How to Store Your Favorite Seasonal Décor
With summer around the corner, it’s time to put away seasonal décor and make room for sports equipment, gardening tools, and summer attire. Rather than cramming your holiday lights and other festive items under your bed, consider professional self-storage. This will give you a place outside of your home to keep your treasured items, so you can make room for daily life. To help you get started, consider this guide on how to store your favorite seasonal décor.
Benefits of Properly Storing Your Seasonal Décor
The average American spends about $230 on holiday décor each year. That’s $230 of new items added to the collection, season after season, year after year. While there’s nothing wrong with decorating your home, these items can end up taking a lot of usable space. By properly storing your seasonal décor in a self-storage unit, you’ll maximize your home’s usable space while protecting your treasured holiday décor. Using the proper storage containers and keeping everything in temperature-controlled self-storage units will ensure that decorations continue to last for as long as you need them. Considering the average amount of money spent per year on décor alone, this makes self-storage a wise investment for anyone who enjoys celebrating the changing seasons.
Declutter and Donate Before You Store
Every year, styles change, and seasonal décor is updated to fit the newest trends. You may pass by something you like in a store and pick it up, only to come home and realize that your decorations have grown to take up more space than you could ever imagine. While there are ways to keep everything in storage, it’s unlikely that you’ll display the entire collection each year. To avoid clutter and unnecessary work, the most important step to storing your favorite seasonal décor is to go through your things and declutter each year. You don’t have to get rid of anything if you don’t want, but chances are there are a few outdated pieces of décor that you no longer use. Rather than taking the time and effort to store these items, consider putting them in a box and taking them to your local donation center. This can help you create an organized storage oasis that’s filled with your favorite items. Alternatively, you can try to sell them and make a little extra cash.
How to Store Seasonal Décor
After you’ve gone through your items and determined what you plan to keep and what you no longer need, it’s time to get started on the storage process. Since a lot of seasonal décor can be fragile, it’s important to take the proper care when putting it away to reduce the risk of damage. To help, consider the following six tips.
1. Separate Décor Based on Seasons
To make things easy on yourself in the future, it’s good practice to store décor based on the season. Whether this is divided by specific holidays or between spring, summer, fall, and winter times is up to you. However, in doing this, you’ll enjoy easier retrieval when you need to access your decorations.
Alternatively, you can group items together based on materials, purpose, or even color. The way that you decide to organize your storage is completely up to you, so it’s encouraged to find something that works and stick with it.
2. Wrap Lights
Storing holiday lights can be frustrating. While it’s easy to just throw them in a container, taking some time to prepare them for storage will make your life much less stressful when you want to use them again. One great option is wrapping the lights around a piece of cardboard, so they don’t get tangled while in storage. This will also help you protect the lightbulbs and boost their longevity. You’ll still want to put your lights into a storage bin for added protection, but this makes things much easier.
3. Find the Right Storage Bin
Once you’ve organized your décor by season and taken the preliminary effort of wrapping holiday lights, it’s time to find the best storage bins for your items. There are several different types available, but some of the most durable options include clear, plastic storage bins, paper boxes, storage trays, and decoration-specific containers. Clear, plastic storage bins are the most popular, as you’re able to see what’s inside without opening them up. They’re also easy to stack and affordable. Getting storage bins in the same size will make stacking boxes and sorting through your items more efficient and less damage prone.
If you have a lot of ornaments, consider using a specifically designed container to help keep them protected while in storage. These are made to stabilize ornaments when they’re not being used with lightweight, delicate fabric and plenty of cushion. Using a specialized holiday décor storage bin will ensure that your treasured ornaments or other decorations are kept safe while they’re not in use. This is especially important for families that have sentimental items or expensive decorations. Since you can continue using these storage containers each year, it’s an investment that’s sure to last.
4. Label Everything
Regardless of if you decide to use clear storage bins or traditional packing boxes, it’s important to label absolutely everything. The degree of detail that you choose to incorporate is up to you, but the more thorough you are, the easier it will be when you want to retrieve things. At the very least, take the time to label each box with a simple description of what’s inside. This could be as broad as “fall décor” or as detailed as “handmade ornaments 1995-1999.” Some people may also choose to label each box with a number, then write out an extensive inventory of every item that’s on a separate piece of paper. Again, the choice is yours but at the very least use some sort of differentiator to make future retrieval easier.
5. Be Careful When Packing Items
While there are some items that can be tossed into the box without packaging, others are delicate and require the proper protection. Don’t waste your time or money on storing items if you’re not going to protect them. Carefully wrap any fragile items in packing paper or bubble wrap and keep them towards the top of the box to avoid excess weight. Be meticulous when doing this to ensure that your items are in one piece when you go to get them next season.
In addition to wrapping seasonal décor in packing paper or bubble wrap, consider nesting items inside of one another whenever possible. Not only does this increase the security of smaller items, but it also acts as a huge space saver.
6. Consider Arrangement of Your Storage Unit
Finally, consider how you plan to arrange your self-storage unit. If you have various decorations for different times of the year, you’ll want to optimize the retrieval process. Try to keep an open alleyway inside of your unit so you don’t have to take everything out just to access the contents along the back wall. Then, store things along the exterior border based on the time of year that you use them most. You can shift items over as you retrieve them to utilize a sort of rotating organizational system or keep them where they are and simply replace them when you’re done. Self-storage organization varies based on each person, so the most important thing is finding something that works well for you and your needs.
When you’re ready to optimize your seasonal décor storage, The Lock Up Self Storage can help. We have several options for self-storage units ranging from small to large, so you can accommodate any amount of seasonal décor. As an added bonus, all of our units are climate-controlled so your items will stay in good condition for as long as you need to store them. The Lock Up also prioritizes security with perimeter alarms, gated access, individual access codes, and CCTV. With available access to your unit any time, day or night, you won’t be locked out from your favorite seasonal décor. As your collection grows, so can your self-storage unit. We have flexible leasing options that can be upgraded as time passes. To find a storage unit for your décor, contact one of the representatives at The Lock Up Self Storage by calling 1-866-327-LOCK or find a unit online today!
