It’s January, and those Christmas decorations need to come down. Do you really want to tie up a closet, attic, or corner of your garage for another year with boxes of ornaments, decorations, and your collection pre-lit Christmas trees?
Make a pre-emptive strike on clutter with a self storage unit for off-site storage of those once-a-year decorations. Use these tips to keep your seasonal decorations safely stored and organized in mini storage units. Here are 10 tips for storing holiday decorations:
1) Take some Pictures – before taking apart any items that will need to be reassembled take a few pictures to help you to put them back together, it will be a year since anyone had seen them last, so the prompt of what it needs to look like will help out.
2) Christmas lights – untangling a knot of Christmas lights is not fun, and they can be damaged if stored improperly. Cut a rectangle out of a cardboard box, and cut a slit into one side. Slide one end of the Christmas tree lights into the slit and wrap the for a nice, easy wrap.
3) Match the box to the item – this sounds easy enough, however many Christmas decorations can lose their shape if they are packed too tightly. Make sure that the wreath actually fits in its box
4) Delicate items - use an egg carton and tissue paper to protect delicate ornaments if their original boxes are unavailable
5) Use clear plastic totes - if you rent a storage unit to hold all of your holiday decorations, you’ll want to be able to easily identify which containers have the Christmas gear. Using clear plastic totes and make sure that you put some left over wrapping paper where it will be visible in the tote for easy identification
6) Use a Christmas Tree Bag for the Artificial Tree – aside from potentially flattering your tree, a Christmas tree bag will save you from the pain of trying to get the artificial tree back into the box that it came out of
7) Label your Totes - number the boxes so that you’ll know how many you have (i.e. Box 1 of 12). Labeling the boxes this way, also lets you order them according to how they should be unpacked.
8) Window Clings - place window clings back on the sheets that they came off of, this will keep them flat and ready for reuse.
9) Remove batteries before storing - at the end of the season, take the time to remove batteries before returning items into storage. They will likely die and corrode, and they can likely be used in something else.
10) Christmas ornaments – best bet is to put them back into the box that they came out of. Don’t have the packaging? A quick wrap with packing paper and clear plastic totes will have them ready for next year. Avoid overpacking however or your may have a nicely packed tote full of shrapnel next year.
Buying totes that are uniform in size and shape will make organizing easier, and more efficient - and have your Christmas gear ready for use next year.
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