This week, we explore why storage rooms are often the most revealing spaces in our homes. We walk through a very quick history of basements and storage spaces, how their purpose has evolved, and why modern storage rooms so often become holding zones for postponed decisions. Instead of forcing dramatic change, we focus on identifying how the space is actually being used right now and organizing from that reality. When we get honest about a room’s true function, organizing and decluttering become far more practical and sustainable.
In This Episode, We Talk About:
- The historical purpose of basements, root cellars, and storage rooms
- How modern consumer culture changed the function of storage spaces
- Why do storage rooms become dumping grounds for postponed decisions
- The cost of storage room space, both inside your home and off-site
- A practical organizing strategy that starts with honesty instead of perfection
Mentioned in This Episode
- Action of the Week: Label your storage room based on its actual use
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
 There is one room in your house, sometimes outside of your house that tells the story about you, your past, your present, your future, what it is that you'd like to become one day, what you were once upon a time, all the things, and that is the storage room. If you want to know what's really going on in your life, at least from my perspective as a professional organizer over over 20 years.
The room I have found to be the most telling is going to be your storage room. And that is often where I go to see what is going on with someone's life so that I can meet them where they are. So it tells a lot about your pace, your habits, your postponed decisions, because when you walk in there, you realize that stories have been kept in that storage room.
When you open it up, it kind of slaps you in the face a little bit to tell you again, where you have been, where you are, and maybe the things that you want to become but haven't yet, or maybe you are planning on it, but it's the most honest space that you have is really what I have found for over two decades, and I found that about myself as well.
So I'm included in this story. So today we're going to talk about what storage rooms were actually created for. We're gonna talk about how they've evolved and why they became the dumping ground for postponed decisions. And how organizing starts with telling the truth about what that room really is so that we can move forward, so we can declutter, so we can live a little simpler life or the intended life that you'd like.
Welcome to the Organized and Cherish podcast. With the organized flamingo. I am your host Stephanie, your compassionate and efficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we.
And let go with dignity and care because it's not just about throwing everything away, it's about respecting memories and simplifying life. Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. So let's do a short history of storage rooms. This is a condensed version of what our understanding and how we came to be, to have these storage rooms, whether onsite or offsite.
Okay. And this will help us with our conversation today. It'll give us some context on what I'm about to tell you and how to ultimately make the storage room that we have today work for you. So, storage spaces have existed as long as homes have. In early American homes, basements and root cellars were built for preservation.
So food storage, coal, you know, the tools and the winter supplies, all of that root cellars in the 18th and 19th century, those centuries were specifically designed to extend the life of harvested crops. Basements in the 20th century, then later became common as homes adopted furnaces and mechanical systems that needed space below ground.
Now, if you live in a coastal town or a town area, that that was not. Needed or relevant or able to get because you are, you know, the, the water level because of the water level where whether it's a lake around a lake and or the ocean or coastal towns or, or any of those types of towns, then you probably have something similar like an attic or.
Something that is next to your home that had the same purpose? I've actually lived in, um, coastal towns, most of my growing up in childhood homes, um, up into college. And then eventually I moved to Colorado, just like a little side history behind the scenes. For me, basements were something very new, uh, when I moved to Colorado and in my twenties, I'd seen them before, uh, when I traveled, but I was not, I've had never lived in an area that had basements.
Um, so that was very foreign to me. In our homes in California towns, we would have a room that was maybe next to the home that would serve as a very similar purpose. Now, obviously in the early American homes, there were no settlers back in the west coast side of, um, the United States, but there were those rooms down in, like I said, like the coastal towns, like in the, you know, the gulf or the ocean or the lakes and or those types of towns.
So you probably have a room similar to that. According to the housing history, research from places like the National Park Service and Architectural Studies on American domestic design basements were functional spaces. So wherever you are right now, whether it's an old home or a newer home, you probably have something like a storage room related room for the purpose of preservation and or keeping any of those mechanical systems.
