Does furniture survive long-term storage? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

In Laymans Terms · RV-Dreams Family Member

Does furniture survive long-term storage?

Lonney Wade · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have decided not to put our furniture in storage, so we bought a 16ft. cargo trailer with a ramp door, we have antiques in there through the cold and through the hot high humidity in Michigan, no problems everything looks good for about one year so far, I cracked the ceiling vent a small bit to let out the heat in the summer; no water got in.

Lonney

-- Edited by Lonney Wade on Monday 9th of November 2015 10:16:08 PM

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a shipping container with items similar to what you described in NJ - it isn't heated or cooled but does have a dehumidifier. After a year all still looked good - although I didn't do a thorough exam of it as a good amount was not accessible, due to being blocked by the stuff Bill wants to easily get to. It is sitting on railroad ties that are set on blue stone to allow air to circulate and water not accumulate. I used lemon oil on all the wood to help it not dry out and covered everything with sheets.
Hope this helps.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

The short answer is, no they will not. Of course there will always be exceptions and others may have different experiences. The real question, will your taste in decor stay the same for the duration of the storage? The other question is do you have the time and money to devote to proper storage maintenance. Do you trust, and I mean really trust, the responsible parties to properly supervise your stored items?

I stored my personal effects and other items including furniture in a public storage facility for 5 years while overseas with the Navy. Having never done that before, I made some mistakes and learned some lessons. In a nutshell, If you don't focus laserlike intensity on preservation, your stuff will deteriorate. Wood dries out, leather cracks, paper disintregates, plastic becomes brittle, metals and electronics and electrical items rust and corrode. Dessicant is your friend. Packing items air tight as possible. Not overpacking boxes so they become too heavy to stack without collapsing the ones under them are starters. Even if you do that, cardboard boxes will sag over time no matter what you do. Longer term storage of furniture incorrectly wil result in warpage or other deformities that may or may not bounce back once they come out of storage. Pest control is another problem that affects long term storage. And yes the little critters and insects can and will do major damage. setting traps or or using chemicals is not a set and forget affair. They require continual attention. Captured critters need to be removed quickly or you invite more problems, insect baits and such are only chemically effective for a rather short period of time and have to be replaced.

You say you don't want to get into the whole "should I sell it or not" debate, but it's a valuable part of the question when you look at the whole picture.

You asked about experience. Had I done all of those things I could have saved many of the things I wish I could have saved, the rest simply became out of date for my tastes. Time will do that. From my experience.... I'll never do that again. Storage, in my opinion, is not viable if you have to store for more than a year, or two... tops.

FWIW, Brian

-- Edited by biggaRView on Tuesday 10th of November 2015 01:51:07 PM

In Laymans Terms · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the feedback so far. I should have mentioned that our idea for storage is a cargo trailer, as Lonney is using. We would be home to check on it every summer, and the in-laws could probably be convinced to have a peek once a month or so, although it will end up surrounded by deep snow. No opportunity for an actual dehumidifer but we certainly could use dessicant - thanks for that idea. Furniture going out of style is not a concern, but deterioration certainly is! Thanks for the lemon oil hint, Kelly.
This is a tough one - not for sentimental reasons, but purely financial. The best we think we could do on selling it all is about $5,000; it will be $20,000 to replace it all in the future.

BoAndRach · RV-Dreams Family Member

We stored all of our household goods/furniture for about a year when we were building our last home. It all survived fine. We didn't use any cardboard. Everything that needed to be stored in boxes was stored in tubs. All the furniture was covered. We live in north Texas so the temperature swings can be extreme (well over 100 for extended periods in the summer and occasional below freezing and snow/ice during the winter).

We plan again on storing some furniture, household goods, tools, etc. for at least a couple of years when we hit the road at the beginning of the year. We intend to build another home in a couple of years so the decision was easier for us, but like you, we quickly realized that we'd take a huge financial hit if we sold everything (if we could even sell it - I've been finding that it's really tough to sell furniture at any price). Who knows, though, after a couple years on the road, we may decide that we're never coming back to a sticks and bricks home and may end up getting rid of everything anyway! I'll be glad to keep you posted. (Things start going into storage this month!)

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

HHHHmmmm........storage unit......been paying the bill for 11 years....roughly 14000 dollars.......Im not even sure whats in there anymore!!!!........but I guarantee I could replace it with what I spent or get 600 for it maybe if I sell it........

In Laymans Terms · RV-Dreams Family Member

That's why we're thinking of buying a cargo trailer - initial cost up to $4000, but will regain a good portion of that by selling when we're done with it. And you're right about the difficulty even finding a buyer for furniture, Rach. With credit so cheap, there isn't the push to buy used anymore.
My biggest concern is overall length of time. I just can't determine how things will fare after more than five years or so. Interesting comments from Brian, above. I'm thinking maybe wood furniture will fare ok with some care, but not too sure about the leather couches and chairs. I'd hate to go through the time and effort to prepare them for storage, give up any potential income from selling now, and end up with a trailer full of wrecked stuff that's worthless.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

If your plan on leaving a cargo trailer full of your stuff outside exposed to the elements for potentailly several years, you open yourself up to a whole new kettle of fish. The trailer itself will deteriorate, possibly leak, get vandalized or broken into or worse yet stolen outright with everything in it. Your 4000 investment in the trailer will not likely net you much at all after several years of just sitting there. Tires rot, weeds grow into any crack they can find, birds will use it for nesting or perching sites, critters will seek out any path to a safe refuge inside. In order to sell it, you may have to cough up serious coin to make it saleable.

