As our family home was being emptied of most of our belongings, I found myself drawn to my Grandma’s old dining table. It had to be removed the next day and our removalists were packing out a big rental half the size of our current home. I had two options with it – sell it or watch it disappear from my life forever. For now, I am just taking a little time to think about it.
At Storage Solutions our storage solutions are specifically designed to cater to the changes that occur in our lives. These changes happen regularly for people whether they live locally or visit Australia for fun. Storage solutions provide a huge gap between where your personal items were and where you are heading with them.
The downsizing dilemma
Storage for furniture is required for many different reasons including storage for things to decide on later, storage during a house move, storage when downsizing from a large family home to a smaller home. This could be due to the owners experiencing ’empty nest syndrome’ or other circumstances where the owners feel they can release capital from their home by downsizing to a smaller property. Calculating the storage volume required for storage of furniture from a 4 bedroom family home is typically around 40-50 cubic metres. This volume can then reduce by 30-50% as items are selected for storage and decisions made on the items that were intended to be stored to later decide on whether to keep or sell. Something has to give.
Many people in recent times have found themselves downsizing into smaller homes, only to have life’s changes see them return to a larger space. Perhaps health has changed, or an adult child has moved out to start their own life and returned home to their parents. Or maybe you had to use furniture storage Bunbury to free up your home to downsize, and now you’re looking for a bigger space to accommodate everything you need and everything you treasure.
After buying the house we had to sell a lot of our furniture quickly due to having to move earlier than planned. We didn’t get a great price for anything. Storing it for a few more months and then selling it has turned out to be a good decision so far.
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When relationships end
As every divorce lawyer can attest, after a couple decides to split up and move on with their lives, their jointly owned things have to be divided and find a home. Storage facilities become vendors in the split, but because the decisions involved are high-stakes and difficult to make, the process of dividing things up can be slow.
In family breakup, there are many things to consider. Of course, the most important thing is the well-being of all family members. Once the breakdown of relationship issues are resolved, the focus turns to the division of family property and effects. Family lawyers will work with their clients to try to achieve a fair division of family property. Meanwhile, storage facilities can provide a secure and temporary space to store some of the items for later decision making.
The inheritance burden
Inherited furniture can be heart-warming, but what happens when the pieces hold memories that are not relevant to the current space in which they are to be placed? In a small, cramped rental with very little space, where are items like a solid timber dining table and chairs or a large bulky lounge suite to go? Probably nowhere, and this will be very disappointing for adult children.
These items may be treasures for the future. However, since the children are unlikely to need these items in the immediate future (University, young couple in a small home renting) the storage of these items until they have purchased a home of their own will turn what seems like a heave heavy financial burden into a future treasure.
The staging advantage
More and more property sellers are now realising that including furniture in the sale of their property can add value. The question is, what items should be included in the sale and the answer will be furniture that has helped to create a comfortable home in which to live, as opposed to items specifically chosen for property staging which often includes removing larger items and stripping the property of clutter.
Our Storage facility is on-site at our property to safely store your personal treasures while we work on styling your home for sale.
Having a well presented property, professionally staged and presented to potential buyers can result in your home being sold within a shorter timeframe (15-20%) and at a higher price.
The overseas opportunity
Storage solutions are not limited to local mini-stores and self-storage facilities. Many individuals store their goods and possessions in their homes overseas while they are on expat assignments of 2-5 years. While they may be hesitant to fill an empty house in the foreign country they are stationed in with all of their stuff, most things cannot be shipped overseas and would be too expensive to purchase and replace while living overseas in order to sell them there for a profit.
Storage solutions for overseas projects are that little extra that provide the total solution for Australian families moving overseas. For those people who don’t know when they will next return to Australia, the option of having the contents of their established home stored on a long term shuttle storage agreement provides the perfect answer. Children can wave goodbye to parents as they head off to their overseas assignment secure in the knowledge that when they do return to Australia, all their treasures will be there waiting for them.
So how do you decide whether to keep something or store it? How do you weigh your options? This really boils down to three variables: how much time you have, how attached you are to the item, and how much the item would cost to replace versus to store. Storage should not default to the answer in most cases.
