[matt gilbert]

What's your ideal gear storage set-up? I've heard what a lot of people use to store their gear (eg; closets stuffed with tuperwear bins and sleeping bags, or the occasional dining room stuffed with gear), I'd like to hear what your ideal gear storage are would be like. Would it be a whole room? how would you keep it organized? I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and I'd like to hear some other opinions.

[RedRoxx44]

It would be a whole room with a closet and shelving.

My set up is a large armoir has my caving gear and I have a small rolling three drawer bin next to it with small items in that ( biners, pulleys, etc), small lights--headlamps etal.

The closet contains hiking clothing, boots/shoes and winter jackets, gloves, etc.

Shelving contains my photography gear and storage of Cd's/DVD's, photo albums.
Next level shelfs contain hiking/ backpacking stuff--stoves, fuel, first aid, freeze dried food, water bladders, shoe boxes with random stuff like bug spray, small sunblock, spare water filter cartridges and parts, etc.

Yet another open three shelf unit against wall has tents/ tarp/ and packs stored there.

Sleeping bags and pads are stored loose and on floor against wall or hanging in bags on wall.

I have a small table to sort things on but the floor space is nice to lay out gear to air out after a trip without dragging it all thru the house. I limit cleaning to outside or in this room so all I have to do is clean the floor after a trip, not the whole house.

Typical, after a trip lay out 6X8 tarp on floor and dump everything out. Inspect, sort to clean ( outside hosing or inside in sink or bathtub) then air out sleeping bags and or tent, resort items to shelf, camera cards to computer for photo processing, down bag inside out to air out. After several hours or a day restore everything. This is nice because it is not in a main area of house so no one is complaining about stuff in the floor or all over the house. Of course I live alone so I don't care!!

[azbackpackr]

Good topic! I live in a very large house, where three kids have moved out, leaving stuff behind, and one father-in-law has passed away, leaving stuff behind. Not being the world's greatest housekeeper it has taken me several years to even begin to get it organized. I can take one of the bedrooms for gear, but haven't decided which one. The one I may use does not have room for my 12 ft. kayak, except leaning up against a corner.

The idea of the large plastic bins is a good one, plus I would put hooks to hang stuff, and shelving. I am not sure, though, that you should put a sleeping bag inside of a tupperware, because it doesn't breathe. Any thoughts on that? My sleeping bags are either hanging on hangers or in those big muslin cloth storage bags. The storage room should also have space for my two mtn. bikes. I also need to figure out a way to lock the bikes to something (I don't know what) in case of a burglary. I'd much rather burglars take my TVs, DVD and computer than my bikes! Any ideas on locking up bikes indoors would be appreciated!

Right now my gear is all over the place, but most of the overnight backpacking stuff is in the foyer coat closet. My search and rescue jump bag stuff is in two boxes in the den where I can grab what I need at 3 a.m. for a call-out. My bikes are in the living room. My car camp gear is in the shed. My dayhike gear is on a chair at the breakfast table, always ready for my daily hike. You get the picture!

Some of you have seen my signature on the other forum: "A Clean House is a Sign of a Misspent Life."

[te-wa]

lucky enough to have a climate controlled storage room in the basement- all gear goes there except what is strewed across my house...
I like to keep all bags and tents in mesh laundry bags (dollar store), lets them breath. I never use tent stuff sacks- mildew happens.
I have one special bin for my overnight stuff, so packing for a trip takes about 6 minutes.

[azbackpackr]

Just to make it short so maybe someone will read it: anyone know of a good way to lock up two mtn. bikes inside of the house? Should I get some sort of metal thingy to screw into the wall, and then use those really expensive cable locks from the bike shop to attach the bikes? I'm at a loss, I'm only moderately handy, but could do something if it's well-described to me.

