Deciding how to store items in your home is a very important part of de-cluttering and getting organised. The following tips will help you make quick and valuable decisions which will help you organise all areas of your home.
Hallway – Sort through your collection of scarves, hats, coats and other items of clothing that take up space. You can keep the items that are used daily or weekly as any of the excess items can be moved into a nearby cupboard, donated to charity or put in a self storage room.
Living Room – Old books, DVDs and CDs are the usual culprits so lose the bits and pieces and only display your most prized possessions.
Kitchen – The main source of frustration in a kitchen is overstuffed cabinets and drawers filled with duplicate kitchenware, dishes that are used only on special occasions, mismatched containers and appliances that you no longer use. If you can’t bear to part with an item consider relocating it or putting the items in storage.
Closets – It’s time to be strong and clear out those items that haven’t been worn in the last year, no longer fit or are out of style.
Bathrooms – Throw away any items that have expired or those that are no longer in use. Items such as toothbrushes can be kept in holders to save space and keep them clean.
Office – Any paperwork that can be found on a website or email should be recycled. Filing systems can help you minimise the inflow of paperwork and help reduce your existing paperwork piles.
Kids Room – Teaching children the concept of ‘one in, one out’ can stop toys from becoming jumbled and cluttered on the floor.
Garage –When you clear space in your house, boxes of old clothing, sports equipment and extra furnishings usually end up in the garage and will never return inside your home. To create a vast amount of free space you can donate the items or keep them in self storage.
Spring is coming to an end, and summer is just around the corner. At this time of year, many people have spent weeks cleaning the house, de-cluttering, storing away stuff for safe keeping – and are feeling that air of change. If you’re planning to sell your home, the sites below will provide advice and gets things moving from your own front room.
Tepilo – Sarah Beeny’s smarter way to buy, sell or let a property. Though some people will always prefer to use an estate agent, for those that like to take control of the sale/rental of a property, this site simplifies and explains the whole process – which is often perceived as something more complicated than it really is.
Globrix - In 2008, Globrix.com launched as a joint venture with News International, the media company behind The Times, The Sun and The News of the World. Since then, Globrix.com has quickly grown to become an award winning property search engine, listing more UK properties to buy or rent than any other property site.
Rightmove – Rightmove.co.uk is the UK’s number one property website, aiming to be the place for UK home movers to find details of all properties available to buy or rent. It’s a more convenient and effective way for people to find their next home, including: up-to-date property information, available for free, accessible 24 hours a day to anyone with web access and far more complete in terms of number of properties and depth of detail.
One of the most precious of childhood toys is the stuffed animal. It holds endless memories, attends countless tea parties and accompanies many kids everywhere they go. As such, when it’s time to put them away, a lot of attention needs to be paid to getting it right – whether it’s a short term or long term option.
First up – do you want to put them on display, or away for safe keeping? If it’s the former, you can use shelves to display the toys, bearing in mind that they’ll accumulate dust – so a boxed self storage room with doors might be a good option. Or, buy an easy to open toy box, though it’s important to consider safety when selecting furniture for a child’s room. Be sure that features such as height and weight are taken into consideration. You could also use a mesh laundry bag to keep toys off of the floor, or put smaller toys into the pockets of a shoe hanger for easy and visible storage.
If they’re being stored away from sight or in a self storage room, you can put unused stuffed animals in plastic bins with secure lids for easy storage in the attic or garage. If you purchase bins of the same size and shape, multiple bins may be stacked more efficiently and take up less space. Wrap antique bears or toys in acid-free tissue paper and store them in archival or acid-free boxes when not on display. Be careful not to over-stuff the boxes as this can matt or crush the fur.
You can find all manner of packing supplies at Big Yellow Self Storage to help keep your items in top condition when storing from plastic boxes to tissue paper. Visit our Box Shop online to view the range.
Have a handy tip to ensure precious keepsakes stand the test of time? Let us know your suggestions in the comments area below.
Did you know that the magpie – like all crows – does not have a musical voice and instead uses shiny objects stored in its nest to attract a mate? As with so many aspects of evolution – its reputation for stealing things is actually a feature of selection within its species.
Magpies collect and display objects with reflective surfaces in an attempt to find a partner, as the bird with the most objects of highest quality gets the strongest mate.
The birds will reputedly steal jewellery, silver and metals, earning them the name ‘The Thieving Magpie’. Rossini wrote an opera of this name (La Gazza Ladra). It concerns a French servant-girl who is accused of theft. She is tried, found guilty and executed. Later, the true culprit is revealed: a magpie. In remorse, the town organises an annual ‘Mass of the Magpies’ to pray for her soul. The title The Thieving Magpie was later used by progressive rock band Marillion for one of their albums.
We don’t condone stealing at Big Yellow Self Storage. If you’d like to store your valuables for safe keeping we provide 24 hour digital CCTV and every self storage room has its own alarm for you own peace of mind. We also have coded electronic gates, perimeter security fencing, smoke detectors and fire alarms to protect your things. All corridors are well lit, and all floors have an emergency phone just in case you need us. Visit our Quote and reserve online page to find out how you can benefit from self storage.
