Using Storage Units for Market Stalls

Markets are becoming more and more prevalent in Melbourne these days. What with the bi-annual Finders Keepers, Geelong Boutique markets and the Rose Street Artists’ Market, young designers have ample opportunities to sell their wares, and it’s a pretty easy gig. The difficulty comes when you’re packing up after the day. This is where a storage unit will come in handy. It’s not like you’re a functional shop, it’s far too costly to have a warehouse, and making your house look like a storage unit is not all that appealing. Hiring a storage unit might just be the answer.

It’s very easy to book a storage unit and sort yourself some storage space. And best of all, it’s cheap. You can grab a decent sized storage unit for an affordable price, into which you can keep all of your marketable items. Storage units are usually well secured – Access Self Storage offers 24-hour on site presence, along with alarms and well-secured facilities – and your goods can also be insured while they’re in the storage unit. Access Self Storage provides free insurance to cover you up to $5000.

Using a storage unit will continue to make market selling easy. You’ll have the weekend to sell your wares, and during the week you can quickly and easily transport your sellable or unsold goods into a storage unit. The rental of a storage unit is a simple and affordable way to ensure you don’t have to start thinking like a big business. Look into a storage unit today.

Storage Space and Retirement Homes

My grandfather recently moved into a retirement home. He’s got a small room (and no storage space) for all his things; he gets a meal cooked for him and people to look after him. He’s well set up. What has proved to be a problem is the lack of storage space, and what to do with all of his possessions. It’s not as though he’s died, it feels strange to be dividing up all his furniture amongst the relatives. Renting storage space turned out to be a great solution.

Rather than having him go through his things, and decide what he wants to keep, what he wants to give away, what he wants to sell – the consideration of which was making him feel sad about moving into a home – renting storage space allowed us to keep all of his things easily accessible if ever he suddenly realises he needs them. We don’t have to deal with dividing up his estate, as it were, too early, and he doesn’t have to say goodbye to a lifetime’s worth of belongings – it’s all in storage space.

Though he doesn’t have the storage space to keep all of his things in his room at the home, this way he didn’t have to make hard decisions and throw anything out. Storage space has made him feel much better about moving out, and gave us less to deal with, beyond sorting him and his things for the move. Storage space simplified the process for us, and has proved to be a great, and affordable, decision.

Access Self Storage's Centrally Located Facility

There are a number of reason's why Access Self Storage's centrally located facility near Melbourne's CBD makes it an incredibly convenient storage facility. And it's not just because it's in close proximity to Melbourne suburbs like St Kilda, South Yarra and Windsor.

Although it's near to the CBD, Access Self Storage isn't located in the CBD. So when you need to return to your storage unit urgently, you won't be hindered by heavy CBD traffic. But its central location does mean it's easily accessed even if you're not coming from home. A trip to the Access Self Storage facility could easily become part of your route to or from work in the Melbourne CBD. You could incorporate a visit to the grocery shops in South Melbourne with a visit to Access Self Storage, and pick up an unused dining table from your storage unit before you buy food for your dinner party.

Location is really important when you're considering a storage facility, which is why Access Self Storage chose their location carefully. It's easy to get to, so fetching your storage from Access Self Storage is never inconvenient. It's easily accessible by main roads, on the corner of Normanby Rd and Montague St, so moving vans will have no problems driving to and from Access Self Storage. And it is conveniently located to numerous suburbs in Melbourne, which means Access Self Storage is a very convenient location to many Melbourne residents. Check out the Access Self Storage facility today, and find out just how convenient using self-storage will be.

Using Self-storage for Seasonal Gear

Winter has nearly hit us ('Winter is coming'), and even though it's still sweltering hot in Melbourne this week, it's probably time to think about changing over for the new season. There are actually a variety of ways self-storage can make the changing seasons much easier to deal with.

The end of summer means the end of beach trips, surfing holidays, singlets, and thongs. Instead of leaving all of these things in your home, why not look into self-storage? Rather than keeping the short shorts and the surf boards sitting at home clogging up your self-storage space, when instead they could spend winter in a self-storage unit, and your home could have so much more space. Come summer time, winter clothes, ugg boots, snow gear and heating equipment can be kept in self-storage throughout the season, and claim its rightful place in your living area when winter comes around again.

Keeping your seasonal belongings in a self-storage unit will help give your home space, give you more room for all your winter or summer things, and will be easy to find if you decide to take a tropical holiday in mid-July, or a winter getaway in December. Seasonal clothes can be kept in wardrobe boxes in self-storage - easy enough to dig through should you need them again while they're in self-storage. Beach gear can be stored and kept safe in self-storage while skiis and snowboards take up space in the cupboards at home, and vice versa. Self-storage is the perfect solution to clear out your seasonal belongings and welcome in the new season.

A Variety of Storage Unit Sizes at Access Self Storage

Access Self Storage offers 60 different sizes in storage units at our storage facility in Melbourne. Is it really necessary to have quite so many differently sized storage units?