Without temperature and humidity control, you are asking for problems. Even without the aforementioned problems, that environmental abuse of your belongings could well have you rueing the day you ever decided to store your "treasures" that way.

Paying cash upfront means you lose out on a few thousand of modest investment income (wisely invested) on that money.

Food for thought, Brian

Clay L · RV-Dreams Family Member

We stored our stuff in NH in a non controlled environment for 11 years.
We stored a lot of the hard goods - dining room set with hutch, entertainment center (custom made), end tables and chests of drawers, dressers , etc. It was very good quality stuff.
We stored a lot of kitchen items, small appliances, linens and bedding. We stored all of my guns, reloading equipment, complete woodworking shop equipment and electronic lab equipment, my wife's shop equipment for building miniatures, her original oil paintings and all of her genealogy files.

I am very glad that we did. It all came through fine.

Replacing it would have cost much more than the storage cost for 11 years did.

Just replacing appliances like washer/dryer, freezer, beds and mattresses, and living room furniture cost over $10,000.
There is no way my tools,woodworking equipment, guns, reloading equipment, electronic lab equipment, etc could have been replaced for what we paid for storage. As far as decor goes we are not slaves to fad or fashion and still like the furniture we had when we started full timing.

-- Edited by Clay L on Tuesday 10th of November 2015 12:21:00 PM

-- Edited by Clay L on Tuesday 10th of November 2015 12:23:08 PM

Judy L · RV-Dreams Family Member

When we sold our house we decided to keep the nicer pieces of wood furniture. Then our son and his wife started looking for a larger home for their soon-to-be family and expressed an interest a couple of easy chairs and a few other items so before we knew it we ended up with two climate controlled storage units, one 10x10 and another 10x15. Last summer we realized that in just two years we had paid $6800 to store this furniture and that we had no intention of coming off the road any time soon. It really didn't make any sense, so this past summer we bit the bullet and either gave away or consigned nearly everything that our son didn't want (most of it).

We were lucky to find a very nice furniture consignment shop in our area and they took all of our nicer wood furniture. I was very pleased that within a few weeks all but one piece of our furniture had sold. We received half of what the furniture sold for and it was priced reasonably. We didn't recover much of our investment but we did a lot better that we would have done trying to sell it on Craigslist or at a garage sale and without all the hassle. Somehow it made it easier knowing that someone liked it enough to buy it and that it would have a new home. Seeing all the beautiful "gently used" quality furniture in that consignment shop also made me hope that they will still be in business when we're ready to stop full-timing!

We had very little damage in the two years our things were stored but as Brian said, cardboard boxes were already beginning to sag and I saw plenty of evidence of insect activity (including some roach carcasses) on the floor of the units even though we were very careful that we didn't store anything we thought would interest them. Even in these climate controlled units there seemed to be some moisture creeping in along the perimeter of the building from the outside. Not a good sign for long term storage.

That was our brief experience with long term storage. Hope it helps.

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

To clarify a bit - our stuff is in a shipping container and is 100% metal. It is air and water tight. The only 2 holes are for electric wire and the hose for the dehumidifier, both of which are caulked and the dehumidifier hose is screened. This is the kind of container used on ships for crossing the ocean. There is nothing getting in. It cost us $2750 plus the blue stone and railroad ties - another $500'ish. We, thankfully, have it on my BIL's land - no rent. The cost is way less than it would be to replace just one of those rooms of furniture. We didn't keep linens or towels or any of that - whatever didn't come with us was given away. All other items we kept are on plastic totes, no cardboard, and they are on shelves we kept from our garage. We figure when we decide it's time to deal with it (whatever that looks like) and get rid of the container, it will always be worth the scrap price if we cannot resell it. If anyone is interested in pics I blogged about the whole delivery (complete with pics) back in May 2014, the post is called "Our Stuffs New Home" - link is at the bottom (sorry - don't know how to add one here in the post!)

Hope this clarifies and helps.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

jrzygrl64 wrote:
To clarify a bit - our stuff is in a shipping container and is 100% metal. It is air and water tight. The only 2 holes are for electric wire and the hose for the dehumidifier, both of which are caulked and the dehumidifier hose is screened. This is the kind of container used on ships for crossing the ocean. There is nothing getting in. It cost us $2750 plus the blue stone and railroad ties - another $500'ish. We, thankfully, have it on my BIL's land - no rent. The cost is way less than it would be to replace just one of those rooms of furniture. We didn't keep linens or towels or any of that - whatever didn't come with us was given away. All other items we kept are on plastic totes, no cardboard, and they are on shelves we kept from our garage. We figure when we decide it's time to deal with it (whatever that looks like) and get rid of the container, it will always be worth the scrap price if we cannot resell it. If anyone is interested in pics I blogged about the whole delivery (complete with pics) back in May 2014, the post is called "Our Stuffs New Home" - link is at the bottom (sorry - don't know how to add one here in the post!)

Hope this clarifies and helps.

Well, here's a help. I found jrzygrl64's blog entry and the link is below.

Our Stuff's New Home

Terry

Flashman · RV-Dreams Community Member

Anything you sell can be replaced the same way you sold it. If the concern is that you sell it for cents on the dollar but will have to pay full price when you replace it (that's even IF you replace it) then don't pay full price. Buy it the same way you sold it - from someone selling their stuff. Having just gone through Operation Downsizing, it has become apparent that with patience, you never have to pay "full price" again. No need....

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks Terry! Very much appreciate you helping me out with that! I could probably have looked it up - but doing 50 hours a week at Amazon isn't helping me figure stuff out right now!