Efficient gear storage

I am tall so I raised up my bed about 24" off the floor and just store any down items under it that way. I am sure you could get away with less and it is nice to basically roll straight out of bed and be almost standing without having to pick myself up out of a low to the ground bed. Also uses up dead space. Warmer too in winter. An dif it gets really cold on a night I can always reach under and pullout a quilt.

On the upper shelves in the walk-in closet, I lay all sorts of gear, including sleeping pads (flat). Then I stumbled on nearly free wire shelving at a yard sale and added a second row (upper, upper row!) ABOVE that. Since I have 9' ceilings I put my quilts in the cotton bags on the upper shelf.

Works great if you have high ceilings.

I live in a pretty small apartment. I went to the hardware store and bought a large shelving unit like this. I throw the quilts in their storage bags on the top. I used dowel rods to hang from the wire to create a small area for hanging clothes. I latched trekking poles onto the side. I put a few plastic stackable drawers to help organize some of the shelves. A few really flat stuff goes on the floor underneath.

+1 on under the bed.

The box springs don't really do all that much for you – I prefer a mattress only because it is a little firmer. Multiple times, I've built a plywood platform for the mattress only and use the underneath space for storage. 12-18" high of storage, depending on how high you want the mattress. I also find it easier to "roll out of bed" in the morning versus "getting up" off a lower bed. That gives a lot of storage, although you need little space around the bed to access it.

This is why I bought a house.

You might look into renting one of the self storage units. That is what I did when I rented a one room apartment. Cheaper rent usually means less square footage.

I am buying a house, a bigger house then I have now, but as the kids get older I am going to be losing my gear room as a playroom for the kids. We haven't picked a house yet and I am looking for something with an extra bedroom for my gear but I am having problems finding one in our desired school district that checks everything off our wish list.

What about a finished room in the basement? What would the humidity level need to be for down bags? I know the lower the better and I could probably get it to 30% with a dehumidifier in the room.

I have a house, but the space I live in is relatively small (rent out the other part). I ended up just giving up and donating some dedicated closet space to my quilts and my multiple packs (of which I have too many – I really do need to let go of some of these…). Very few of my clothes need to be hung, so this works well. I actually am very pleased with closet/hanger storage of the packs – has worked better than everything else I tried. I keep smaller bits and bobs in those really big ZIploc bags by category (e.g., gear maintenance stuff and various lengths of cord/straps/fabric/connectors.; first aid stuff; water stuff, etc.). I have also ended up using two drawers of my storage bed (drawers underneath) for more gear.

Despite this, it seems that my gear has metastasized all over the place, and I've lost track of where some things are. I predict a big reorganization in the future. I'll be interested to hear other storage ideas. (Don't get me started on my fishing gear…)