[Trishness]

Matt....excellent topic! It will be interesting to see what the replies are based on demographics. I live in a modest manufactured home so my closet space is limited. I don't have the luxury of a full room to store my gear so I keep all my gear in separate bins and it's sorted by type.........so all my sleeping gear is in one bin, tents in another, backpacking food and cooking in another, all colder weather gear in another. There are smaller bins on shelves for itty bitty things like headlamps, extra cording etc. I made a vertical storage rack for my many backpacks out of a 2 X 4 and attached folding hooks on it so it stores all my packs upright and takes up hardly any space at all. They lay on top of each other like layers.

I somehow managed to keep everything to three large bins, one medium bin and 4 little bins. <and a partridge in a pear tree>

[desertlavender]

My husband and I share an 800-square-foot adobe with three large cats. Fortunately we have a pickup that doubles as an outbuilding. We keep all our gear in covered plastic bins in the bed of the truck just under the sleeping platform: one box for cooking gear, one for tools, one for tents and sleeping bags (stored loose in large stuff sacks), one for food, etc. Skis, trekking poles, shovel and a long-handled hook for pulling out the bins are stored on one side. Wide-brimmed hats and a change of clothes go on top of the foam mattress. Backpacks stand upright behind the seats. We can be packed and ready to leave for the weekend in one hour flat!

[kylemorgan]

I keep all my stuff in carboard boxes and in a pile. ROCK ON!

[Al_HikesAZ]

What's your ideal gear storage set-up?

There's "ideal" and then there is realistic. The only part of my gear storage that I think is ideal is the storage of my physical topo maps.

I keep the physical topo maps in a wrapping paper storage container under the bed. As long as one of my kids doesn't use them to wrap a birthday present , this works great.

I have computer topo software, but I had a lot of topo maps from before the computer software. And I still like to have hard-copy topos & a compass when I'm in unfamiliar territory.

I do get part of the closet in the guest room to hang sleeping bags (after they have been properly aired-out outside) and store stuff that doesn't smell too bad. That's about as close to ideal as I could get as a compromise from my wife.

[matt gilbert]

So, the reason I put "ideal" in the original question is because I've decided that I'm tired of just making do with my gear storage; I happen to be in the unique position of having a 200 square foot shed and a very understanding wife. I've decided that I am going to build this shed into my ideal gear storage room and I'm sparing no expense. I've already sheetrocked the interior walls and installed an ac unit. I have built a cedar closet for my clothing and I have one wall entirely covered in pegboard and two other walls partially covered in slotwall. I'm thinking I will go for the "store" look and feel. I want to go in and "shop" my walls until I have all the gear I need. Really, I'm trying to glean any useful tips, tricks, and/or ideas that will suit my ultimate purpose (and here you thought I was being altruistic and trying to promote gear storage knowledge throughout the community; silly you ).

[Al_HikesAZ]

In response to matt gilbert's reply:
It's got to have a 50" HDTV with satellite and a wet bar. We are talking Man Cave here aren't we?

[azbackpackr]

Oh, well, MAPS. Now you're talkin! Despite the chaos of my gear storage my maps have some real priority. I have a set of stacking plastic boxes with drawers--6 of them. Since all the topos I actually use are already folded I store them folded. I have them labelled as to frequency of usage and type: White Mountains topos, Forest Service, Misc. Road Maps, Grand Canyon, So. Az., etc. And if I start going to Utah or the Gila a lot more I can just buy another box from that type of set and add to the stack. Very handy. Also one of the drawers is reserved for miscellaneous stuff--Forest Service handouts, 8 X 10 maps I print off my CD topo, etc.

[te-wa]

I've decided that I am going to build this shed into my ideal gear storage room and I'm sparing no expense.

so you'll need one of these

and of course this here[url]

[matt gilbert]

In response to al1inaz's reply:

I forgot to mention; I have a stand for a computer dedicated to my mapping software and a tv (alright, it's no 50" HD, but it's somthing)plus a full stereo system...

