The most common reason for putting furniture into storage is when people are selling a property and want to stage it to maximise its sales appeal. Staging is where you set the property up as if it was a show-house, and a key aspect of this is removing all unnecessary clutter! This is a process that I went through very recently when I was selling my flat and moving to a bigger house.

The first thing you need to do is determine what items need to go into storage and how long you expect them to have to stay there?

Having done this, the next step is to research storage options. I found that there were 3 main sources of information on this, namely:

1) Telephone book / local business listings
2) Internet search
3) Classifieds pages in local papers

In the city that I live in, I found that there were quite a few local companies offering storage, and I needed to short list them. There are a number of ways that you could do this. Personal recommendations from friends or relatives are always good. Or you might select based upon location, from a convenience angle. You can also check out their websites (if they have one) and see what size rooms they offer, and other features that they might offer. Interestingly, I found that very few advertise their prices on their websites!

You should then get quotes from a number of companies. I think I phoned about 5 or 6 companies. As well as checking their prices, I also checked about security arrangements, and whether I would have easy access to the premises. It's also worth checking whether you need to supply a padlock, and what notice period you need to give when you want to take your furniture out.

Having phoned a selection of companies, I was able to make a decision on which one to go with. Price wasn't the only consideration for me, and probably shouldn't be for you either. I went with a company that I think was pretty competitive but also very convenient in terms of its location (just 5 minutes from where I lived) and whose sales reps had seemed by far the most professional. Remember, you are entrusting valuable personal items to other people so try to make sure that the company aren't a bunch of cowboys!

The next vital step is to arrange transport. If you can't transport the items yourself, then you may want to consider either hiring a van, or alternatively hiring a man with a van. There are different sizes of removal vans, from small transit vans that are great if you're just moving a few items, up

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