It does not matter how hard you try to protect your belongings when renovating your living space: smaller or larger mishaps, e.g. when painting the ceiling, cannot be avoided. In the end you are left with perfectly painted walls and ceilings, but the pieces of furniture show unmistakable signs of paint splashes, drips, or even scratches and chipped edges.
During renovation, self storage therefore becomes the rescuer in an emergency. Your furniture and your household goods are stored in secure storage units, far away from dust, paint splashes, and falling debris. The actual renovation work is made easier by storing your household and, in most cases, accelerated.
If you additionally choose Full Service Storage, you receive further benefits when storing your belongings. With this type of self storage option, in addition to storage during the renovation, the transport of your household goods and the professional storage are also taken off your hands.
Below, we give you some tips and tricks on how best to manage the storage of your belongings during a partial or complete renovation of your apartment/your house.
What advantages does storage during renovation really bring for you?
In addition to avoiding damage to your beloved and valued household items and furniture, storing your household goods brings a whole range of less obvious, but welcome, advantages, including:
You save money
When storing your household goods, you are charged a comparatively small amount in rent for the storage space. Compared to purchasing furniture protection during renovation, this amount is almost laughably small.
Even the professional covering of just a single piece of furniture with a proper tarpaulin could cost you € 10. Keep in mind here that the rent for 1 m², depending on your location, starts at € 4 per week.
You save time
A complete or even partial renovation of your living space is a stressful matter that you probably want to get behind you as quickly as possible. With proper planning, self storage, and especially Full Service Storage, can save you a lot of time, even if you still have to pack your things beforehand.
Self storage and Full Service Storage give you the opportunity to manage your time effectively. Storage space managers give you and your tradespeople room to be able to work significantly faster. You do not have to constantly climb down from the ladder to move furniture around.
You spare your nerves
Many people hate house or apartment renovation because the work, despite the result, brings trouble with it. Dirt and dust, the constant smell of paint, and living among boxes, stacked pieces of furniture in overcrowded rooms wear on the nerves and can even lead to conflicts within families, especially when children and/or pets are involved
In most cases, the renovation cannot be completed within a few days. If you store your things in self storage, you can at least keep part of the living space free for your everyday activities. You can then also save yourself the bill for the divorce lawyer.
You save hassle
If you choose Full Service Storage for storing your household goods, you can avoid a lot of trouble during renovation. Not only is the transport of your belongings taken off your hands with this option, but also the actual storage.
Trained staff transport your household goods from your home to the selected storage unit and place them there professionally and in a space saving manner. You avoid not only the worry of whether your motor vehicle can hold your household goods, but also the headache of how best to store your things without causing damage to your items.
You protect the environment
Sustainability in all areas of life is becoming increasingly important in Germany. Many households will therefore also take environmental protection into consideration during their renovation. In some cases, the renovation might even aim to make the apartment or the house more sustainable.
Renovations generally bring enormous amounts of not very sustainable materials with them. Countless plastic sheets for covering pieces of furniture and household appliances unnecessarily increase the piles of waste and are difficult to recycle. Even cardboard boxes create a CO₂ footprint and, recycled or not, at some point have cost a tree its life.
Therefore rent your storage boxes and crates for the period of the renovation, and after use return them to your self storage or Full Service provider for reuse.
Why you should not store your things at home during renovation
If you are only just thinking about renovating your living space, the question immediately arises of what you should do in the meantime with your belongings and household goods. Most people first think of the options that their own living space offers. Cellars, attics, and garages could perhaps represent a refuge for the items.
The option also arises of renovating one room after another and repeatedly shifting the unnecessary items into the next room.
However, when storing in your own house, you must take into account some, in part serious, points of danger:
Weight
When your house was built, architects and structural engineers calculated exactly how much weight can be stored on each floor and in each room. The calculation was always carried out according to the principle of even distribution.
If you suddenly fill your rooms with heavy pieces of furniture and boxes with kilos of household goods, this can place excessive strain on the building structure of your house. A ceiling collapse or other structural damage can then lead to far larger and more expensive refurbishment work than you planned.
Pests
Human proximity always attracts rodents and pests. It does not matter how clean and well kept you keep your own home, unattended pipes and cables in the cellar, in the attic, or in the garage provide free access.
In doing so, the pests can smell even the smallest cookie crumbs in the sofa or drops of spilled ketchup in the space between the kitchen cupboard from miles away. While you can keep pests under control in your immediate living space, protecting belongings away from the actual living area becomes problematic.
Just a single mouse can, within a few minutes, turn your expensive sofa into bulky waste, while moths and various beetles can finish off the rest of your belongings.
