How to create an inventory of your permanent storage

Storage can be categorized into two types: daily and permanent. Daily storage is space you set aside in your home for items like clothing, linens, food, and cleaning supplies. The expectation is that you want to store these items out of sight, but that you use and access them on a regular basis. In contrast, permanent storage is space you set aside in your home for items you rarely, if ever, use or access.

Theoretically speaking, I’m against permanent storage. The reality is, however, that I permanently store a few items in my basement. I have two small boxes of holiday decorations, a box of CDs I’ve digitally burned to my computer, a box of student files that I need to legally keep until the last of my former students graduates, and a small table I made years ago with my brother that is damaged but that I haven’t had the heart to toss. Right now, the boxes are all sitting up off the basement floor on the damaged table. If the basement were to flood, at least the boxes would be protected.

I’m aware that most homeowners aren’t as slim with their permanent storage as I am. No matter how large or small your collection, however, your permanent storage should be organized. Shoving boxes into a room and closing the door on them is called hiding, not storing.

How should you organize your permanent storage?


Your exact method of containment will vary based on the amount of space you have in your home for permanent items. (Notice that I keep saying “in your home.” You should never rent public storage space for your things unless you’re using that space on a very temporary basis.) Also, based on the needs of your stored items you may need cedar, plastic, or paper storage containers.

Once you have assessed your space and acquired quality storage containers, your next step is to take inventory of everything you have in storage. Nothing should be permanently stored in your home without you having an awareness of it. To create an inventory system, follow these steps:

  1. Number (with a label maker or permanent magic marker) all of your storage containers.
  2. Digitally photograph every item individually that you plan to store.
  3. As you put items into the storage containers, list the items and the corresponding box number on a sheet of paper, enter this information directly into an Excel spreadsheet, or input it into an online storage record service like Pack and Find.
  4. If you only wrote down the items, take the time to type up and save the lists you created.
  5. Organize the files of the photographs that you took of your items and set up a filing system on your computer to link the images to their appropriate storage container list. If you don’t know how to do this, you can follow these instructions if the images are stored online. The “help” section in Excel explains how to link to images stored on your computer’s hard drive.
  6. Print lists for each container you have in permanent storage.
  7. Attach each list to its storage container or set it immediately inside the container.
  8. Store a copy of all of the lists and attached images at an off-site location for insurance purposes.
  9. Enjoy the benefits of knowing what you have in permanent storage, where it is in your home, and being able to quickly search and access these items when you need them.

Another benefit of organizing your permanent storage is that you will ultimately weed out items you shouldn’t be storing. You’ll find that you wish to display and more appropriately honor some of the items, and you’ll decide that some items no longer need to be in your home. Happy organizing!

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Posted by Erin on Oct 3, 2007 | Comments |

17 comments posted

  1. Posted by twosandalz - 10/03/2007

    I love the idea of the box numbering system! My permanently stored possessions live in reused cardboard boxes which are covered with scribble. I often can’t decipher what’s in a box. I’ve been putting off a thorough weeding of my permanent storage partly due to the issue of cataloging. Now I’m inspired! Thanks!

  2. Posted by Kate - 10/03/2007

    I use my contacts program (could be Outlook but due to my business, I use TimeMatters) to create a “contact” for each box and the memo includes the contacts. It’s an easy way to sync it to my pda or laptop and is searchable. With my business files I can also relate the contact to the case name (matter) but I don’t bother doing that with my personal materials.

  3. Posted by Erin at Unclutterer - 10/03/2007

    @Kate–Great tip, especially for the office!! Thank you!!

  4. Posted by Kristin - 10/03/2007

    I don’t use permanent storage but the system I use would work there, as well. I use colored bins. Red bins are for holiday decorations and those are in the attic. Orange bins are for the Halloween decorations. Papers that must be retained are in a green bin on a shelf in the office.

    Kids stuff (first birthday cards, baby bonnet, etc) are in blue bins and each is stored on the top shelf in each child’s closet.

    I use bins because they come in different colors, are airtight/waterproof, and last for ages.

  5. Posted by Jon - 10/03/2007

    Excellent post. Before going away for college, I bought 50 bankers boxes and bagged/cataloged my entire toy collection in exactly this manner for storage in the basement. The best part is when I began to embrace simple living, it made selling everything a breeze!

  6. Posted by Karen - 10/03/2007

    A few years ago, I bought several storage bins, all of the same type and size. Although this means you have to label everything, it also means the boxes stack easily, nest when they’re empty, and the lids are interchangeable (so when one of the lids was bashed in during a move, I could just replace it with another lid.) I used to have a couple of bins of one type, a couple of bins of another type, and it was much more difficult to stack things since some boxes had to be on top, some boxes couldn’t support the weight of other boxes, etc.

