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A spare room in your home is an opportunity to boost your income. Imagine how much extra cash you could make by offering that space to a rent-paying tenant.  You can start getting things ready by creating the necessary space right now. Our guest blogger, Big Yellow Self Storage, shows you how in these five simple steps.

1.   What needs to go? Take a good look around your spare room (and the rest of your home, while you’re at it). Decide what you’re happy to part company with and what you want to find a storage solution for.

2.   Sell, donate or trash. For anything with a monetary value, get selling. Try online auctions, your local classified ads, boot sales(ed. That’s a flea market or swap meet for those in the U.S.) – anything that offers a cheap and quick way to raise cash. Alternatively, give your unwanted but perfectly serviceable items to charity. As a last resort, put them out with the trash or take them to a recycling centre.

3.   Decide what sort of storage solution you need. For those items that you’re not getting rid of, you’ll need some form of storage facility. And, depending on what those items are, this could be a garden shed, a loft, a garage or a unit at a secure, temperature-controlled storage site.

4.   Prepare your items to go into storage. Flat pack self assembly furniture and keep the fixings close by in a small bag. Coat wood and metal with varnish and rust protector respectively. Keep mattresses in bags available at DIY stores. (Change the bag every year). Use a wardrobe to store clothes, shoes, bags and bed linen – its small footprint will give you loads of hanging, stacking and shelving space. Be aware that books can get really heavy. Use lots of small boxes instead of fewer large ones and list their contents on the visible sides.

5.   Get ready to welcome your lodger! All that remains now is to prepare and advertise your spare room – and start earning money!

For further information about storing just about anything and to find out more about storage options, visit Big Yellow for Self Storage.