2024, Family, home, Uncategorized

Storage Wars

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Husband really came through on Saturday and got all the garden hoses rolled up and into the garage before the snow came on Tuesday. There were quite a few hoses.

Sunday he carried them downstairs and piled them in large plastic bins in the room where the freezers and canned goods are. They take up a lot of space. I suppose we could rig up a more space efficient method, but just getting them rolled up and out of the yard was a work enough.

I am the packer in the family. I am efficient, and I can get lots more things into boxes, freezers, and suitcases than Husband can. This also extends to the dishwasher. I am glad Husband isn’t offended when I tweak the placement of things in the dishwasher after he has gone to the trouble to load it in the first place. Packing is not the same thing as organization for daily use, and I must admit I am not the best at putting things away after I use them. I am grateful that Husband spent an entire day a couple of weeks ago vacuuming and reorganizing things in the garage for winter. We have too many tools, garden implements, fencing, stakes, and miscellaneous things. When my father lived with us he took great care in organizing all the tools and things that we brought with him from Luverne. I am afraid neither I nor Husband have kept Dad’s things as organized as he would have. Now we will be hauling most of it back to Luverne when we move.

I leave storage of Husband’s grilling/smoking equipment and supplies entirely to him. His usual solution to storage issues it to just buy another plastic storage bin for all his wood, smoking chips, and briquets whether or not the ones he has are full. The bins annoy me, but at least they are stackable. I hope that we can have a better organization and storage strategy for all our things after we move. Maybe it will be easier starting from scratch rather than obtaining things and storing them as they are acquired. People keep asking me what I am going to do with my free time after I retire. I tell them I am going to spend my time cleaning the house. It will be nice to have time to organize and not have things stored haphazardly as we do now.

What storage/organization strategies do you use? What sort of dishwasher loader are you? Ever rented a storage unit?

22 thoughts on “Storage Wars”

  1. I have a huge cabinet in my little breakfast room. The story is that the original icebox to the house used to be there. It’s deep and I have a lot of kitchen gadgets stored there. The problem is I’m not particularly good at putting things back in exactly the way they came out. What this means is that every year or so I have to take everything out and re-organize it and put it back in. Every year I say to myself “just put stuff back in there the way you like it” … but I never do.

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  2. I was one of those fortunate youths in the 60s whose home had a dishwasher. It was unfortunate, though, that the teenagers had to wash up after meals. But I learned how to get more stuff into the machine, maximizing its capability (though probably leaving too much stuff only half clean). After leaving the family home in 1969, I didn’t live anywhere with a dishwasher again until 2018. However, the old skills were still there. I can get about 20% more stuff into the dishwasher than my wife (who grew up without one) can. Machines have improved, too, so less has to be re-washed when it comes out.

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  3. I have very little storage space here. It might be a good thing because it forces me to purge often, and to really consider whether I need something. For example, I recently bought a tagine, but it’s bigger than I realized and I have no place to put it.

    I do use plastic bins for some things, like camping gear, kayaking stuff, Christmas stuff, and some craft supplies. I only have one garden hose. I drained it weeks ago, coiled it up, and hung it on the hanger next to the faucet. The kayak is hung on the garage wall.

    I’m OCD about loading the dishwasher. I’m a real monster about it. I drove my coworkers crazy, because I had to reorganize it after they threw things in willy-nilly. They didn’t rinse anything either. The dishes frequently came out with food baked on them. I worked until 11 p.m., so I was usually the one who emptied the dishwasher. I couldn’t put those corrupted dishes away. At home, I rinse the dishes first and put them in so that they will actually get clean.

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    1. Maybe you didn’t actually drive your coworkers crazy. Assuming they knew that you wanted it a certain way they just threw stuff in willy-nilly and half rinsed because they knew you were going to redo it anyway? That’s kind of how it works at our house. YA leaves dishes willy-nilly in the sink because she knows I’m gonna deal with it. I like an empty sink. She is very persnickety about several other things (freezer organization is one) and I kinda leave those to her.

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    2. i kind of adopted the philosophy that since i am rinsing and scrubbing the chinks off anyway i may as well use a soapy sponge and wash it and put it on the drying rack but my wife frequently throws it in the dishwasher anyway

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  4. There are many flavors of storage. I have thousands of books. Robin has at least several hundreds more in her studio. There are bookshelves for all of them. At last count, Robin had about 250 kimonos and related garments. I built her a dedicated closet under the eaves for those. We have collections with varied storage needs and tools for multiple crafts. I have a small but adequate workshop with storage racks and workbenches. It tends to get cluttered and every so often I sort it all out but otherwise I just close the door.