Okay. Especially the older homes. Utility first was really the reason, and then comfort came second. That was the ultimate reason and why I'm even mentioning this, that's why they existed. They were never meant to be emotional holding tanks, like how we use them. Today, we will talk about how they came to be, right, but they were built for food preservation, fuel storage, mechanical systems, seasonal tools.
Which, you know, one can say we kind of use for that now. But fast forward to post World War ii, suburbian development homes grew, consumer goods increased. The average American home doubled in size between the 1950s and today. And with that came more stuff. I don't know about you, but I've lived in a home that was built in the 1950s in the rooms and the closets.
Much, much smaller in size. Um, the home is still in the same acreage that the house that we live in now we are at, but the rooms just doubled. The house that I first lived in was about 1950s. I've also lived in a newer home, built in the 1990s, two thousands, and the home that we're in, uh, was built in the 1970s, so I can attest to that change.
Those three homes just continuously got bigger. The ruins got bigger, the closets got bigger, and so then came off offsite storage. Ru the self storage industry began growing super quick in the 1970s again, because we needed more space to put our stuff, the, in the, you know, in the us. They had tens of thousands of self storage facilities built around that timeframe.
The cost of storage rooms, units, whether in your home or on offsite, is now part of family budgets. Like if you go buy a new home, that is one of the rooms that people look for. Does it have storage? Where is the storage? How big is the storage and or am I going to need an offsite storage? It is now part of the equation of buying a home or renting a home.
If you're renting a home. The questions still are relevant, right? You're asking how big are the closets? Is there an outside storage for your, um, outside supplies or items? Does it have a, a garage? Does that have storage? That is kind of the quick evolution of where and why they were originally built and how they quickly have evolved and they've grown just like our needs have grown.
Many of us have inherited stuff from our loved ones. We talk about that a lot here at the Organized Flamingo. So we, as time progressed, we had to be caregivers and we needed more space and more room for our families' stuff and or if they were moving in with you. So our rooms grew, our needs grew our, but here's what has not changed.
The storage rooms were built to support life and not to avoid it. Which means it's not a warehouse, it's not a museum. Or at least that's not the intent, right? Like that's not how it is built right now. It is not intended for it to be archives for you to grab things like it was a warehouse. And so that looks a little different.
So what we use storage rooms for today is just different. So storage rooms often hold, which I have seen and I, I've worked with in hundreds of homes. I'll usually see the holiday decorations, the childhood memorabilia items from our loved ones that were inherited to us business. Invent inventory. If you moved um, offices, even if you were in the corporate world, you probably took some things with you.
And so that's the kind of the business inventory that I'm also talking about, not just business inventory if your home office is there as well. Okay, so two different types of business needs. Uh, hand-me-downs, craft supplies, extra furniture, things that we're not ready to dis to decide about to donate or discard items.
And here's where organizing decluttering get complicated because very few people walk into their storage room and say, this is working perfectly. You know, this is, this is perfect. Like, you're just so excited to go down to your storage room or up in your storage room if it's in the attic or on the side house, or if it's offsite.
You are not excited about it. Most of us are not, and if you're listening to this podcast, it's probably a sore spot for you. Instead, what we'll usually say is something like, I don't know where to start. At least that's what I always hear. I don't know where to start. I feel overwhelmed. It keeps filling back up, and sometimes this is the key that you're frustrated because you're using the room for something.
It was never clearly defined to be. That's what we're gonna talk about. The missing piece, the dumping ground for postponed decisions is the room that is like how I like to describe this room. For many families, the storage room is not a storage room. It's a decision delay place. It's where postponed decisions land.
When you don't have the energy, you don't have the time, you don't have the emotional bandwidth, you don't agree with someone in your house. You feel guilty, you feel unsure. So instead of deciding, you move the item, that move feels productive because you're doing something right. There's an action. You might move it around a couple times, around and around, but it's not a decision, it's a relocation.
