Where to store our memories and "stuff?" - RV-Dreams Community Forum

TnT · RV-Dreams Community Member

Where to store our memories and "stuff?"

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

I digitized all our photo's and store them on CD's and DVD's. Then we gave the actual photo's to family members. I didn't want to be paying storage costs, and my DW agreed with me. We literally sold everything before we hit the road. It is such a great feeling to be out from under all that stuff.

TnT · RV-Dreams Community Member

Our daughter is in school, living in a dorm, so we can't give her anything. She is actually going "through it" because we will have to sell all her stuff or store it! LOL She is VERY supportive of our going full time, however. (We haven't told my mom or family yet. LOL)

We actually plan on selling our home in TX and "living" in parks around the SLO area in California for the most part to be near Terry's family. We don't have any actual plans for traveling the US at this point in time. We just love the central coast of CA and his family and want to "camp" and be near them.

By the way, his family is more like a family to me than my family. I will have very few regrets about leaving TX behind.

Judy · RV-Dreams Family Member

We rent a very small storage climate controlled area when we started full timing 3 yrs ago. It holds some antique furniture and some of our collectables. It costs us $40.00 a month. I hope in time to get these things out of storage and back in a home.
southwestjudy

TnT · RV-Dreams Community Member

Wow, $40 a month isn't too bad. I will look into this. Hopefully there is one where we live, so when we sell the house it won't be far to take the "stuff." Thanks!

TXRVr · RV-Dreams Family Member

We full timed for three years. Since our plan was to build our "dream" house at the end of that, we kept a few high quality pieces of furniture and some family antiques. Instead of spending the money on commercial storage, I bought a shed and had it shipped to my son's place. You can get a nice metal or vinyl 10 x 14 for around $750 which is half the cost of three years of storage. For his effort in taking care of our stuff, he got to keep the shed. We packed and wrapped it all much the same as commercial movers do. As for your pictures, we needed to rent a safe deposit box anyway, so we got one big enough to hold a few other things like some rare coins and pictures. Our son had access to that also.

TnT · RV-Dreams Community Member

TXRVr, would the heat in Texas rot our furniture if we stored it in a building without heat and air? Also, what about mice and bugs? We get them in our brick house, how would we keep them from making nests in a storage shed?

Thanks, Tracie

ersanta · RV-Dreams Family Member

I would say that the heat inside would cause the glue in your furniture construction to deteriorate and it only takes a small opening for mice or insects to gain entry to any storage unit.

Santa Nellie

Garden Grove, CA

Loralie · RV-Dreams Family Member

HI! When we took off (5 months ago!!) we moved everything out and sold the house. Because some furniture was going to our daughter (Pa), some to a son (NC), and some to my parents (MD) we decided to use a moving company. We then negotiated with them as work was really slow. We worked out a moving deal almost as cheap as our renting and driving a u-haul and they threw in 3 years of climate controlled storage. Now we will have to decide what to do in 3 years, but for now everything we needed to keep is safely stored away.
Good luck, this is an awesome life style!
Loralie

Judy · RV-Dreams Family Member

This is why we have climate controlled storage, if you are storing furniture and art.
southwestjudy

-- Edited by Judy on Friday 3rd of July 2009 10:40:58 PM

pierreandcolleen · RV-Dreams Family Member

We stored our actual pics with my parents. Most of our pics are digital so these aren't an issue.

-Colleen

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

As my daughter is buying our house, lots of our furniture we want to keep she will use. My family heirlooms were given to her and her sister. Len had a few items he wanted to pass down so his children received them.

We had two yard sales (last one yesterday) and sold a few things on Craigslist. Items left over from yesterdays yard sale went to Goodwill.

However, Len had lots of tools, etc he wants to keep. I have some furniture and stuff I want to keep but daughter does not want to use. We do expect someday to get another house. So we bought a good quality 16' cargo trailer. These items are stored in that. We will leave it at my daugther here to NJ - the weather does not get extremely hot or cold for long periods of time. We figure once we settle again, we can sell the trailer and recoup lots of the cost, unlike paying for storage.

Tom Donaldson · RV-Dreams Community Member

NorCal Dan wrote:

I digitized all our photo's and store them on CD's and DVD's. Then we gave the actual photo's to family members.

CD's and DVD's that you can write on a personal computer may have a very limited useful life. It would be much safer to save them on a hard drive. In a few years when the CD's and DVD's have deteriorated, you may find yourself re-digitizing all of your photos if you can get them back at all.