Obviously our answer is 'yes', but let's take a look at why. Bigger units are slightly more costly, and the smallest unit is also the cheapest price. But rather than just offering a bigger storage unit and a small storage unit, Access offers a range of sizes, because no two storage rentals are the same. When you book your storage rental with Access Self Storage, our experts will ask you questions, so we can understand exactly what you want to get out of your storage rental.

We'll want to know the size of your bulkiest items, so we can find you a storage unit that will match their width or length. We'll want to know the amount of storage you'll be keeping in the storage unit. We'll also want to know how often you'll want to access your unit - whether you'll be returning frequently to go through your storage rental, or if you want to just hire a unit and leave it there. If you're wanting easy access to your storage unit, that's going to make a difference to the size of storage unit you'll want - because you'll require more space.

Rather than just offering two variations in storage units, and getting you to adapt your storage items to fit one of the sizes of storage units, in a way Access Self Storage is able to adapt to you. After all, surely 60 different options is a much better way to go than a one-size-fits-all kind of deal.

Be Your Own Removalist for Storage Rental

Hiring a removalist - with their own van, and their own packing materials, and their own muscles - can seem a lot easier when starting storage rental. Strong people will come in, pack up all your stuff for you, load it into a truck, take it away, and then all the storage rental out again for you. But sadly the whole escapade can be quite a costly process. And when your just using storage rental, and not packing up your entire house, is it really worth it?

There are a couple of ways to make storage rental much easier if you decide to be your own removalist. You will have to get packing materials on your own, but they're usually available from the storage rental facility, and come fairly cheap. And there's one major advantage to avoiding the hire of removalists: you can take as much time as you need to pack it into storage rental. Divide it into sections, or pack up two boxes each night, until the whole task is done. Pack smaller boxes, keep them light, so that when you do start moving it into storage rental, they're all still easy to carry - remember you're probably not as well built as the removalists are. And if you're putting mostly books, CD's or wine into storage rental, your packing boxes will get pretty heavy, pretty quickly.

Being your own removalist doesn't have to make storage rental harder, and it can certainly make the process a lot cheaper. At Access Self Storage, we provide a free move-in truck, making removalists even less necessary. Doing it yourself is well worth considering.

Packing Boxes for Self-Storage

Speaking of packing materials earlier, it might be useful to look at the variety of packing boxes available to the self-storage user. Packing boxes are not all a standard shape, standard size and standard use. I mentioned in an earlier post that Access Self Storage has 11 varieties of packing boxes alone, and no doubt you'll be able to find many other shapes and sizes for your self-storage.

Different boxes are best for different things - mini tea chests can be used for the heaviest items in self-storage; port-a-robe's are great boxes for keeping your clothes neatly protected in the storage unit; tall boys for the tall thin items in self-storage that won't quite fit in a square shaped box; an archive box, with a hinged lid and handles either side, is perfect for storing archived papers and documents in self-storage. You can find picture cartons - the perfect size and shape to house pictures and framed paintings; specially designed 'cubes' to house electronics and computer monitors in self-storage; boxes to house wine bottles flat so the cork remains preserved; single layer boxes perfect to store books, CD's and heavy breakables.

So you can see, all self-storage boxes are not created equal. Certainly you could pack up all of your self-storage items into the commonly used, rectangular shaped tea chest - but it wouldn't be the most useful way to pack up your self-storage. A variety of boxes are available because you'll be placing a wide variety of things into self-storage.

Storage for Your Camping and Sporting Gear

About this time of year, shortly after Christmas, a lot of us will start to pack up our cars with tents and sleeping bags, kayaks and water skis, and carloads of food, and head out into the wilderness for a filthy week of camping. The tents and sporting equipment will be pulled out of storage, their cramped little hiding spots, and loaded up into the car.

When you get back, packing it all up into storage seems much harder. The garage is probably already full of the storage of other equipment; it's probably going to seem impossible to squeeze all of that camping gear back into the storage areas it came from.

So how about storage rental as a solution? Rather than getting home and stuffing your garage full to the brim, come home from Marysville or Ninety Mile Beach and take all your gear to a storage unit. It could be like having an entire spare garage. Pile the tents, the sleeping bags, the kayaks and the water skis - even the trailer, if your storage unit is big enough - all inside the storage unit, ready to access again next holidays.

Using a storage unit to house your camping gear will make it easier to pack and unpack, and leave much more storage space in your garage at home. As a storage solution, storing camping gear isn't always something people would consider, but storage rental really will help make the whole process much easier.

Emptying Your Storage Unit Back Into the House

If you've used a storage unit to house things temporarily while you moved houses, there are a few helpful tips to make moving it all into your new home much easier.

Planning ahead is key. When you pack up your storage unit, write out a plan. Note where everything belongs, what you've packed first, which room each box has come from. Be thoughtful about your labelling - make it very clear what each box contains, and where it should go when you unpack again. Your storage unit should be full of boxes with very detailed labels, and you should keep a plan of your storage unit, to give a basic idea of where everything is inside the storage unit.