Same thing with buying bins. You buy the cuter bins, the better bins because you think it will fix the problem, but you never really actually tackle what the problem is. Over time, that room becomes a physical evidence of every unresolved choice. And here's the other frustration, if you think the room is supposed to be a craft room, for example, I'm gonna use an example here, but it's actually functioning as a holding zone for postponed decisions.
So it's an, it's a storage room, right? You will constantly feel like you're failing, not because you can't organize, but because you're organizing the wrong function. Another example of this is the guest room. Notorious for being the dumping ground. Why? Because it's, it's available, it's open. Nobody goes in there, nobody's staying in there.
So what do we do? We just pile everything there. The storage room was intended to be a place where people can come in and stay for the night if they need to, or if you needed a break or you needed a change of pace. It's just like, it's the extra bedroom, right? Eventually because you see it available, you just start to pile things there.
Maybe it starts off with an innocent box and it evolves from there, and then it becomes a cluttered area. Hi, cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter and everything in between. That's why I created the Organizing Cherish Weekly email that goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox.
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Now, back to our show. So a solution is not going to come overnight to start. Decluttering and throwing everything away. But I have a couple suggestions for you, action driven suggestions that you can think about and act upon. Okay? So we're not going to focus on an empty room overnight or the storage room to just be completely clear overnight in a week.
Okay. What I'd like you to focus on is the clarity in asking some questions, more honest questions, which is what is this room actually used for right now? What would I like it to be intended for? Sometimes it'll be the same thing, so let's use the craft room example. You might say, right now it's being used as a storage slash craft room.
But I really want it to just be my craft room, or I just want it to be my storage room. Or, you know what? This is my only available room outside of my bedroom, out of my any other room. So this is going to be a multipurpose room. I'd like it to be a storage room and a craft room, and an extra bedroom. You are definitely allowed to say that it can be a multipole used type of room, but you need to be honest about it.
This includes the basements, this includes the offsites. So any offsite storage, same question. Obviously you probably are not using it as an extra bedroom because you're not allowed to use it as an extra bedroom, but you probably, the original intention was one thing and it's evolved over time, so you're allowed to make it.
Where the question here would be what do I, what am I using it for right now, and what do I want to use it for going forward? It can be the same answer for both. Or it could be totally different or a combination of both. Now this is not a, um, what do you wish it was? Because now we're getting into the territory of overly planning, which we can get stuck on, um, overly Pinterest boarding your storage room, which we can get stuck on and not move away from.
Okay? This is not your, what I wish this room could be. That is a different exercise. I'm not saying it's not valid. It's just that for this exercise to finally clear those storage rooms, we want to tackle the question of what am I actually using this room for? What would I like it to be? Not like wishful, but like what is this able to practically be?
So a couple examples are, is it a holding space for decisions? Like it could be, I have a client that HA has many, many rooms. I've talked about it in the podcast before. I think. They have many, very many rooms and one of them is a holding space for decisions, it, we call it on the way out room. And it is a place that holds donations.
It holds things that they ideally would like to maybe sell, uh, give away to other family members. Things that when they pass or have to move away or, um, you know, if an emergency comes and they're not able to make those decisions for themselves, that room will be the room that, that they kind of like are inheriting to other people.
It's a holding space. Do you want it to be business overflow? Do you work from your office? Do you, or maybe you worked in a place where you, um, took many of your files, you know, they belong to you. Um, very predominant with real estate agents, um, lawyers, people who use a lot of paper. Um, and it was their cases or it was their clients.
So they took those, that paperwork in those boxes with them. So business overflow also for your business paper and all the, you know, like you're a mini Office Depot in there. Okay, so is it a business overflow, seasonal rotation? Maybe. Maybe you want it to be something a little more like a home goods, right?
Like it's your personal shopping room. A hybrid. Maybe it's it is. It is the craft in storage room like we talked about. Those are just a couple examples. Fill in what that is for you. You can pause the podcast now, but that is the exercise for this week. If it's primarily a craft room, as an example, that happens to store some items, then the primary use is a craft room.
