Okay so.
You walk into your dining room right now. What do you see?
Is it that beautiful table you spent way too much money on? Is it the nice rug underneath? Is it the lighting you carefully picked out?
Or is it those four extra chairs shoved against the wall that you keep meaning to do something with?
I’m gonna guess it’s the chairs. Because that’s what it was for me. For like two years.
Let me back up.
How I Ended Up With Too Many Chairs
So I’m at this furniture store with my wife. We’re looking at dining sets. We find this one that’s perfect. Big farmhouse table. Dark wood. Chunky legs. The whole thing.
We’re in love.
The set comes with eight chairs. Eight is good. Eight is normal.
But then the salesman comes over and he’s like “you know, we have a special on the twelve chair package. Same price per chair. You’re basically getting four free.”
And my wife looks at me and I look at her and we’re both thinking the same thing. Free chairs. That’s a deal. We’ll have people over. We’ll host holidays. We’ll be those people who actually use their dining room.
So we buy twelve chairs.
We get them home. Set up the table. Put eight chairs around it. Looks amazing. We’re so proud.
And then we look at the four extra chairs sitting in the middle of the living room and we’re like.
Well. Now what?
The Journey Of The Chairs
First they went in the corner of the dining room.
That lasted about two weeks.
Because you know what happens when you put chairs in the corner of a room? They become shelves. My purse went on one. My husband’s laptop bag went on another. Mail started piling up. My kid’s art projects. Random crap. Within a month those chairs were just holding junk.
So we moved them to the spare bedroom.
You know the spare bedroom. It’s the room where everything goes when you don’t know where else to put it. We had an old dresser in there. Some boxes. A treadmill that we used exactly three times.
The chairs fit right in. Blended in with all the other crap we didn’t know what to do with.
But here’s the thing. We actually needed that spare room. We have family visit sometimes. We wanted it to be a guest room. But we couldn’t even walk in there without tripping over furniture.
So the chairs had to go again.
This time to the garage.
The Garage Was A Mistake
I cannot stress this enough.
If you’re storing nice furniture in your garage, stop. Just stop.
I didn’t think about it at the time. I was just like “garage is big, chairs are small, this will be fine.”
It was not fine.
- First of all, it gets hot in there. Like really hot. Like I live in the south and in the summer my garage is basically an oven. Wood does not like heat. Wood expands. Wood contracts. The joints in those chairs started getting loose. One of them developed a wobble that I still haven’t fixed.
- Second, humidity. Oh my god the humidity. I don’t even want to think about it. The fabric on the chair seats soaked up all that moisture like a sponge. Started smelling musty. Started getting weird spots on it.
- Third, bugs. Because of course bugs. I found ants in the garage. Ants in the chairs. Ants everywhere. Did I mention I hate ants?
- Fourth, dust. Garages are dusty. Just constantly dusty. No matter how clean you think your garage is, it’s dusty.
When I pulled those chairs out for Thanksgiving one year I was so embarrassed. They looked terrible. They smelled weird. The fabric was gross.
I spent like two hours trying to clean them up. And they still didn’t look great.
My mother in law noticed. She didn’t say anything but I saw her face when she sat down. That little “hmm” expression. You know the one.
The Spare Room Was Worse Honestly
At least the garage was out of sight.
The spare room was right there. I had to walk past it every day. And every time I walked past it I could see the chairs stacked up in there. Could see all the other junk piled around them. Could see how stupid it looked.
It stressed me out.
Every single day.
Just this little background stress. Like oh yeah I really need to do something about that room. But I won’t. Because I’m tired. Because I have other stuff to do. Because dealing with furniture is annoying.
So the chairs just stayed there.
And I just kept being annoyed.
What Finally Changed
Okay so here’s the part where I actually got my act together.
My sister came to visit. She’s one of those people who’s super organized. Like annoyingly organized. Her house looks like a magazine.
She walked into my spare room and just looked at me. Didn’t say anything. Just looked.
I knew exactly what she was thinking.
We had a conversation. She was nice about it. But basically she was like “you have nice stuff. Why are you treating it like garbage? Why are you letting it stress you out? Just get a storage unit already.”
And I was like “but storage units are for people with too much stuff.”
And she was like “you literally have too much stuff. That’s the problem.”
She had a point.
So I did it. I got a storage unit.
The Storage Unit Changed Everything
I’m not exaggerating.
I got a climate controlled unit. Nothing fancy. Just a clean space with steady temperature and no humidity.
I moved the chairs in there. Cleaned them first. Covered them with some old sheets. Stacked them properly. Tucked them away.
And then I went home.
And I walked into my dining room and I just stood there for a second. Because it looked so much better. The chairs were gone. The clutter was gone. The room actually looked like I wanted it to look.
