Outdoor gear storage for small homes and apartments

In this blog, we share easy solutions for outdoor gear storage for small homes and apartments. We also share a few expert tips for seasonal gear care! 

If you live in a small home or apartment and have a lot of outdoor hobbies you probably know the struggle: too much gear, and no good system to organize and store it. In this blog, we’re sharing some expert tips for outdoor gear storage for small homes and apartments… and they don’t involve building a fancy, custom-made gear wall.

Below are our top tips and favorite outdoor gear storage products for tiny homes and apartments. 

Our credentials? We’re outdoor adventure content creators, and we have a lot of gear and a TINY home with no garage. Below are our top tips and favorite outdoor gear storage products for tiny homes and apartments. 

Tips and tricks for seasonal outdoor gear storage and care

Before we dive into my favorite solutions for outdoor gear storage for small homes and apartments, below are some of my favorite tips and tricks for seasonal outdoor gear storage and care.

• Use denture cleaning tablets to sterilize difficult to clean hydration reservoirs and bladders. Don’t forget to also clean out water filter squeeze bags (like the Katadyn BeFree), and completely dry water filters before putting them in storage!
• Take sleeping bags and jackets out of stuff sacks. Compressing down for long periods of time can damage it.
• Use painters tape to label gear bins. It’s cheap, and peels off easily when you need to change out the labels.
• Consolidate used fuel canisters using a fuel transfer device like the FlipFuel. 
• Check expiration dates on backpacking meals and bear spray.
• Be wary of storing gear in an unfinished basement, or uninsulated shed or garage. Temperature swings can damage gear, and moisture can cause mold and mildew issues. The only gear we store in our shed are our bikes! We use a gravity rack to hold them. They’re pricey, but we’ve had ours for over 10 years and it’s been more than worth it!

The best shelving for outdoor gear storage

A lot of outdoor influencers have AMAZING gear storage walls they custom built, but our gear lives in a tiny laundry room where it’s impossible to find a stud, so that wasn’t an option for us… 

Instead, we use heavy duty freestanding shelves, which work great! We’ve tried lots of different brands, and I think HOMEDANT shelves are the BEST option for outdoor gear storage. They’re super easy to set up (much simpler than similar shelves we’ve gotten at Costco over the years), and come in a variety of width and depth options. They fit both Greenmade-brand bins AND the REI and Gregory bins we have, making them really versatile. We put three of these shelves in our laundry room, which doubles as our gear storage room.

The best storage bins for outdoor gear storage

Below are my favorite containers for outdoor gear storage. 

• REI Tailgate gear bin —  we use the giant yellow “140L” size for storing sleeping bags and other bulky soft items, like winter jackets or seasonal clothes are aren’t using. They’re also great for organizing camp gear in your truck, but because they have a soft bottom I don’t like to use them for carrying heavy items.
• Alpaca Gear Basket 70 – This might be my FAVORITE piece of gear storage. We have two, and I wish we had more! They’re light, collapsible, and easy to carry. We use them for “grab and go” bulky items like camp chairs, tents, and sleeping pads. They make storing weirdly-sized items easy. 
• Alpaca Gear Box 45 – These are our go-to for storing and managing smaller, heavier items (camp kitchen essentials, water filters and bladders, etc.). They stack really well, and are still reasonably manageable when full/heavy. We also use them in our truck camper! They aren’t cheap, but they stand the test of time (we’ve owned ours for about 3 years).
• 50 L Alpaca Camp Box – We use these for storing extra camp food and dehydrated meals. They’re a good size, but they can get heavy if overloaded! We also have the smaller 25 liter containers from Gregory, but I think the soft pack REI 25L bins might be a better buy, depending on your use case.  
• RUX 70L – These bins are expensive, but if you need a modular solution that can take you from shelf-to-car for overlanding and adventures, I think they’re one of the best options on the market!

For bulky items we also use 27 gallon Greenmade bins from Costco. They work well, but you can’t see what’s in them (the lids are opaque), and they get VERY heavy and unruly if you fill them up! 

Let me know your favorite outdoor gear storage hacks in the comments below!