We're not calling it a storage room anymore. We're calling it a craft room that happens to host or hold your storage items, some of your storage items, or maybe you were just, you did not have energy. So you just piled everything in the craft room because it was, it was easier to place it there than take it offsite or downstairs or whatever, or upstairs.
And so you just kinda left everything there. But it's supposed to be a craft room, not a storage room. Storage room is somewhere else. Maybe it's in your garage, in your shed outside, in an outside space. So that means organizing should prioritize accessibility, workspace, lighting, and supply containment.
Like if we're using our example as a craft room. If it's a decision holding room as another example, then organize it like a processing center. Clear bins, labels, zones for to donate, to sell, to review. It is like your mini warehouse. When you align the organizing system with the actual behavior, everything gets so much easier.
Even if you emptied the room tomorrow, if you don't identify how it became what it is. It will slowly return to that pattern. Habits always create the architecture of what you're living. So if you're in a constant, you know, state of chaos right now, just busy life, just go, go, go. Those rooms are probably the evidence of that life that you're living right now.
And sometimes that's just the way it's, so instead of trying to change your whole life around. Then let's create these spaces to live where you are right now and work backwards or forwards from there. Like if you want to return to what it was supposed to be, we're going backwards. If we're going forward to, you know what, this is no longer a storage room.
What really this is is fill in the blank. Okay? Okay. So for our action of the week, we are going to stand at the door of your storage room, decide what it is actually used for. What you would like it to be. Now, again, it's not a wishful, it's not a, this is my Pinterest board. I'd like it to become this. Now, if you're crafty and you're ready, and you are ready to spend the resources to have it be what it you want it to be, have at it.
But remember, these episodes are supposed to be for those of us who are having a hard time even making any little steps. So this is just a simple, get in front of the storage room, decide what it's actually used for right now. Put in what you like it to be going forward. It could be a combination of what you're using it for right now and what you would like it to be, and then we can go from there, label, put it on a sign with that word or phrase or description, and you will put it outside of that room, whereas you're coming in so that you know what it is that that room is serving.
This isn't symbolic. This isn't like a. It's supposed to be like a big, um, you know, aha moment of life. This is simply, we're living in the moment right now, and we're going to declutter and take action and organize it the way that it is right now. Slowly moving into what it will become. Getting rid and decluttering in this kind of order.
Okay. We will continue to talk about it. For the rest, probably three. I mean, we're talking about it all year. This whole entire year is all about storage rooms, organizing, decluttering, figuring out what to do with your storage rooms. But this, this, these next four we're, it's kind of like a month, if you will.
Last month we talked about loving your storage room and your space and your items, and learning to love those items and let go of what you don't. So now we're getting into, okay, now that we have identified what we're actually keeping, what we love and we need to be realistic about where we are right now.
We're starting to now kind of design and create this space for the life you live now in slowly making it a place of simplicity, but very intentional living. And slowly from there we will. Design and create that Pinterest ready board Butler kitchen storage area that you've always wanted. But we need to take smaller actions first, and we will continue with this episode next week, and we're going to talk about, now that you've identified what it is, where you're heading, where you'd like it to be, we are now going to start decluttering and making intentional decisions from here.
Or if we're keeping the items, we're going to have a, a discussion, like a hard discussion about what it's costing you to keep the items you said you loved and you want to keep understanding how much it, it's probably going to cost you and financial money renting square footage or the energy level that it's going to take.
Okay? So now we're gonna get real about with it in the next couple of episodes. With that being said, um, quick reminder. That we have organized and cherish chats the third Wednesday of the month. It's free. It's a Zoom link. Just send us a message at hello@theatsogo.com to join us next time, and we have some exciting episodes coming up.
Okay? So don't forget, it's a year of the storage rooms. They're not our enemy. We love storage rooms, but we are going to finally tackle them. Be intentional about what we keep in there. So it's part of our life and it's not just a forgotten thought. Until next week, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo.
If you enjoy today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast. Until next time, happy organizing.