Portable Storage for Renovations

A renovation moves at the speed of an empty room. The problem is where the room goes: a dining set pushed into the living room, dressers in the hallway, boxes stacked in the one closet the crew still needs to open. A Steedle portable container solves it by parking a 16-foot (8×8) box at the house before demo day, so the room being gutted goes out the front door in one pass and stays out of the dust, the drop cloths and the tool traffic until the work is finished.

How you use the container during a renovation

1. The box arrives before demo day. Call for a free estimate, tell us the date the crew starts, and we deliver the clean, dry 16-ft (8×8) container and set it in the driveway as close to the door as placement allows. You never tow, hitch or reposition it — Steedle handles every move of the container.
2. Empty the room being gutted into the box at the door. Not a sort, a clear-out: furniture, rugs, artwork, lamps, the contents of the cabinets and the closet in that room all go out and in. Load the far end with what you will not need until the room is finished, and keep the doors-end for anything the project might need mid-way.
3. The work happens in a room with nothing in it. Floors get sanded, walls come down, cabinets go in, and none of it happens around your belongings. Dust, spray, sawdust and tool traffic stay in the work zone; the stored goods are sealed in the container instead of under a sheet in the next room.
4. Move room by room as the crew moves. On a multi-room or whole-floor job the container is a rolling buffer: bedroom two empties while bedroom one is being painted, and the finished room refills while the next one is being stripped.
5. Furniture comes back, then the box goes away. When the paint is dry and the floors are cured, the room refills from the container. Call us and we collect the empty unit. Rentals run short or long term, so a two-week floor refinish and a five-month remodel both work.

What belongs in the box for a renovation

Load it with what the work would ruin or the crew would trip over: the furniture from the room being gutted, mattresses and bed frames, rugs, framed art and mirrors, curtains and blinds, lamps and electronics, the contents of kitchen cabinets and pantry shelves during a kitchen tear-out, bathroom linens and cabinet contents, books, and the boxes that have to come out of a basement before it can be finished.

Keep out of the container: anything illegal, and anything no storage unit should hold — flammables and fuel, propane tanks, perishable food, plants and pets. That includes the renovation’s own supplies: paint, thinner, adhesives, stain and fuel cans belong with the crew, not in with your sofa. The container also cannot be modified — no shelving bolted in, no hooks, no cutting, drilling or wiring, no interior changes of any kind. And moving the container is our job, not yours.

On-site or West Deptford for a renovation timeline

Keep it on-site when the job runs room by room and you will be putting things in and taking things out for weeks — you walk out the door, open the container and get the drill, the spare curtain rod or the box of dishes without calling anyone.

Send it to our West Deptford warehouse when the driveway is the contractor’s: a dumpster, a materials drop, a tile saw and three trucks leave no room for a container. Once the room is loaded we haul the box to 1152 Crown Point Road, West Deptford, it waits there through the loud part of the project, and we bring it back on the day the room is ready to be refilled.

Optional packing and loading

Most people load the container themselves at their own pace. You do not have to. Packing and loading are available as optional services, which is worth asking about when demo day is a hard date and the room has to be empty by Monday, when a kitchen’s worth of cabinets has to be boxed carefully, or when the heavy pieces — the armoire, the sleeper sofa, the piano-sized problem — are more than you want to carry down a stair. Mention it when you call for your estimate.

$125 a month — call to schedule

Portable storage is $125 per month, and renovations rarely finish on the original calendar, so short and long rentals both work and you can extend if the crew’s schedule slips. Call (856) 848-4854 to check availability and set a delivery date ahead of demo day. Steedle Moving & Storage has been family-owned since 1918 and works out of 1152 Crown Point Road, West Deptford, NJ.

See all of our portable storage options on our Our Services page.