[bknorby]

Old forum post in need of some new conversation. What I'd like to see is photos of your organization method. Also, please remark on what works well and what you'd improve on. We're in need of some help organizing hiking, backpacking, car camping, and rock climbing equipment! I'd also be willing to pay someone to help me if you are in the Tucson area and bored

[SgtLumpy]

In our house, our gear is our furniture. No coffee tables in the Lumpy Rancho. "Living room" has a weight machine, a treadmill and an upright bass (the stringed instrument, not the fish). Other great room has saddles, boots, packs, rain gear. Depending on the season, floor space or hooks on the wall provide resting space for hike, bike, horse, walk, run, swim stuff. We have a big, dining room size table but we don't eat there. It's for packing, folding, stuff sacking etc. Eating is either at the indoor cantina (a small two top table) or outside on the beach (17 tons of sand brought in to our pool area) or simply at our desks in front of the computer screen. There's no TV in our home. The time that would be spent watching American Idol and Dancing with the Dumbells is spent doing outdoorsie stuff.


Sgt Lumpy - n0eq

[chumley]

There's no TV in our home. The time that would be spent watching American Idol and Dancing with the Dumbells is spent doing outdoorsie stuff.

With no disrespect to this fine website, the interwebs are equivalent to Dancing with Dumbells. It's just a different means to waste time and pollute your head with mindless crap. Luckily it's not limited to a paltry 200-300 channels.

[Jim_H]

Ahem, endlessly discussing the largely irrelevant nuances of which location experienced a trivial amount rain, or who's town got which gust of wind, is not mindless crap. It's important stuff we're waxing over here.

I'll spare you the Reggie Watts video where he mentions waxing and buffing, and post this, instead.

Mmmm, shiny!

[SgtLumpy]

There's no TV in our home. The time that would be spent watching American Idol and Dancing with the Dumbells is spent doing outdoorsie stuff.

With no disrespect to this fine website, the interwebs are equivalent to Dancing with Dumbells. It's just a different means to waste time and pollute your head with mindless crap. Luckily it's not limited to a paltry 200-300 channels.

I certainly don't agree. Unless all one uses the internet for is watching web versions of reality programs and dancing with dumbells. Watching someone else have a (fake) life is not the same as discussing real lives. At least in my book. Oh wait, they don't have books anymore...Make that - At least on my mobile device.


Sgt Lumpy - n0eq

[azbackpackr]

Any bike I'm currently using is always in the front foyer/hallway. Sometimes there have been 2 or 3 bikes there, and when there were several cyclists living in the house the bikes would also get parked in the living room, against the bookcases. Hiking poles in corner of front foyer. Cross country skis, poles and boots in other corner of front foyer. Bike gear in front hall closet. Backpacking gear currently is in the living room, although some is in a self-storage unit, which I'm going to get rid of (the storage unit, not the gear!) Kayaks used to be in the garage or back bedroom, but I sold them. I want another one, of course.

I have some plastic bins with lids for some of my gear. I should buy some more of those, they're nice.

Current gear being sorted is in front hallway, breakfast room, my current bedroom, and living room, as is gear currently being aired out from last trip. Gear being aired out from this past weekend is hanging on couch, coffee table, easy chair and table in living room. I never sit in there anyway. Like Sarge up above me in the thread, I don't own a TV, and never miss it. I have 2800 square feet under roof but don't seem to get it organized. What I did is, last summer I sold almost all the furniture, and hundreds of smaller items gleaned from various (mostly dead) family members. I had seven yard sales, and took many trips to donate to the thrift stores. I also got rid of probably two-thirds of my personal library--which probably added up to at least a thousand books, and threw away hundreds of old magazines. I went on many trade trips to Bookman's with all those books. I now have the best collection of Grateful Dead concert CDs in the entire town of Eagar, I'm sure--thank you Bookman's used CDs!

I love all the empty space in the house! I have four bedrooms, three of which are completely empty, but my current bedroom is actually the dining room, because it's by far the warmest room in the house (and we get below zero in winter here).

I don't care about appearances, anyway. It's my house and I live alone. Oh, I do have a cat... Lots of room for that long touring kayak I want to buy.

Do y'all recollect my old signature line? "A clean house is a sign of a misspent life."