What is the Best Way to Store Your Furniture During a Renovation in Fulham?

A renovation turns your home into a building site, and furniture is the first casualty. Dust gets everywhere, floors come up, walls come down, and every room the trades need is a room you have to empty first.

In Fulham that is harder than it sounds. The housing stock is mostly Victorian and Edwardian terraces with narrow hallways, no garage and a loft that is either converted or full. Street parking is controlled, so a hire van cannot simply sit outside all afternoon while you load it.

The practical answer for most SW6 renovations is mobile storage: a container is delivered to your door, loaded where it stands, and taken away to a secure facility until the work is finished.

Why renovations create a storage problem

Builders work faster in empty rooms, and they will tell you so. Furniture that stays in the house has to be moved from room to room as the job progresses, which costs time, risks damage and usually ends with everything crammed into whichever room is currently untouched.

Renovation dust is the other issue. Plaster and brick dust is abrasive and gets into upholstery, mattresses and electronics regardless of how much sheeting goes down. Soft furnishings in particular rarely come out of a renovation looking the way they went in.

What to put into storage

You do not need to empty the whole house. Concentrate on what is bulky, fragile or hard to replace:

• Sofas, armchairs and mattresses, which absorb dust and are awkward to shuffle between rooms
• Wooden furniture, which marks easily and reacts badly to the damp of fresh plaster
• Electronics and appliances, especially anything being kept for a new kitchen
• Rugs, curtains and anything else that has been cleaned recently
• Artwork, mirrors and anything with glass

How it works during a renovation

1. Collection before the trades arrive

Book a collection date for the week before work starts. The container arrives at your address, and you can load it yourself or have the team do it. Because it sits at street level, nothing has to go up or down stairs twice.

2. Storage while the work is done

The container is sealed and driven to a secure facility, where it stays for as long as the job runs. Storage is month to month, which matters when a renovation overruns - and most do.

3. Redelivery when you are ready

When the dust has settled and the floors are down, you book a redelivery date and everything comes back to the same address. If the schedule slips, you move the date rather than paying for a van you no longer need.

How long will you need it?

A kitchen refit is typically four to six weeks. A loft conversion runs to two or three months. A full house renovation on a Fulham terrace is commonly six to nine months once planning, structural work and finishing are counted.

Because storage runs month to month rather than on a fixed term, you are not committing to a guess made before the work started. Domestic customers give 14 days' written notice when they want to end it.

What it costs

Mobile storage with Kiwi Storage starts from £99 per month for one container, which is 35 square foot - roughly a garden shed, and enough for a king size bed, a fridge freezer and a three-seater sofa. If you need more, you add containers rather than moving to a different unit size, and the cost per container comes down.

Set against that, a hire van for two days plus fuel, a parking suspension and the time spent driving is rarely cheaper, and it leaves you doing the lifting. You can check prices and book online to get a figure for your own job.

FAQs

Should I store everything or just some rooms?

Most people store the contents of the rooms being worked on, plus anything fragile from elsewhere in the house. If the whole property is being renovated, clearing it completely is usually quicker and cheaper than moving things around for months.

Can I get something back mid-renovation?

Yes, though it takes planning. You book a visit to the depot with notice - usually 72 hours - and there is an access fee, so it is worth keeping anything you might genuinely need out of the container in the first place.

Is my furniture insured while it is stored?

Insurance is required. You can either provide proof of cover from your own insurer or arrange it through the storage provider on a new-for-old basis.

What if the renovation finishes early or runs late?

You change the redelivery date. Storage is month to month, so a project that runs long costs you another month rather than a renegotiation, and one that finishes early means you stop paying sooner.