I walked past the spare room and the door was open and I could see the floor. The actual floor. Not a pile of furniture and boxes and junk.
I didn’t even realize how much that room was stressing me out until it wasn’t stressing me out anymore.
It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
Why I Should Have Done It Sooner
Looking back I feel so dumb.
I spent months, maybe years, dealing with those chairs. Moving them around. Tripping over them. Looking at them and feeling annoyed. Letting them get ruined in my garage.
And for what?
For like thirty bucks a month? That’s what the storage unit cost. Thirty bucks.
I spend more than that on coffee in a week.
And I was letting my nice chairs get ruined to save thirty bucks.
Makes no sense.
The Thing About Clutter
Nobody talks about this but clutter is exhausting.
Not the physical energy of moving stuff around. That’s annoying too. But the mental energy. The way clutter sits in the back of your brain and just… bothers you.
Every time you see those chairs you think about them. You think about how you should do something about them. You think about how you haven’t done something about them. You feel guilty. You feel annoyed.
And that happens every single day.
That’s like a thousand times a year that you’re thinking about these stupid chairs.
- What if you didn’t have to think about them?
- What if they were just gone? Safe somewhere else. Not your problem. Not your stress. Not in your way.
That’s what the storage unit did for me. It made those chairs not my problem. They existed somewhere else. I could forget about them until I needed them.
Here’s What I Do Now
So now this is my system.
I have the storage unit. It’s like ten minutes from my house. Not far at all.
The chairs stay there most of the time. All clean and covered and safe.
When I know I’m having people over, I drive over and grab them. Takes twenty minutes round trip. I set them up around the table. Looks great. Everyone compliments them.
When the holiday or dinner party is over, I clean them off. I check them for any damage or spots. And I take them back to the storage unit.
That’s it.
That’s the whole system.
I don’t think about those chairs ever. They’re not in my way. They’re not stressing me out. They’re not getting ruined.
And when I need them, they’re there. Safe and clean and ready to go.
What City Storage Does For People Like Us
Look I’m not trying to sell you anything. But since you’re reading this and you’re probably dealing with the same chair situation I dealt with, I’ll tell you what I know.
City Storage has the kind of units that actually work for furniture.
Climate control. That’s the big one. You don’t want your chairs getting cooked in the summer or frozen in the winter. You want consistent temperature. You want consistent humidity.
Clean units. No weird smells. No bugs. Just clean spaces.
Security. Because you’re storing nice stuff and you don’t want anyone messing with it.
And honestly, they’re just easy to deal with. You rent the unit, you put your stuff in, you don’t worry about it. That’s the whole point.
I’m not saying you have to go with them. I’m just saying that’s what worked for me. That’s what I wish I’d done years ago.
Let’s Be Real About The Price
I know a lot of people are going to read this and think “I don’t want to pay for storage.”
And I get it. Nobody wants another monthly bill.
But here’s how I look at it.
What’s the price of your peace of mind? What’s the price of walking into your house and not feeling stressed? What’s the price of having a guest room that actually has room for guests?
What’s the price of not ruining your expensive chairs?
Those chairs cost you real money. Probably a lot of money. And you’re going to throw them in a garage and let them get ruined to save like thirty bucks a month?
That math doesn’t work.
And then there’s the stress. The frustration. The annoyance.
That’s worth something too. It’s worth not dealing with it anymore.
You Already Know What You Should Do
Honestly you probably knew what you should do before you even read this.
You know those chairs are in your way. You know they’re not going anywhere. You know you’re not going to magically find space in your house.
You know.
So what are you waiting for?
Look I’m not trying to be harsh. I’m the same way. I put things off forever. I let stuff pile up. I deal with nonsense way longer than I should.
But at some point you just gotta pull the trigger.
Get a storage unit. Move the chairs. Clear out your house.
You’ll feel better. I promise.
I did.
One Last Thing
When I took those chairs out of my garage and put them in storage, something clicked in my head. It wasn’t just about the chairs.
It was about taking control of my space.
- About deciding that my house was going to work for me. Not the other way around.
- About not letting clutter and furniture and random crap stress me out in my own home.
That’s a big deal.
That’s worth the drive. That’s worth the monthly payment. That’s worth the effort of moving stuff around.
You deserve to walk into your house and relax. You deserve to have rooms that look like rooms. You deserve to not trip over furniture in the middle of the night.
So do yourself a favor.
- Figure out the storage situation.
- Get those chairs out of your way.
- Give your house some breathing room.
City Storage has been good to me. They’ve got the space, they’ve got the climate control, they’ve got the security.
And honestly? They’ve got the patience to deal with people like me who put things off forever.
So if you’re ready to actually do something about those chairs, go check them out.
What’ve you got to lose?
Except maybe your sanity and some dusty furniture.
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