Almost everyone who calls a storage facility opens with the same question: what size do I need? It's the right question, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you're storing - not on a round number a salesperson wants to sell you. Here's how we'd size it if the stuff were ours.
Start with the biggest thing, then fill around it
Sizing a unit is really about the largest, most awkward item you're storing. A mattress set, a sofa, a refrigerator, a dining table - those set the footprint. Once the big pieces have a home, boxes and bins fill the gaps around and on top of them. So picture the couch first, then everything else falls into place.
A rough room-by-room guide
- 5x5 (25 sq ft)- a large walk-in closet. Seasonal decor, a few boxes, a small dresser, business archives.
- 5x10 (50 sq ft)- a studio or one-bedroom apartment's worth: a mattress set, a sofa, chairs, and 15–20 boxes.
- 10x10 (100 sq ft)- a one-to-two bedroom apartment, including appliances and bedroom sets. Our most popular size.
- 10x15 (150 sq ft)- a two-to-three bedroom home with major appliances and patio furniture.
- 10x20 (200 sq ft)- a three-to-four bedroom house, or a car plus a household.
- 10x30 (300 sq ft)- a five-plus bedroom estate, or a full e-commerce inventory operation.
When in doubt, size up a notch
The jump between two sizes is usually a small monthly difference - often less than the cost of a couple of coffees a week. The difference in aggravation is not small. A unit you can walk into, where you can reach the box at the back without unloading the front, is worth the modest upcharge every single time. Cramming a home into a unit that's a hair too small means you touch everything twice.
Let the Size Guide do the math
If you'd rather not eyeball it, our Size Guide asks a few quick questions about what you're storing and recommends a unit in seconds - then hands you straight into the reserve flow so you can lock in the price. And because every Cedar Vault unit is month-to-month with no deposit, sizing up isn't a commitment: if you end up with room to spare, you can always move down later.
