Month: August 2022

Is your clothes closet as clean, organized and streamlined as you’d like it to be? Do you find yourself repeatedly wearing only two or three items from your overstuffed closet? If you are like most people, your closet contains things that no longer fit or items you no longer like to wear. When your closet is disorganized it makes finding what you actually like to wear a frustrating task. As seasons change, it’s a great time to learn how to clean a closet and organize your storage space from top to bottom!

So set aside a long afternoon, grab the following supplies, put on your tunes and let’s get started!

1. Take out everything from your closet first

It might seem like a drastic measure, but the best way to do the job right and be happy with the end result is to actually remove everything from the closet. If it’s been a while since you’ve cleaned your closet, you’ll want to wear a dust mask to avoid headaches or allergies. It’s amazing how much dust accumulates in a closet!

2. Donate your clothes

Don’t second guess yourself – remove everything you haven’t worn in the past year and take it to the car to be dropped off the next day at your favorite charity. While there is a possibility you’ll give away something you wish you had down the road, in the long run it will have been worth it. Cleaning out a closet will make future decisions much easier. Chaotic closets end up costing us money! Being more organized will help you know what you actually need to buy going forward and you’ll make less clothing mistakes.

3. Rent a storage unit

If you have some outfits that you LOVE but only wear seldomly for special occasions, you can rent a self storage for either short-term or long-term to store these outfits. There are a variety of storage unit sizes for a person to choose from. If you’re looking to store a couple of clothing items, you can go with a 5×5 storage unit which is approximately the size of a walk-in closet.

At U-Lock Mini Storage, we offer storage units across Greater Vancouver and Greater Vancouver Island. We offer self storage Burnaby, self storage South Surrey and White Rock, self storage Chilliwack, self storage Nanaimo, self storage Parksville, and self storage Victoria. Book a storage unit today! Contact us if you have any questions.

4. Hang up the clothes you actually wear

Only hang up clothes you wear so that your closet is occupied with outfits that you actually wear. Doing this helps you deter hoarding outfits that you rarely wear and making a huge mess in your closet! If you have some outfits that you’re on the fence about whether you’ll wear them on the regular, we’d recommend storing these items in a storage unit to avoid clustering your closet with outfits that you seldomly wear.

Living in a studio apartment can be challenging since the bedroom and living room are combined. Depending on the space’s size, you have to find ways to live in a studio apartment effectively. We have come up with some valuable studio apartment living tips that will help you re-imagine small spaces.

Here are three tips and tricks for living in a studio apartment.

1. Rent a storage unit

Since a studio apartment is minimal in space, it’s ideal to keep as few items in the apartment as possible. To do so, we recommend renting a storage unit. By renting a storage unit, you can store items that you seldom use or use them seasonally such as snowboarding equipment or camping gear and access these items whenever you need them.

At U-Lock Mini Storage, we offer storage units across Greater Vancouver and Greater Vancouver Island. We offer self storage Burnaby, self storage South Surrey and White Rock, self storage Chilliwack, self storage Nanaimo, self storage Parksville, and self storage Victoria. Book a storage unit today! Contact us if you have any questions.

2. Buy multi-purpose furniture according to your lifestyle

Create a space where you can hang out with friends, watch TV, and work on your laptop. To do this, think multipurpose. Instead of buying a desk, a TV stand, and a bookshelf, install wall shelving that you can use for all three. Instead of buying a huge, bulky couch, get a couple of smaller armchairs. But before you buy anything, think of how you’re going to live in space.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do I need to work in this space? If so, how can I fit in a desk or use another area (like a dining table) to serve this purpose?
• Realistically, how many people will I have over for get-togethers? Make sure you have space for everyone to sit. If you only have one or two people over, a larger scale two-seater sofa should suffice. If you have more, think about a smaller couch in addition to floor poufs and accent chairs.
• Am I making the space do too much? Is there some functionality you could give up to make your apartment seem more streamlined? Perhaps you don’t need to have a gym studio in the corner. Maybe you can do your work at a coffee shop instead of in the apartment. Sometimes, a compromise can help your home base feel more serene.

3. Declutter kitchen utensils and clean your kitchen often

In a studio apartment, your kitchen is probably going to be one of two things: a strip of cabinets against one wall of the living room, or a room so small there’s hardly enough space to open the refrigerator door all the way. How can you make it work? Consider doing the following.

• Only buy essential kitchen utensils.

Remember that you don’t really need a tofu press, and twelve different knives aren’t necessary. Don’t let your cabinets fill up with boxes of pasta and cans of vegetables that you’re never going to use.

• Clean your kitchen routinely

Whatever you do, do not let kitchen messes build up. Wash the dishes as you use them, throw out expired food right away and wipe down all your surfaces after cooking.