For more information see:

NationalArchives.gov optical storage media FAQ

Having lost data in the past I am fanatical about backups. For my most important data I have at least two backups:

an online storage facility,
a local LaCie Big Disk Quadra hard drive.

I have not lost more than a few hours of work since I started doing this, and have lost NO archival stuff, like digitized photos.

--tomd

TnT · RV-Dreams Community Member

Good points Tom. Thanks for that information. I hate to take the time to scan all our old pictures onto the computer, but that really is the best solution for them. Then we can back them up on an online server too.

We will look into a cold storage solution for our furniture and stuff. I am sure our daughter will some day want all our "stuff" when she is out of school. If we store it, it will be cheaper than her buying it all and a great wedding gift if she gets married. (Fingers crossed because I want grand kids!)

TXRVr · RV-Dreams Family Member

TnT wrote:

TXRVr, would the heat in Texas rot our furniture if we stored it in a building without heat and air? Also, what about mice and bugs? We get them in our brick house, how would we keep them from making nests in a storage shed?

Thanks, Tracie

I've had furniture stored in non- climate controlled moving company warehouses for as much as 2 years without any problems and our vinyl shed doesn't get as hot as metal. Lotsa people store stuff in the attic or garage of their home where there isn't any HVAC without problems. It's kinda the same thing.

The shed didn't have holes for mice to get in, but we put some de-con in it anyway. You can't stop bugs or dust from getting into any storage facility no matter what you do which is one reason we put bug, dust, and moisture sensitive stuff in boxes and tapes them heavily.

Sounds like you've solved your problem with the cargo trailer. Would suggest that the tools either be put in boxes and sealed or coat them with some lube like WD40. It will keep the rust off.

thebearII · RV-Dreams Family Member

An old timer said he would put 50 gallon drum full of water in his storage shed to help maintain moisture. He would fill it about every 3 months.

I'm sure you could rig up an automatic filler using a float device like for animal watering troughs. That way you could use a smaller drum or even 5 gallon bucket.

He insulated his shed.

He kept a 25 watt bulb on a timer to come on after midnight until dawn to help keep stuff from freezing in the shed during the winter. He said the bulb put out enough heat with the insulation to keep it rather nice in the shed.

He also kept a bowl full of moth balls to keep out rodents.

He did the same things to his RV when he stored it for a couple of years.

rjenkins · RV-Dreams Family Member

Although I am not an rv'er but do enjoy renting them, the cost of storing furniture vs what you are storing can be a deciding factor and you really have to do the math. Unless they are very rare antiques, I would look at seeing if family and friends can take it off your load for awhile and even let them use it, otherwise sell it. Years ago after my divorce, I got a storage room for the furniture I wanted but had no room for in my apartment. Living in Miami, the cheapest climate controlled unit I could find (and it was small) ran 145/month. I didn't even do the math on the breakeven point of whether to sell or keep. I just blindly stored it as I saved to buy a house. As real estate prices skyrocketed, year 1 turned to year 2 turned to year 3. Finally I realized that what I had paid in storage was not worth what was in storage if I sold it right there and then! It just crept up on me. I finally just liquidated everything. The money I could have had if I had sold immediately and saved from storage rental, could have equipped me with the few nice pieces of furniture I needed when I finally did but a house. For some people here that are planning on rv'ing until whenever, you could be talking about 10 or more years down the road. That better be either cheap climate controlled storage or some super expensive furniture you are planning to keep.

Luvglass · RV-Dreams Family Member

You are so right! We had to have a storage locker for our "treasures" we couldn't part with. After 3 years and almost $4 thousand dollars in rent, we finally went there and didn't remember half of it.

Thankfully we got rid of everything to junk, relatives or Good Will, and will deal with whatever we have to if and when we have to come off the road.

Personally, I'm hoping to go from the trailer.

Judy · RV-Dreams Family Member

I would highly suggest to everyone if they are planing on full-timing to store items that they consider most important to them.. Whether it be family heirlooms or precious antiques or favorite pieces that they can not live without, just knowing it is in a safe place is peace of mind. When we find a home again our treasured items will be out of storage. You'll never know if you will continue on the full time life style due to health problems or just wanting a community life again. Our storage is very reasonable priced. Remember, as in life we are just care takers of our pieces or whatever we have until it is passed on for others to enjoy!
Thankgoodness for museums around the world.
southwestjudy

-- Edited by Judy on Saturday 11th of July 2009 11:59:37 AM