    I used to live in a NY suburb, and that may be one instance where paying for storage is worthwhile, because apartment space is so expensive. I lived in a tiny studio apartment, and I also had a storage unit where I stored things like out of season clothes, a few holiday supplies and mementos, etc. It was cheaper to do that than to live in a bigger apartment that had more storage space (my apartment was 180 square feet - I’ll bet a lot of people here have bigger closets than that!) But I knew that one day I’d live somewhere nicer, and I didn’t want to throw away family mementos and hand-me-downs that I’d want later on (and now I can finally use them!)

  7. Posted by Pat - 10/03/2007

    50 boxes of toys?!

  8. Posted by Jennifer Lewis - 10/04/2007

    I had a problem with spending 30 minutes in the attic every time I needed to find something there. Considering my attic is like 95+ degrees, it make the process very uncomfortable :) A coworker of mine mentioned a site called Pack and Find http://www.packandfind.com. I checked it out. It basically allows you label all your boxes and input the items online. It took a while for me to add all my stuff, but now I don’t regret it. Whenever I need to find something, I use the search feature and I know exactly which box to go to. I recommend it if you have a lot of boxes in your attic like me!

  9. Posted by Kristin - 10/04/2007

    @Jennifer … GREAT idea!

  10. Posted by Aliza - 10/04/2007

    This came at the right moment for me! I moved recently and have these great cubby space above my closets in my bedroom, the hallway and the entrance way - but I don’t just want to throw any old thing up there. This weekend I was planning to make myself go through the stuff I really want to store, but keep a record of it so I know exactly what is where. And this shows me just how to accomplish that! thanks!

  11. Posted by Aliza - 10/04/2007

    So, I’m saying to myself, gee this is such a great idea, I’ll just print it out for this weekend when I am ready to tackle this project of labeling all my stuff. Only there’s no “print” button on this page. Duh - it’s the Unclutterer website - a printout would be clutter!!!!

  12. Posted by nolandda - 10/08/2007

    I can see why this idea is psychologically appealing. It gives a feeling of organization and control to ones life. However, it seems like a waste.

    In computer science we are taught to index data that is accessed frequently. There is a time cost associated with building an index and maintaining the index as stuff is added or removed.

    If you often need to find things in your permanent storage, it takes you a long time to do so, and things are rarely added or removed, then building an index like this will save you a lot of time.

    However it seems to me that stuff in permanent storage is, by its very nature, rarely needed. Suppose about one time per year you need something in your permanent storage that is hard to find. You have no index so it may take an entire hour digging through boxes to find it. This averages out to about 10 seconds per day of search related time.

    On the other hand, you may spend the better part of a weekend organizing everything in permanent storage, building an excel sheet, taking digital photos, uploading them to your computer, linking the images to their appropriate storage container. Then you must also account for the time necessary to take a photo and update the excel sheet every time something is added, and the time to update the sheet every time something is removed. Now when you need something you can find it almost immediately with a quick trip to the computer, but I suspect that you have way more than 10 or 20 seconds per day of search related activity.

    This method does have some merit, because I suspect it encourages people to keep less stuff in permanent storage. A more time efficient method would involve reducing the amount of stuff in permanent storage and organizing things often used together into the same box but not keeping an elaborate index. This way in the rare event that searching is necessary it is faster, but you do not spend as many total hours of your life dealing with the stuff in your basement.

  13. Posted by Red Electric Sunshine - 12/13/2007

    @nolandda

    You bring up an excellent point, but let’s not overlook the benefits of having your stored items cataloged as pertains to insurance purposes.

    Flood, fire, tornado, theft… being able to present your agent with a list of items you lost will go a long ways towards helping you in making an accurate claim and ensuring that you get your money’s worth out of your insurance policy. Ideally, such a system should go beyond permanent storage items and include many more household items.

  14. Posted by Lance - 10/12/2008

    Late follow-up on this topic I know, but this may be of use to some (many?). I came across this site a little while back and it certainly beats using Excel, etc. It is a free download of Home Inventory software from the Insurance Information Institute. Makes making an inventory a fairly easy task: http://www.knowyourstuff.org/

  15. Posted by Chris - 10/16/2008

    Another late entry, try: http://www.third-drawer.com

  16. Posted by Richard Terry - 10/24/2008

    I started a similar method, though not quite as robust a couple of years ago. I had stored some things with storage mart, and within weeks I had all kinds of animals and pests in my stuff, and I was locked in for a year long lease.

    I did some work and put everything in a 30′ square space along one wall, and covered with tapestry. About 4 times a year I access to switch things around.

  17. Posted by Parker Lisle - 12/23/2008

    Here’s a good solution. http://www.redlightdepositbox.com. This could help organize your documents and possesions and at the same time keep your property a little safer no matter where you store it.

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