My Storage War: Fall is the season for burrowing in. We pull out the winter woollies and move the summer clothes to storage. Warm flannelette replaces crisp cotton, stew replaces salad, and the deck furniture gets scrubbed and put into storage.
By put into storage, I mean I stuff it into our crawl space, which is four feet high, give or take a pinch, but it’s warm and dry. Did I mention the height? Maybe when I was younger my noggin was tougher and the occasional head bang didn’t hurt so much. My back was probably stronger too – more flexible.
This year I managed to get half the furniture stored before I bonked my head. My auto response was a spasm-inducing spine-lurch and enough four-letter words to clear the air in the crawl space. That’s when I made the executive decision that this would be the last year I played this contortionist game.
Off I went in search of a solution
I should have known better. It’s not that we don’t have alternative storage space it’s that none of it’s available. Hard to believe considering the four-bay garage, the two-bay tractor shed, the RV shelter, the boat shed, the beach shed, the wood shed, the pump house and the outhouse.
How is it possible we have NO free storage space? Even if I scratch the outhouse, wood shed and pump house from the list, we still have nine bays worth of space. NINE! Canadian Tire should be so lucky! When did we collect enough stuff to fill nine bays with no room left over for the deck furniture?
It boggles my mind, but there’s nothing to be done for it: I’m not doing the crawl-space limbo one more time. So this afternoon I pulled out a measuring tape to figure out how big a shed we’d need to house the deck furniture.
Number ten, here we come! I can’t believe it. If we ever decide to go into the shed business, we won’t have to build the samples. Oh wait…I think we’re already there.
I live by myself and still can never manage to store everything. I have an empty garage but it’s in a very poor state of repair so have decided to get it dismantled (is one of those prefab things) come summer and maybe buy a bigger shed/kind thing…At least it should be dry inside…Maybe we should just get rid or give some stuff…
I think getting rid of stuff is the key. Use it or lose it needs to be our new mantra.
we have a neighbour at our cottage who has a similar problem with sheds. four bay driving shed,wood shed,garden shed,tractor shed,pumphouse and a two bay garage with an attached woodworking shop. come spring we expect to see lean-to’s added to the sheds. could it be hereditary ?
Could be! The problem has a familiar ring to it.
I could relate totally. We have a crawl space the length of our home, which is pretty substantial, and this year, we are making a concerted effort to just keep essentials, so we can cut out that crawling on our knees bit to store things. We are taking photos of momentos and then turfing out what can’t be passed on. It’s not easy, as we come from a time when you didn’t throw anything out that still had some use. Or maybe I could use it down the road kind of object. Out goes our first VCR. Yup. Paid $1000 for it, at a time when it was rare. And there’s even my dad’s film projecter. Another thing to go, ya da ya da. Now back to writing. 🙂
When you’re finished at your place – want to come over here?
I don’t miss this routine. When I was in NY, I had to stuff summer things into a black widow infested shed. Enough four-letter words to clear the air just about explains it!
Black widow? Yikes.
Hi, JP, yes, that’s the idea they all come with built in intuition allowing for expansion as needed. Hardhat..umm yes they have multiple uses especially for fliers incognito!!
Oh JP, I enjoyed this so much, especially the remarks about the ‘air turning blue’. How about a designer construction hat? Or you could collectively line the storage areas in a row like the ‘beach huts’ in those English post cards views?. Perhaps painting the on neon colours, now before you shoot me, remember my English sense of humour and the value of poetic license. (smiling) LOL.
If I put them in a row, will they reproduce and give me more storage sheds? I’ll have to work on that hardhat idea – good one!
My husband has a garage and a shop. I have a shelf in the garage.
Uh huh – exactly!