Food Storage and space limits

Okay, so my pantry will hold about a 4 month supply of food for the wife and me. Fortunately I still have some free space in the house. But I've been considering the logistics of a year's supply of food and where I would put it all. Keeping in mind that almost all of the food prefers to be kept in a temp controlled environment, that means keeping it in the house at a minimum (no garage, no attic space storage). So I am looking under the beds, behind the sofa, or stacked beneath the dresser in cases or crates and dressing it with a valence of some sort (raising the dresser by a couple feet is not a problem in my household).

Sometimes you just gotta be creative in your thinking I suppose. It took me a little bit to think that darned near every piece of furniture in my house could be "lifted" enough to put stuff under, yet not become awkward or uncomfortable. Pedestalizing the food this way makes it easy to camoflauge so it isn't aestheically unappealing either (more for the wife than me).

Double up the top of closets, the top shelf of a closet is about 30" below the ceiling, you can put another shelf half way in between and all the stuff you don't use very often up up higher.
Also open up an interior wall, usually side of back of closets, you then get a 3.5" deep opening which you can put in shelves and stack stuff there.
Remove the flooring of the closer, build a simple box to outline the closet floor out of 1x4 or 2x4 or 1x6 or 2x6 lumber sitting on its side, cover with plywood add a couple hinges and then recover with the old flooring so you in effect raise the floor 4-6" up with empty space under.
Though I noticed our crawlspace under the house stays pretty decent temp year round since its underground. I lined it with shelves.

What types of food do you have in your food storage? I have about 3 months worth of food that we eat everyday, and then I have items that store for years and years (40+ years some of them).

Since I am renting our home, modification is out of the question. All available conventional storage space is already taken, pretty much up to the ceiling, so no more shelves can be mounted with aesthetic impact that the wife won't tolerate.

As I have said in previous threads, I have too much stuff in my house and need to get rid of some of it. Were it my own house, I would simply open a hole in the floor and start excavating. Dry earth is a great place to store food. I am pretty sure the water table under my house is quite a ways down.

I just got an idea for a new thread.

I am fond of quoting Dirty Harry, a man's got to know his limitations, one of mine is food storage. My family maintains a separate pantry with 3-4 months of food in it, 75% things we can eat almost every day. I'm happy to say my wife has gotten into it, without her level of organization I would probably have alot of inedible but long-term shelf stable stuff only. But we can't sustain much longer than 3-4 months of food, and every year when we do a quick inventory we tend to pull 25% as it approaches its expiration - that goes to a food bank, as cans of soup, chicken and chili are still good and nourishing, just not as likely to be eaten in our household before their nominal expiration date. We don't naturally eat out of cans, we tend to eat fresh food almost every day. It takes more maintenance than we can muster to have more food than this in reserve, so I'm just grateful to keep a good 3-4 month supply that doesn't go to waste or a once a year automatic food bank donation. However I have learned a few food supply tricks from the mass care folks at Red Cross (proactively labelling for expiration), maybe those will rub off.

Lono, I do the same thing. I write expirations on the can with a sharpie. At Christmas I go through and anything that is close but still good, I donate. A couple hundred items go to a food drive my company hosts for the less fortunate.

I'm lucky to have more crawl space than I know what to do with. Nice and cool also.

Luckily we have a basement, pantry and mud-room... if you can't modify your house, and you are out of conventional space I think you are out of luck

When we lived in a Manhattan apt., I had about a months worth of Mainstay bars. Not what I want to eat, but it fit in the space of a couple shoeboxes. If I got hungry enough, they would have been delicious.

For me it's important that storage areas be accessible, otherwise it becomes too hard to rotate the food and when you eventually need it, it's gone off.

Right, the idea with under the dresser and such is to mimic what's in the pantry so that when the pantry gets depleted we pull stock from under the dresser. Hopefully I time the stocking backlog right so that I only have to move the dresser to get to the back-up once or twice a month. That way I can make use of the pantry convenience better.

I'm running into space limitations too. Maybe, since I'm not under the influence of female ideology, I'll start replacing conventional furniture with stuff made of crates with a pad on top.

1 idea might be to get the bed raisers for the legs, and store more UNDER the bed. Wal-Mart has under bed storage containers that have wheels recessed so you can slide things in and out.

I started going through closets and prioritizing what was within them. I found it amazing how many things I could easily classify as a lower priority than food storage space.

That being said, I have a stack of five gallon buckets filled with dried beans and wheat in the corner of one room. It's rather obvious and quite ugly. I haven't figured out how to camouflage it yet.

Paint, and seats...

Well you can always try and do what they did on submarines. Stack it on the floor and walk on it until you use it up.

Another option is to buy freeze-dried foods in #10 cans, they may provide more calories for the amount of space you have to use to store them.

That's what I've done, for now. As I address the space issue, I'll increase my supply of traditional food.

Buy a small storage trailer, which can be taken with you in and emergency. Store some temperature safe emergency gear and/or supplies in it.

Look at the bed leg extenders, that will raise the bed up 6" or so.

Buy or make a folding screen that goes across the corner. Not only will it hide what you have now, you can store even more back there. Set a chair and a lamp in front of it, and no one will ever know you have a pantry on the other side of that screen.

Lee

Neat Idea!

