We did. Under the stairs. We even put a light in it. My antique Hoosier cabinet sets in front of the half-door leading to the Christmas Cubby. We carefully measured and made sure the alcove would be just the right size for the Hoosier cabinet. HOWEVER . . . one of the stair walls had to be reinforced (because of the balcony room above) so the alcove got a wee bit smaller. Just enought that the Hoosier cabinet fits in -- but it was very difficult to pull out and we always had to repair plaster. Sooooo . . . back into the attic they went. Bummer! Hope you find a good place . . .

Hi,

We are in the process of designing a new home and we live in Texas. We are going to use the 4th garage stall as our storage room. In the neighborhood we are building in, 4 stalls are pretty standard and we have to plan for resale in a few years. We are going to put one or 2 a/c ducts into it, insulate it and add a door that goes to it from the back hall or utility room. We usually store all our Christmas trees and tons of other boxes of things in an extra upstairs bedroom. (We have no kids so this is not a space problem.) But we are getting to the age where we don't want to haul all of this stuff, especially the large trees, up and down the staircase anymore. It is pretty common down here to see one of the extra garage stalls walled off and used as storage if it works out logistically. Hope maybe this gives you some ideas.

I did plan for it into the drawings, but only because I now have an 8 x 8 closet in our finished basement for every holiday EXCEPT for Christmas, and I love being able to go to that closet and get what I want for myself rather than bug hubby to go into the Attic. I cherish that closet, as silly as that may sound, so it was of utmost importance that I recreate it into the house that we're building.

In the ranch that we're building, I have a walk-in 8 x 8 closet in what will be our Office. Hubby puts foot-wide shelving across all sides so that I have plenty of storage space for boxes, etc. All of my front door wreaths, Halloween, wrapping paper, etc. will go into that closet, with room left over in fact, because this time, I have 10 ft. ceilings, so my shelves will go all the way up! (YAY!)

We got some of those overhead storage racks that attach to the ceiling in our garage - perfect place for something we only need to get at once a year. We've also got camping gear, other seldom-used items up there as well. A couple of years ago we got some large plastic storage bins and dividers for the tree lights, plus some large heavy cardboard boxes designed to hold ornaments in several layers in separate compartments, then we threw out our ratty boxes held together with 30-year old scotch tape. :-)

I store everything but candles in the attic. I dread pulling everything down and putting it back up. I'm going to design a better way in the next house.

I planned a room upstairs specifically for this type of storage that was heated and cooled.

However, during construction I decided to add a window and make it a private getaway room for myself.

The Christmas decorations are in an area under the staircase, accessed by a continuation of the guest room closet. It's not nearly as large as I wanted; in fact, I think we will probably build out the area above the garage as a pool room and at that time I'll add a room for that purpose.

We have a closet upstairs that I will use for Christmas decorations that need HVAC. I measured the size of the plastic bins I will use and had the shelves designed around them. For the others-we have a large unfinished space over the garage for walk in storage. All the other stuff will go in there. Can you say trees left together wrapped in sheets hehe!

All decorations go in giant Rubbermaid containers in the attic (except candles, which stay in the pantry). We have a HUGE walk-up attic. I think when we finish the basement I will use the space under the stairs for some storage as well.

Our garage has a 12/12 pitch, so we built it with the "attic trusses". But, as everyone knows, you can't have "too much" storage, and let's face it, attics are not terribly convenient. So, we built another pantry at the bottom of the steps in the basement. Same room things like the freezer and small appliances like a slow-cooker are stored.

In our last house we put Christmas decorations under the basement stairs. In our new one, under the stairs will be a walk-in gun safe. (score one for the dh).

We have a gigantic attic. It's insane, we didn't realize how big it was going to be until it was built. I was going to put decorations up there but I guess I'll have to find a different location for the candles. Thanks for that warning.

Our attic access is up the stairs and opposite to our bonus room so it has a regular door. There is a full height area right at the door entrance that is about 8x12 so that will be our Christmas storage area. I would love to finish/condition it in the future.

We have a storage room in the basement. I store holiday decorations there. We also have access to the space under the stair landings, but it's perfect for me to overwinter my fuschias there, so it's reserved.

In the single garage stall of the 3 car garage, we refer to it as our FL basement to house holiday things, bikes, etc. Also, over DH's 4 car garage we will have huge atic space which might be AC'd (haven't decided yet). Anyway, it's like 50' long and 14'wide so that is where the rest of the holiday stuff will go. I keep saying that I'll be able to put the xmas tree in there fully decorated for the next year.

Ours are all in plastic totes stacked up in the basement. I have them all labeled by holiday and they don't take up that much space since the totes can be stacked pretty high.

"a walk-in gun safe"

Hmm. Good idea. How is that built? I assume you buy a vault door. How do you secure the walls and stop someone from just cutting through 2x4s?

Sue - He has a bunch of ideas. He is really excited about this. He went to a locksmith and found the keypad entry door handle that he wants, but other than that I'm not sure how he is going to secure the walls.

