Cohousing-L Mailing List: Storage [was workshop (was How are your great room ...)

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 11, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Kay Argyle wrote:

> A "messy crafts" room (pottery, painting) was planned but
> never outfitted, and gets used for badly needed storage.

Storage is incredibly important. You can never have enough, although  
having a limit does force you to triage every once in a while.

A few years ago we had a round on "what do you store" in a  
commonhouse. Some items we have:

lawn equipment
holiday decorations
paper and cleaning supplies ordered in large quantities
games and puzzles -- adult, teens, kids
VHS and DVD library
HVAC filters purchased in large quantities
guest room and kitchen linens
Bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes
Tricycles, Tricycles, Tricycles
plastic riding toys
balls of all sizes
wading pools
barbeque equipment
extra folding chairs
extra folding tables
daily cleaning equipment (brooms, etc)
heavy duty cleaning equipment
broken furniture waiting to be fixed
supplies for meetings -- flip charts, extra paper, tape, markers, call  
to order bells, clips & "clothesline", and a place to store all the  
flip chart lists.

And architectural drawings, facilities and machine instruction books  
and warranties, financial records, scrapbook stuff.
It goes on and on. We have empty cabinets but they are the wrong size  
for most  things like games, puzzles, linens, etc. They only fit  
dishes and food, for example.

I think the amount of well designed storage may reduce the amount of  
actual square footage you need in the CH. The great room can be used  
for many things as long as each of them can be put away.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing,Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org