What, no real bean bag furniture?

Seriously, think what a conversation piece a wall of #10 cans could be or clear plexiglass tubes filled with grains and beans as architectural columns, flower vases, and lamp bases - survival decor at its best!

For me, sailboat living offers minimal storage for just about everything. I stick with about a month of freeze-dried back-packing stuff plus a commercial one month water and food pack. The galley has dried pastas, grains, and beans good for a couple months. Water is more of a challenge.

My recent discovery that I am diabetic throws much of this planning out the window, of course.

We have recently gone with the Shelf Reliance storage systems (http://www.shelfreliance.com/). Not only is it a very efficient way to store our canned goods, it also automatically rotates them which is a problem we were having when storing them on regular shelves. The shelving units come in a variety of heights and widths.

They also sell their own freeze dried food system (Thrive) and are very pro-preparedness. In my experience they have been good folks to do business with.

Greg

I use standard storeage crates, each 600mm X 400mm as the base for a bed.
Theses crates are available in various depths and can be stacked if required, 8 are suited for a standard double bed, cover the crates with piece of plywood of the correct size for a standard spring or foam mattress.
If desired the crates may be concealed by a curtain or valance attached to the plywood, though I did not bother.

One could store tinned food and bottled water thus, though I stored blankets and clothing, thereby freeing space elswhere for food.

These crates are available with ventilated sides, best for avoiding damp or mould attacking clothes and linens, or with solid sides that would resist vermin.

Speaking of beds... Make one -- another approach.

Gather enough buckets to cover the floor area of the size bed that you want. Cut a 3/4" piece of plywood about 1/2"-1" larger than your mattress. Split this in half lengthwise. Attach the two pieces back together with flush fitting hinges. Cover the top with a flat sheet, stapled to the back side. This will protect coverings from splinters and such.

Lay the plywood on the buckets, so that when you lift one side, it will fold over the other side. Next, cover the ply with a made or bought bed dust ruffle. (Hides the buckets.)

Top with all your spare blankets, quilts, etc. Then add the mattress.

To access the storage, side the mattress over to one side. Throw back the extra blankets, dust ruffle, and raise that half of the plywood. No need to tear everything apart to get to that bucket of beans.

As long as you have enough buckets to support the plywood, spaces between the buckets can be left for other types of storage containers.

Hope this is food for thought.

Lee

I have made some of these can rotators using leftover cardboard boxes and empty boxes from the liquor store. Each holds 9-12 cans of various sizes of store-bought beans, fruit, etc. that are part of my typical diet. Not a ton of additional food but every bit helps, and it's a good way to benefit from buy-1-get-1-free sales.

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/02/16/build-your-own-can-rotating-rack/

(A hot glue gun makes quick work of this project, btw.)

I'm currently looking into the best option of storing food also. My roommate's house is VERY old (sawmill slats for cabinets), and very damp underneath (half basement, half crawlspace). We've also had rodents from time to time that we had to trap. We have a detached garage, but I'd rather not store food where it's outside the actual house.

I need something that's totally rodent-proof, I'm thinking very large ammo cans. I'm thinking of buying the 7-day food supply kits, taking them out of the cardboard box the pouches come in, and putting them in a large ammo can. Each can should hold 7 days worth of food for one person.

Either the ammo cans or a very robust Rubbermaid-type tub, something along those lines. I plan on starting out small, storing up 7 days worth of food, and adding to it over time. My eventual plan is to have 30 days worth of food per person for my daughter and I.

Then comes water storage... something else I have to work out.

If you have the space, go to a hardware store or a farm/feed store. Buy metal trashcans. Use bungie cords to secure the tops. For more more security you can secure the tops with metal pipe strapping and a few bolts. As long as you keep the bottoms of these cans away from moisture, they'll last for years and years. Rats and bigger critters can't get into them, if you have them secured properly. You can make gaskets for them fron auto innertubes.

Lee

Well, I remember folks talking about 4" PVC pipes, and either burying them, or leave a few inches sticking up so that it looks like sprinkler system-related items.

How about those shelves in the garage that raise/lower and hold plastic bins?
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...amp;R=100464807

I noticed in my car that the back seats had "holes" in the foam. not much space,just a good idea:does your furniture have dead space behind the upholstry, behind the cushions, that could be filled in?

"coffee" tables or end tables on 5-gal buckets, or storage containers. Cover with tablecloths. Of coures, when your friends find you out, that could be a touch awkward.

Reviving the storage spaces thread...

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=14039791&RN=404

I bought these tonight, they lift your bed by 7" and only cost $14.99. My bed was pretty short before. Now I have a good bit of storage space underneath for stuff which will go in rubbermaid-type tubs.

Now I just have to not kill myself in the morning when I forget the bed is taller. And going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond is an experience when you walk in wearing BDU shorts with steel-toed work boots, lol.

I think clearing out stuff is the best bet. We have been simplifying and downsizing how much stuff we have and prioritizing what we store. For example we have a two week supply of water (3 gal/person/day) and six months supply of food in our 400 sq ft. apartment. We realized one day when building our BOBs that we needed to prepare to "bug in" as well and prioritize our space to meet our needs. We didn't need 3 pairs of skis and holiday decorations as much as we needed water storage and long-term food storage space.

Good luck!