He also wants to put in a "secret" door for a small fireproof safe for our emergency cash. Not that we're going to have any after this build. :)

Oh and he is going to keep most of his hunting supplies in there. YAY!!!!!! No more fox urine in the medicine cabinet.

Charliedawg....LOVE the idea about a secret door for a safe! GREAT idea!!

Oh, I feel so much better! I thought I was being a bit OCD planning a special closet just for holiday things, LOL! I have actually forgotten about some things because everything was scattered. This is actually a remodel and it looks like I might end up with an 8x10 space after all.

I have started making the transition to rubber totes. Couldn't stand our ratty old cardboard boxes either:) I am definitely putting an A/C return in it.

My ornament storage will be under the stairs that go to the attic. It's too small of an area to be useful for much else....but it will be wonderful for ornament storage and my DH's hunting junk. The attic space over the master WAS going to be storage....but it is such a wonderful space and I figured out a way to put in a staircase instead of a pull-down, so it's going to be my hide-away room. lol!!

I am having a secret room to store them. That room is 8x6 and its a basement room. Nobody goes there. All afraid of ghosts so I finally decided to store my stuff there. Im very fine now. lol....

zion.power- where are you from originally? your posts are very hard to understand...

Anyway, we have 2 storage rooms upstairs...one is about 5 X 10 and the other is about 3 X 7 for regular storage. We also have an attic space with pull-down access that has about 20 X 40 of usable space. I will use the 2nd floor rooms for as much as I possibly can...I hate going up into the attic! I'm afraid of heights, so I don't really like ladders...so silly!

Zion.power's member page says India but in a post he says he's from Liverpool and in another he says California. Strange . . .

Theoretically, I would love a place to store my Christmas tree where I could just roll it out each season, then roll it back in without ever having to redecorate or touch it. Wouldn't that be nice. But don't want to spend the money for a closet just for my tree!

Realistically, most of our storage will be upstairs above our garage and we will have some extra attic access as we will not be building as much on the second floor as on the first. And we will have no basement.

I'm really tired of lugging boxes up and down stairs to the basement store room of the current house, so a main floor store room for Christmas decorations, seasonal items like fans, etc., was a high priority for the new house...

But it didn't make the cut. When doing a 2 story over a full basement, adding an 80 foot store room to the main floor makes the house 240 feet larger. Keeping the main floor spaces under control was essential to controling the budget. For items that only come out of storage once a year, it just wasn't worth it.

we have a large step-down family room above our garage. The space is 26x28, and it has vaulted ceilings. We put a knee wall along one side creating a 6' wide storage area running the full 28' wall. Our builder is putting a little door there and that's where we'll keep ALL our holiday storage. Even more convenient since that's the room where most of it will be displayed anyway. We'll have to duck--the door opening is about 4'8" tall but there's about 5'8" of head room along the tallest point in the storage space. We have light strips running the length of it so I have high hopes for the convenience factor!

Here's a pic for the visual people out there. :) It's the little door opening to the left of the fireplace/window benches.
{{gwi:1478800}}

Maggie, my daughter's previous house had that exact set-up off her office and it worked out very well! Looks like a good plan in your room!

PS -- LOVE your window seats!

have a nice closet in garage that goes under the staircase==big enough to hold all Xmas decorations boxes including a 6 ft artificial tree in three large plastic storage bins and other stuff as well--
we look for one like it (or just christmas storage) when we go house shopping and have only found one or two houses with ANY closet in garage much less one this big=--

nice not to have to lug the heavy tree boxes up stairs to attic -- although we have pretty nice walk-out attic storage as well

new homes that are spec built don't seem to have any consideration for storage needs--roof lines are often too irregular and HVAC runs take up all storage space....yuck...

I'm a junky when it comes to holiday decorations. I have so much stuff! We are building a walkout ranch and I have a large storage room in the downstairs (not the mechanical rom!) It's slightly irregular, but it's approximately 18 x 10. We're going to install shelves around the perimeter that are sized to fit all my storage tubs.

We also spent the extra $ to have the space under the front porch poured as an extra "safe room". It's going to be the wine cellar/gun storage/tornado shelter/walk in safe. The room will have a steel door and keypad doorlock. Sort of off topic, but I thought I'd mention it since this room is accessed through my storage room.

Great idea, Maggie! I really like your room decor. It is so crisp and clean. I've never seen a house like that hear in Phoenix. We have pretty much Southwestern or Mediterranean.

I am a Christmas decoration junky myself. My village alone sits on a 4x8 piece of plywood with various small tables along side it. I think I need another piece of plywood this year.

I do store my tree with the lights attached. It took about a week, working a few hours a day, to carefully wrapping lights around each branch. It then took another two weeks for my hands to recover, lol! It was great storing that way for about 6 years. They are slowly blowing out now and I don't look forward to fixing them. A friend of mine had her tree permanently lit by professionals. Her lights finally started to go, so she threw the whole thing out and bought a Costco prelit tree last year. She SAID she was going to throw that one out and buy a new on every year ($150). I'll have to ask her if she did that. It sure would save on storage space(ha!).

I don't really have much need for a safe room. Although I may build myself a wine cellar with a keypad from the inside. It would be called a sanity room ;>D