When you unpack the storage unit, do it in an organised fashion. Keep boxes from the same rooms together, and when you unload them into the house, put them straight in those rooms. Refer back to your plan, so you know which boxes should be unpacked first. You could keep some of the unnecessary boxes in the storage unit while you unpack the essentials, which will also help to keep the house less cluttered.

Above all, make sure you've set a deadline for completely emptying the storage unit. Otherwise, unpacking could carry on indefinitely while you leave various boxes in your storage unit while you deal with other things. Setting a deadline will help to ensure the unpacking of your storage unit will eventually get done in good time.

Drawing Up a Plan for Your Storage Rental

Planning your storage rental is going to seem obvious, but it's such an important step in making the storage rental process much easier.

Having a plan to pack up, a plan to pack the storage unit and a plan to unpack again after your storage rental will help make things run smoother. It doesn't have to be complex and detailed. As long as you note down what storage is going into what boxes, and where those boxes should be kept in the storage unit, your storage rental will go along much more smoothly.

Having a plan can mean making a list of all your labels and what they mean - which "kitchen" box has which kitchen utensils, for example. Noting down everything that you're putting into storage rental, which boxes they've been stored in, and where these things will need to be unpacked once you have finished with your storage rental is a pretty easy, but important, step.

Drawing up a plan for your storage rental will also help you think about where your storage is going to go once you unpack. Maybe some things that belonged in the bedroom in your previous house might serve better in the living room in your new place. Plans will help you think about these things, and ensure you stay on top of everything while you use storage rental. This way, your storage rental can be hassle free.

Inspecting the Storage Unit Before You Go Ahead

Storage rental involves a number of considerations. We’ve talked about the security, the packing materials offered by the storage facility, and how often you will be able to access your things. The cost, the size of the storage unit, bringing in moving trucks, talking to a consult – these are all going to be at the forefront of your mind. What may not be, is how important it is to take a good look at the storage unit you’re looking to hire.

It’s not just about inspecting the storage facility, but also the actual storage unit itself. This can help you plan out how to pack and stack the storage unit come moving day. It’ll give you a clear picture of the width and height of the storage unit, and might give you an idea of the space available. You’ll know whether to aim for walkways between your belongings in the storage unit, or whether it’ll be better just to pack it all tightly in.

Checking the storage unit out beforehand will also help you determine how protected your storage items will need to be. For example, if the floor is concreted and dusty, items that aren’t going to be water damaged (ie mattresses) need to be kept up from the bottom. Your furniture might also need plastic protection to keep them clean.

So when you’re checking out the storage facility, remember to poke around the storage unit as well. It will definitely help to make the moving process much easier.

Storage Rental: Helping You Keep Your Vintage Favourites

Did you ever raid your parents’ wardrobe or garage when you were younger? Trying to find the perfect bomber jacket, or a vintage typewriter, somewhere deep in storage? Maybe they weren’t in mint condition, but there were always some gems hidden away in questionable storage conditions. Nowadays, self storage has improved somewhat, with our modern apartments in Melbourne CBD, or terrace houses in Albert Park. However, we have more of a tendency to throw things out - especially when we’ve got no extra room for storage.

But fast-forward fifteen or twenty years, and your teenagers won’t find those same gems that we found, hidden away in our parent’s houses. They won’t be able to use your old clothes, or your old camera, thanks to the lack of storage space.

Well, hiring a storage unit might just be the solution. Even if it’s just until you get a bigger place, out of your apartment in Melbourne City and into a more spacious accommodation in Toorak, storage facilities could be the perfect place to store the designer clothes you’ve no intention of wearing again, or the Polaroid camera you’re on the verge of chucking out. A storage unit offers a lot more protection for your stuff than your parents’ garage ever did, so it’s sure to be in better condition when it comes time to look for them again. And it’s good for nostalgia as well. This way, you’ll be able to revisit your glory days by taking a visit to your storage unit. It’s the best solution!

Packing Efficiently for Self Storage Units

When you’re looking at hiring storage units, one thing you want is to keep costs low. Hiring a smaller storage unit, rather than a large one, is one way to do this. The simple solution is to pack your storage unit efficiently.

Although using plastic bags may seem cheaper, packing into boxes is the best way to go. Not only will it stop your items getting dusty while they remain in the storage unit, it will also make it much easier to save space (and will therefore save you money in the long run). Fill them to capacity, and remember to get boxes of similar shape and size, to easily stack inside the storage unit. Use the inside of wardrobes, furniture drawers, stoves – anywhere with space inside, to fit more boxes.

When it comes to packing the storage unit, make sure you plan ahead. Put all the larger items in first, so you can fit the smaller boxes in and around them. Remove the legs from furniture where possible, and lamps from lampshades, so there are fewer odd shaped items in the storage unit. Fill the hollow spaces as much as you can, but remember, if you’re planning to keep the storage unit for a long period of time, it’s a good idea to keep some space to move around inside.

With careful thought, and by planning ahead, storage units can be packed efficiently, which will help keep costs low in the long run.