Do you think our friend the magpie has a bad reputation? Or is it a symbol of something else? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Big Yellow Self Storage has been happy to give a helping hand to Read International, a fantastic charity and the UK’s one-stop-shop for book donations. They have crafted a hugely inspiring network of students who volunteer at 45 universities across Britain accepting any disused books from anyone and everyone and then ship these to Tanzania and Uganda. These much needed donations give kids in these countries the chance to benefit from books that their schools could never usually afford.
Over 564,000 books have been shipped to date, a great success for them! Because they’re so successful in their donation drives that they acquire a large amount of books before they’re all ready for shipping without having the facilities to store them all. This is where we have been able to help with the cause as we’ve donated space where Read International can house these, sort them and get them ready for shipping. We’re delighted to work with Read International and help them with their great achievements.
To find out how you can get active with READ International or donate books to the project please visit their Facebook group.
Recently our Norwich & Edinburgh branches helped Read International deliver a vast stock of books, view the images in our slide show below.
Do you have a favourite charity that you support? Let us know what yours is in the comment section below.
Armadillo Self Storage Sheffield Parkway was delighted to aid St. Luke’s Hospice with their storage needs recently. Every day, St. Luke’s offers excellent specialist care to its patients. Staffing at the hospice has become vitally important to the patients and their families as without the excellent individual care that they provide, St. Luke’s wouldn’t be so unique and valuable. We’ve donated storage space worth £2,000 to a very deserving cause which has been providing care to thousands of seriously ill people within their community since 1971. St. Luke’s we salute you!
Visit Friends of St Luke’s for further information on volunteering, fundraising or making a donation to this amazing charity!
Did you know that there are many different types of energy – from the type that comes from plugs in the wall to power your electrical items, to the kind being stored in a battery? Solar energy comes from the sun and is not only absorbed by plants and crops to help them grow, but collected here on earth for heating, lighting and other human needs.
A means of collecting the solar energy and a way to generate it are needed to make sure we can access the sun’s energy. This means that the energy can be converted into another form of energy such as electricity and heat. Storing the energy makes it last longer, as the sun does not shine for 24 hours a day – and in some cases not at all!
Solar energy is very well suited for heating purposes and more people are integrating systems into their homes in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly. This heat energy can be stored in a liquid like water or a packed bed. A packed bed is a container in which small objects like stones can be placed. The stones are able to store solar energy. Heat energy can also be stored in phase-changer or heat-of-fusion units which use chemicals to alter solid to liquid at certain temperatures. Later the liquid can return to its solid form and the energy can be used.
At this time of year, we’re all busy sorting through boxes of clothes and books, papers and knick-knacks, trying to work out where on earth they came from. Though much of it ends up at the charity shop or in the paper shredder, you’ll sometimes find a few gems among the mess. In a way, it’s the same for the world wide web – there’s a lot of rubbish, but a lot of fun too. It’s precisely this sentiment that’s inspired the launch of the blogs below, all of which celebrate that one man’s garbage is another man’s gold!
FFFFOUND is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-based bookmarking experience.
Postsecret – an anonymous collection of secrets on a 4×6 inch postcard. Some postcards are art some are just brutally honest, but all are shown on this online gallery that updates every Sunday.
We all know what it’s like. You’ve had your phone for a while, it’s looking a bit tired – but more importantly, it’s acting it. There are a number of things you can do to fix this, and breathe new life into your handset before banishing it to the back of a drawer for good.
Sluggish performance on most phones is almost always caused by a lack of memory, itself caused by having too many apps on your phone. To delete some apps, go to the main menu and find your applications folder. Doing this will show you a list of all the apps installed on your phone. Tap on an entry and your phone will show you how much memory the app takes up, as well as giving you the option to delete it.
You can set single speed dial keys by holding down the key from the home screen, but for setting up a whole lot, go to the Options menu, select Phone Options and then Speed Dial Numbers. Here, you’ll see the whole alphabet, ready for you to assign.
Finally, using the wrong version of software on your phone can also slow it down. The process for this is different for each manufacturer, but if you call your operator – they’ll be able to talk you through how to update your phone, and delete the old version to save space!
Did you know that most hamsters inhabit semi-desert areas where they live in burrows consisting of multiple tunnels and chambers – the most important of which store food and bedding for the animals to sleep in. Hamsters are nocturnal, so they sleep during the hot days and move around in the evening when it’s cooler. As such, conserving energy is vital.
Most species of hamsters have expandable cheek pouches in which they can carry food and bedding back to their burrow to store. In fact, the word ‘hamster’ comes from the German word ‘hamstern’ which means ‘to hoard’.
A hoard of nuts buried by a rodent 17 million years ago is the oldest food larder so far discovered in the fossil record. A team from the University of Bonn in Germany found a burrow containing 1,800 fossilised nuts when digging at an open-cast mine near Garzweiler. Back then, hamsters were predominately found in the wild, and though they’re mainly now kept as pets, this proves that behaviour hasn’t changed much since then.
Big Yellow Self Storage provides secure do it yourself storage rooms for domestic and business customers for as long or as short a period as required. We provide space that’s easy to arrange, secure – and affordable.
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