    We don’t have a dishwasher. Dirty dishes don’t stay in the sink for more than an hour or so. It’s just not that difficult to keep up.

    We have rented a storage locker but only when we were preparing to move and wanted a transitional space.

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  5. I am pretty organized, but I find that I’m losing my grip. We went to a crawlspace in the basement yesterday looking for some items, and I realized we hadn’t crawled around there since Husband’s stroke 3+ years ago. At least now we know what’s there!

    I’ve never lived in a house with a dish washer, but I’ve been called Space Wizard, so I think I’d be pretty good at loading one.

    Have never had a storage locker, but it’s getting tempting. We have several boxes of stuff belonging to our friend W, in the nursing home. I have boxes of my mom’s calendars and journals that I’ve never been though… I would dearly love to get rid of some of these things, but it never rises to top of to-do list.

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  6. I’m schizophrenic when it comes to storage. I’m organized with some items–clothes, books, records, and CDs, filing cabinets, food on the shelves, But not so organized with tools, toolboxes, freezer food, golf equipment, and old photographs, slides, audio, and videotapes. Go figure.

    I haven’t loaded a dishwasher since . . . I don’t remember. Maybe since we moved here 25 years ago. My wife is obsessive about it. However, she doesn’t always load it to capacity, which irks me, but she’s organized about it.

    Never had a storage locker and never intend to have a storage locker. We’ve got far more storage space that we really need, and that’s about 80% full as it is.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Got some fun author events coming up in the next three weekends. Tomorrow the first of three (for me) Riverwalk WINTER Market Fairs in Northfield. This will be at the Middle school, 2200 Division Street South. From 9 am to 1 pm.

    Next weekend, November 30 and Dec. 1 is the FABULOUS GSR Fine Art and Book Festival in Mankato at the MAYO CLINIC HEALTH SYSTEM EVENT CENTER. 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday; 10 am to 4 pm on Sunday. Some 50 visual artists of all genres ,along with fifteen Minnesota authors. There’ll be food and drink (even adult beverages!), live music, and kids’ activities. A great, way to kick off your holiday shopping by shopping small and helping local small businesses in the arts community.
    https://www.gsrfineartfestival.com/

    Then, on Friday, December 6, Carleton College will hold its annual Craft Fair at the Weitz Center, 320 Third St. E, in Northfield. The Fair runs from 8 am to 2 pm. Over 50 artists, crafters, local small businesses, and a few authors (ME!) will be there.

    All three events are excellent ways to find unique locally produced gifts for family, friends, or yourself. I hope to see some TBers at one or more of these events. **END BSP**

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  7. Kelly can load more into the dishwasher than I can. I’m OK with that. We take turns loading and unloading. Even daughter will load on occasion, but not well. She does unload fairly often.

    I tease Kelly about how many plastic storage bins or wicker baskets she buys, but doesn’t always a plan for.

    We first got a storage unit 20 years ago when her brother thought he could get a pool table into a two bedroom apartment in Lacrosse. He was in no position to do anything else with it, so we rented one and the table has been in there ever since. A few more things have been added, a few have gone back out. Every now and then his new wife will realize we’re paying to store HIS pool table and give him grief about it.

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  8. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Well, I just endured 8 weeks without a dishwasher because the old KitchenAid (great DW!) left puddles in front of itself. This was AFTER I had it repaired in January as Lou was starting to display symptoms of his illness, and I just could not cope with needing a new DW at that time. So I kicked that can down the road. October 1 I purchased a new one, but it was backordered, and it finally arrived on Monday. There was supposed to a new washer and dryer set that came with it, but that is snarled in Best Buy’s bureaucracy and computer system which no one there seems capable of navigating. I may have to just cancel that order and go elsewhere. Man-0-man-0-man. Poorly trained sales people forgot the stacking kit, then they discovered that I could not change to an electric dryer. (Anna, if you read this, maybe you can give unsolicited feedback to anyone there who might care). This has been a very bad experience.

    Meanwhile, I am the packer/storer/filer in this household. It became quite challenging in the 7 years following the sale of my business. During those last years storing business records on a computer became possible, so there was a transition time of both paper and digital records. That paper took up all kinds of space, but it is now all disposed of. We have some storage space here, but it is not generous. Last weekend 3 unused and unloved sleeping bags went home with my sister for her camper which cleared out an entire shelf that is sitting unused for a minute. I will bet that by the end of the weekend I put something else there.

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  9. There is a storage company called PODS. One of their services is to bring a storage unit to your home and you fill it yourself. It’s especially useful with remodeling projects. When the company was expanding, I worked on the building of many of their rental offices. We used PODS to secure our materials and tools.
    I was a real POD ( MST3K) person.

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