Home at last

[monkeybird]

I'm sitting here in the Florida Panhandle amid a sea of boxes. There is nothing like home. My mother is safely in her little apt. on the far side of the house and that makes me feel better.

As I look at these boxes, I wonder how in the world I ever accumulated all this stuff!

I am faced with a storage problem for all my preps. While this house is much larger than my Huntsville house, it's older and has smaller closets. I do have a shed, but hesitate to use it. Right now the garage is full of (what else) boxes and I'm presently stumbling over all that food.

Helpful storage hints will be appreciated!

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Glad your in, missed ya!
Pull out the bottom drawers there is usually a small 3-4inch space under a cabinet there. Also under sinks if you careful with the piping and don't store things that will ruin if they get wet. Sheds are ok but have alot of downfalls, mainly weather and the fact your food is out there and you are in the house so exposure can be an issue when retrieving it. Also under beds.

[Mikeg175]

I have actually made a few smaller shelves in my workshop area using my stacked #10 cans as the base and side structures and then light boards as the actual shelving and putting smaller/lighter items on the shelving .It gets the other stuff of the ground , looks a little cheap , but it works and is functional , putting the 10's to use and looks a little better then just having the cans stacked row after row .

[Klayton]

Depending on your ability to climb in and out of an elevated bed, the easiest storage is to elevate your bed on blocks and place a buttload of your 5gallon buckets under your bed. If your house is large, pick the largest room, and make one wall your "bucket wall" by stacking them 3 (or 4) high one deep only, all along the wall, you will be surprised at how much preps can be stored this way, and how soon you just start accepting them in that room as part of the room. :)

For the shed, I would be storing my nonfood preps: toilet paper, box of tooth brushes & dental floss (not the paste-it hates high heat), spare clothes and shoes, etc etc etc...

Hope this helps!

[Tofu]

For the short term you might consider putting a portion of your preps into self storage. I have been considering this strategy myself diversifying my preps in 3 locations Home, my Mom's house (fall back position) and a cache out in the woods. At present there isn't enough to get excited about but 5 gallon buckets fill up fast with dry beans and rice.

[monkeybird]

I have a wall of shelving in the garage that holds my husbands 'man stuff'', yesterday I stole half of it. I moved all his junk on to one end, and confiscated the rest! He doesn't use all that stuff anyway! He hasn't discovered it yet. Hope we don't have 'words'. Priorities are priorities!

Klayton, how do you get 5 gal. buckets under the bed? I'd need a latter.

[Klayton]

@monkeybird: http://www.lexfurniture.com/images/bin/77349.jpg

Merry Christmas!

[Tofu]

LOL! Gives new meaning to the term "jumping out of bed".

[Noble]

Tofu:
Actually, you can "slide" out of bed into a standing position! ;) It's kinda nice...makes getting "up" easy! ;)

Monkeybird:
My house doesn't have much storage space, so I had to get creative. I currently have 20 buckets under my bed (although I could fit more) and 4 tote bins, among other things. I built the frame and affixed it to the cinder block wall on one end. The other end is held up by my can rotator.

Here's some pics...



With the step pulled out...


The stuff underneath...


Can rotator (and kitty)...


Hope this helps! :)

[Tofu]

Very cool Noble!

[monkeybird]

Do you really sleep in that bed??? I gather, from the photo, you're a single guy! BTW, love the dog.

[Noble]

Do you really sleep in that bed??? I gather, from the photo, you're a single guy! BTW, love the dog.

Ya, I've slept in that raised bed for about 4 years now. I'm a single gal, so having the bed in the corner is not a problem. It is a queen size, which is bigger than what I need, but my two dogs sleep with me, so anything much smaller than a queen would be crowded. :)

When I first fastened the bed frame to the ledger board that I had bolted to the cement block, I had space on both sides of the bed, which would be great for two people, but I found that having that space was unnecessary for me, so I refastened it into the corner. It is very secure and I imagine it could handle a couple just fine. ;)

BTW, that's my kitty :D

[monkeybird]

Sorry about the gender error. Seems that there are few females on this site, so I assumed too much.

That has got to be the biggest cat I've ever seen. Tell me its the camera angle.