15 or 10x20 foot unit, but you can make use of vertical space to go smaller.

Make Your Own Freestanding Shelving Units

What you use in the garage for storage can often be applied to storage units, just as long as you do not have to mount anything to the walls, as this is not something you can do inside a storage facility. Although you can buy freestanding shelving units, you can also make your own for a fraction of the cost. You will need a number of 2x4s, subfloor, 3-inch screws, and a saw to handle the labor required. 

Only Stack Bins of the Same Size

Mismatched boxes and plastic bins are somewhat dangerous to stack. If done improperly, you could come back to collapsed boxes and broken items, especially if you use cardboard boxes. This is because the cardboard can continuously wear down to the point of collapsing, especially in a unit without climate control. High levels of humidity can put a lot of extra wear and tear on the cardboard boxes. So, you should make it a necessity to only use plastic bins that all come in the same size. You will also find that this is an excellent choice for making the freestanding shelving units match what you have.

Protect Furniture and Begin Stacking

If you need to put furniture in the storage unit, the last thing you should do is think about storing anything in its fully assembled form. Each piece of furniture should be broken down as much as possible. But, this is where you will also need to protect every part by using furniture pads or moving blankets. As long as you start with the heaviest pieces and only stack them on level surfaces, you can store things pretty high up. Some pieces such as legs, knobs, covers, and hardware can go into the plastic bins that you use.

It may take a little while to plan out everything for a storage unit. But, in the end, you will be able to store lots of items in a storage unit and without having to spend an excessive amount of money every month. For information on available storage units, contact a company like Belmont Self Storage.