Household accidents
Almost three million people in Germany have accidents in their own house every year. Mishaps during DIY and renovation work contribute considerably to this bleak accident statistic.
The risk of accidents during renovations increases further when you stay and move around during the refurbishment work in rooms crammed full of furniture and boxes because you do not want to store them outside your own four walls.
Protect your family and yourself and store your belongings in professional storage facilities. Not only are these designed for the weight and scale of heavy and bulky items. Reputable self storage and Full Service providers also have strict safety measures against pests and ensure that you can always move around at home without obstruction.
How do I plan my storage during renovation most sensibly?
To ensure a smooth refurbishment, you should not only plan the renovation work precisely, but also the storage process. After all, you want your furniture not to disgrace the sparkling newly painted walls due to paint splashes, scuffs, and scratches.
Here is our guide for proper storage during a refurbishment:
Decluttering
Refurbishments offer the unique opportunity to tidy up your household from the ground up and create space. Throw away everything that is broken, unusable, or outdated. Sell or give away items that you never use but that are still useful, or donate them to charity shops. Destroy old records and documents.
Type of refurbishment
Determine whether you want to clear out and renovate the entire apartment at once, or gradually, room by room. If you want to store each room individually and one after the other, you have the advantage that you can stay at home during the refurbishment period and can supervise/carry out the trades work yourself. If you want to clear out and store the entire apartment at once, you should look for alternative accommodation. Perhaps you want to book a vacation, or stay with relatives/friends while the tradespeople work at your home.
Determine storage volume
If you only clear out one room at a time, plan the sequence. Calculate the storage area that you need. As a rule, the required storage area is between 10 and 15 % of the square meter area of your living space. You can also measure your belongings individually or use a storage space calculator.
Book storage space
Find a self storage provider that is either near your location or your workplace. Book a storage area according to your dimensions or calculations. Make sure that your belongings are stored in climate suitable rooms and sufficiently guarded during storage. If you rent Full Service storage, inform your landlord about the multiple pickups. In that case you can skip the next step.
Determine transport
After self storage, you should book the transport of your belongings right away. Freight forwarding companies often have a longer advance booking period. Depending on the amount of your belongings, you should either order a truck or a large van in advance. Plan for a full day if you handle the transport yourself. With Full Service Storage you only have to make sure that your things are properly packed and ready for transport on the day of collection.
Packing materials
Get enough packing materials. If you renovate room by room, you can assume that boxes, furniture blankets, corrugated cardboard, and even bubble wrap/foam wrap can be reused for the next room. Consider renting moving boxes to speed up packing and to protect the environment. Do not forget corner and edge protection for your furniture.
Pack up the inventory
Start with smaller items and files/documents that you can stow in boxes. Dismantle larger pieces of furniture and attach the necessary corner and edge protection. Cover upholstered furniture. Roll up carpets and wrap your pictures and paintings. Do not forget to empty your larger household appliances and clean them thoroughly. Secure plugs and cables. Have electricians remove lamps and lights.
Storage
On the big day, your Full Service provider comes and picks up your things to store them professionally. After that you can start the renovation. If you have booked a freight forwarder, after collection you have to set off for your self storage in order to take receipt of the items there and oversee the storage. If you handle the transport yourself, you must have enough hands available to carry the things and load them into vehicles.
Renovation
Now you will presumably be standing in an empty apartment, or at least in a completely cleared out room, and can concentrate entirely on a hopefully undisturbed renovation.
Return delivery of the inventory
After your renovation has been successfully completed, you can bring your household goods back again. If you have booked Full Service Storage, your things will be brought back to you at home after safe storage in the same condition in which you sent them. If in the meantime you find that you need items from storage, these are usually delivered to you within 24 hours. With conventional self storage, you now have to hire a freight forwarder again and supervise the return of the belongings from your storage facility.
How Full Service storage simplifies your renovation work
As you have probably already noticed, Full Service Storage can save you a lot of trouble during renovation work. The advantages begin already with planning and organization:
- Professionally trained staff support you in choosing and booking the storage space.
- You can rent sustainable moving boxes and save yourself unnecessary packing material.
- Your belongings are collected from you and transported to the storage facility. You avoid not only carrying and loading, but also road traffic, traffic jams, and bad weather conditions. You also save valuable time.
- The Full Service provider stores your property professionally and under optimal conditions.
- The stored items are insured and are properly guarded.
- If you only want part of your things back, this is organized within 24 hours.
- After the renovation, your belongings are transported back to your location properly.
If you would like to know more about the advantages of Full Service Storage, take a look at the success stories of real users of the service on the BOXIE24 website.
