[John in AR]

All the moving of things I’ve done in the past couple weeks has made me very conscious of storage issues and storage space. While it’s possible to live a perennially-minimalist lifestyle, most of us do tend to accumulate stuff — including unnecessary and even near-pointless stuff — over time; and that means that storage of stuff becomes necessary. Fwiw, some of the things I’ve tried over the years; most of which were ideas I came across, not ideas I came up with.

This is a wall-mount can rack I made for my mother-in-law years ago. She had very little pantry storage, but had some wall space available:

This is a self-rotating can rack I did for one of our kitchen cabinets. A lot like the canned-soup dispensing racks at some grocery stores, you load in the top and it feed out the bottom. Not only keeps things rotated, but keeps a lot more cans usable in the same space:

A ceiling-joist mounted storage bin for lightweight things. I used it for extension cords, but it would work for other light things as well. Probably don’t want to put ammo cans up there:

It just pivots on a bolt, with washers between the bin body and the joists:

Simple cleats mounted with lag bolts hold it up out of the way when not being accessed:

This one isn’t mine, just one I saw in a furniture store and took a picture of. A simple wooden wall cabinet with a small hidden storage space behind the trim. (Crappy 2005 or so cell phone pic):

 

[John in AR]

From our pantry, a simple room I enclosed in one corner of our shop. Had shelves 1’ wide along three sides, from ~3 ft off the floor to almost the ceiling; allowing a ton of storage in a pretty small space:

Since the shop itself isn’t climate-controlled, I made the pantry climate-controlled with a simple window-style air-conditioner, with the A/C unit plugged into a receptacle that itself was controlled by an adjustable temperature switch. If plugged into a normal (always-on) receptacle, the A/C unit’s fan ran 24/7, even when the compressor was off, so adding the temperature switch on the power itself just saved wear & tear on the fan motor. Think of these two pictures as being one; oriented just as they are. The blue box with the white cover is a normal always-hot outlet. The upper cord plugged into it runs up to the temperature switch above the next shelf up (just to give some thermal separation), and then back down to the receptacle in the surface-mounted galvanized box. The big white plug in that receptacle is the A/C cord. When the temperature switch senses a warm room, it kicks on power to the a/c unit, which cools the room until the temperature switch reaches its shut-off point and turns off power.

It took some experimenting and adjusting at first, but it's run for over a decade that way, keeping the room between 63 and 72 in the summer.

The other cord in the blue box (going down & to the left) goes to a plug strip, into which is plugged a simple electric heater that is set to come on at 45 degrees, to keep the room from freezing in winter; and a dehumidifier set at its lowest setting. Basically, this approach (once set up) kept the pantry between 40 and 72 degrees or so, year round with no maintenance or fiddling required. The dehumidifier kept the room at 35% humidity, which is VERY dry; meaning we could keep a box of normal breakfast cereal more than a year with literally no detectable difference in taste or texture, compared to fresh-bought. Low humidity makes a HUGE difference in the storage life of dried and powdered things like cereals, crackers, flour, etc.

Pantry also had ultrasonic and subsonic pest repllers in it. I frankly never could get a firm understanding of which (ultrasonic or subsonic) worked best, so we did both just to be sure.

 

[Garand]

Very impressive, set up. I wonder if Melvin is this organized?

 

[John in AR]

Thanks - all belongs to someone else now.

Anyone ever use the commercially-available hidden storage cabinets that you see everywhere nowadays? Things like the "Tactical Walls" items:

They caught my eye a couple years ago and seemed like a neat idea to incorporate into the new house, but they've become popular enough that the 'stealth' factor is probably largely gone now.

 

[justme]

I aint dumb enough to waste money, space and weight on canned goods, other than what she normally keeps in the house, maybe 2 week's worth. That's real value (to her). In her home country, having a couple of rolls of toilet tissue is being wealthy (only half kidding)

 

[John in AR]

...waste money, space and weight on canned goods...

You recommend dry goods instead, or what...?

 

[Garand]

I aint dumb enough to waste money, space and weight on canned goods

Please specify, exactly what we should "waste" our money on?

 

[Terry G]

Please specify, exactly what we should "waste" our money on?

Entrenching tools and 55 gal. drums.

 

[Garand]

I am a firm believer that portable items in caches should weigh in at 60 - 65 lbs maximum. In case the cache has to be evacuated this is an easy enough weight to move in one hand while still retaining the ability of using either your rifle or handgun to defend yourself.

 

[SherW]

Thanks - all belongs to someone else now.

Anyone ever use the commercially-available hidden storage cabinets that you see everywhere nowadays? Things like the "Tactical Walls" items:

They caught my eye a couple years ago and seemed like a neat idea to incorporate into the new house, but they've become popular enough that the 'stealth' factor is probably largely gone now.

I think it is good to get a locker like this. How much it cost? I don't have any separate space for keeping my gun. I think I have to keep it separately to avoid the damage and rust. I'm looking for a small lock box that is perfect for the Beretta Nano. Since I don't have a locker it becomes difficult to keep them safe.
We have scheduled a cruising to heartIsland, 15 days trip. I was searching for the secure storage ideas of my pistol. I was intended to start a thread on the gun storage ideas but I think I don't I want to go far in searching for storage ideas. Getting a small locker might solve my issue. Do I need to take any extra safety measures? Initially, I think to get service from the self-storage company in Burlington but I'm not sure whether they accept such stuff for storage. What recommendations or advice would you like to give to me?

 

[John in AR]

I think it is good to get a locker like this. How much it cost?...

From that supplier (tacticalwalls.com), from $200-$500 or so iirc. There are other vendors as well, but I'm not familiar with them.

 

[boati]

My wife, in one short year, has accumulated at least 4x the stuff I've stored up in 7 years and I'm ashamed of at least half of my junk. I've told her, and I mean it, that I'm not moving it or paying to have it moved. Its hers, she pays. She recently graduated from a vocational schoo (attended "on the side", so to speak) l and got a much better job within 2 weeks of same. I had her quit that KP bs several months ago, so that she could so attend.

 

[Garand]

welcome back Melvin! Long time no see, been doing any shooting??