Down at the local pub last week I ran into a buddy of mine and we got to talking about space.  My friend is adamant about he and his family living a small sustainable life and he was telling me that back in the late fifties the average American lived in 300 sq ft.  I thought back on the house I grew up in and it was about 1500 sq ft with a 2 car garage.  For four people that was 375 sq ft throughout the sixties and into the seventies.

What surprised me was, with the population being so much higher today that each American now lives in 800 sq ft!  Now I had to stop and think about it and today, my family lives in about 550 sq ft. each and we use every part of our home plus a large 10 x 14 storage shed that is pretty full.

In fact, if we didn’t have the storage unit, we would have to have either more space or less stuff.  It’s our ability to store things outside of the house that has enabled us to live a little bit smaller than we used to (900 sq ft).  One of the best bonuses for us of living smaller has been the reduction in utility bills.

You can use pegboard to create an entire wrapping station in your home; a crafting station; a place to hang the kid’s coats; a place to hang tools indoors and a creative way to get your kids to put up their things in their rooms.

If pegboard was just used for outside purposes for storage in the garage or for lining the utility building, it would still be a wonderful storage tool.  There are now ways to hang almost everything from the normal screwdrivers and hammers; to boxes, shelves and drawers.

If you have yet to see the beauty of pegboard, take a trip to your local hardware store and walk down the pegboard isle.  Imagine everything you could do with the clips and hooks available on the shelves.  You will not only see the beauty in pegboard, but fall in love.

You’ve heard the stories about successful business owners that started their companies in their basement, extra room, garage or shed out back.  From Walt Disney to Steve Jobs of Apple and many in-between, where there was space there was a way.

I have heard of people converting half baths, laundry rooms and closets into home offices.  However, one of my favorites is the storage shed conversion.  Yes, it takes some additional planning as far as electric and insulation goes but it solves some very common problems.

• You only have the shed to keep clean when clients visit
• It’s out of the house and you know the old saying, “out of sight, out of mind”
• It’s quite when you’re on the phone (I have never figured out why my kids scream every time I’m on the phone and the dogs bark… )
• You can still go to the office when you have company (your office is not the spare guest room)
• You have a separate entrance with a door you can lock
• It’s your space to organize and do with what you please

If you have room in your house and you don’t have any of the problems above, that’s great; forge ahead and remake that spare space into an organized, home office machine.  If, on the other hand, you don’t have the needed space in your home or you need the quite and privacy to be successful in your home office, think about a shed conversion.  It just may be what the boss has in mind.

I’m a guy.  I’m a guy with a lot of tools and equipment and I also own 2 vehicles.  I’m a guy with a one car garage and we all know who gets to park in the garage, and it’s not me.  So what’s a guy to do when the garage is just not big enough for all the tools and equipment?

You either make sacrifices, choices or a combination of both.  You can leave the tools and equipment exposed to the elements and watch them rust away.  You can sell the tools and a quarter or less their value only to buy them brand new when you need them again.  You can house them in a spare room in the house and hope your wife or partner understands that you have a relationship with your things and you all need some space.  Or you can bite the bullet and get a storage unit just for your stuff.

I chose the storage unit for several reasons:

• I needed space for my things to stay dry
• I needed space to work on my things
• I needed space that was all mine

Now I’m a happy guy who has his tools and equipment locked away safely in their own special shed.  Now about my truck…I’m working on that one!