As a homeowner, you may consider your utility room to be a dark and musty place; you probably only go down there when your water heater is acting up or when it is time to haul out the Christmas decorations. However, that little room is an understated goldmine for space if your home and family are cramped on storage. Before you start to stash your cold weather sweaters and heirlooms in there, here is some important things to. Know about utility room organization.
1. Test the utility room for air quality.
a. Before you hit the home storage stores, consider the state of the air in your utility room. Especially in environments where the room is in a basement, or if there is open access to drainage and sump pumps in the room, there is a good chance that your utility room has significantly higher levels of humidity in it than other areas in your home. This moisture can be harmful to many items that you would choose to store away, including clothing, photographs, or fabric storage and organization products. If this is the case, invest in a small dehumidifier to balance the moisture levels in your utility room before storing your possessions.
2. Protect your valuables.
a. While the beautifully patterned fabric storage cube systems and rustic woven storage baskets you can find at major retail, craft, and department stores may look fabulous in your living room, skip them for utility room storage. Your precious valuables may be up against several negative elements in the room, including the aforementioned humidity in the air, as well as potential flooding, moths and dust mites, and the general settling of dust, dirt, and debris over time. Depending on the age of your home and location of your utility room, it is likely that piping and ducts are exposed in the room; rust and discharge from these pipes can make your possessions stinky, dirty, or ruined. Check your local stores for a utility room organizer that elevates the lowest shelf off the ground by several inches to protect your stored items from potential flooding and sump pump backup in heavy rains. Choose heavy duty, thick plastic totes with tightly sealing lids to lock out invasive critters, odors and moisture.
3. Keep away from the machinery.
a. Your utility room may have anything in it from a furnace to a water heater to your washer and dryer. When it comes to utility room organization and storing your seasonal or valuable things in the room, it may be tempting to stack your totes flush with your water softener or sump pump. Avoid doing this, though, because you don’t want your storage to interview with the machines that keep your home running smoothly—and vise versa. If the bottom of your water heater rusts out, hundreds of gallons of water are leaked onto your storage if they’re stacked too close. Reversely, if you have totes stacked five-high and they topple over onto your sump pump, you may be looking at loads of inconvenience and costly repairs.
4. Be space conscious.
a. Who has a spacious utility room anyway? If your utility room is full of nooks, crannies, and tight spaces, look for slim totes or air tight vacuum-sealed bag storage systems to keep your utility room organization slender and space friendly.