Making Storage Work in a Small Apartment

The practical difficulty with apartment living is rarely floor area. It is that a house has a garage, a loft, a shed and a basement, and an apartment has a cupboard and possibly a balcony.

Deciding how that works is best done on moving day, while everything is being placed anyway.

Just-In-Time Moving works throughout Washington and Washington County.

Work out the storage before the move, not after

Establish what the unit actually provides: cupboard space, any assigned external storage, whether the balcony can be used and what the rules say about it, and whether the complex offers additional storage to rent.

Ask specifically, because assigned storage units are common in newer developments here and are frequently not mentioned unless you ask.

Then measure it against what you are bringing. This is the calculation people do afterwards, when the surplus is already in the living room.

Use the vertical space

The single most useful principle in a small home. Floor area is fixed and height is usually unused.

Tall narrow shelving rather than wide low units. Shelves above door height, which is dead space in every room. Hooks and rails on the backs of doors.

Check what the lease or association says about wall fixings before drilling, since restrictions are common and making good at the end is expensive.

Choose furniture that does two things

Beds with drawers underneath, ottomans that open, a bed frame with clearance for boxes, a coffee table with storage.

If you are buying anything for the new place, buy it for this rather than for how it looks empty.

What genuinely should not come

Worth being decisive about before rather than storing it and paying monthly.

Garden tools with no garden. Bulk quantities of anything. Furniture that will not fit the rooms. Sports and hobby equipment used once a year, unless there is somewhere for it.

Seasonal decorations are the honest test case: they are used for a few weeks and occupy space for the other eleven months.

If you do rent a unit

Put a review date on the calendar and price the full period rather than the monthly figure. Units taken during a downsizing move are frequently still rented years later, costing more than the contents are worth.

Leave an aisle when you load it, and remember an unheated unit here gets hot: nothing with batteries, no candles, records, electronics or artwork.

On moving day

Tell the crew where things go rather than accepting a stack in the hallway. Furniture placed correctly once saves you moving it alone later.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.