In the basement of my mansion, along with the garbage room, the bicycle sheds and the car parks, there are also 2 floors of trunk rooms. The storage space here is for residents who can’t fit everything inside their rooms upstairs. The floor space inside the trunk rooms is quite limited, but its great to have somewhere to throw the empty suitcases, seasonal clothing etc.
The whole place is air conditioned and each room has its own individual light. It’s actually very well organised for a basement facility in a mansion.
Do you have trunk rooms in your part of the world? Are they bigger than this?
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That’s pretty neat. Is that common to all mansions in Japan, or just certain ones?
I could use a room like that, I’m moving into an apartment soon. (though, I’m gonna try and use the bedroom for storage. If I have some overflow, I suppose I could just store it in the storage areas down the street.)
Most larger buildings may have a trunk room in the basement. Some smaller ones might offer you a tiny space near your front door (on the outside of your room). Typically it is newer buildings that are doing this. Also, my apartment building is a mix of owners and renters, so i think they made it a little bit better to attract more owners with cash. I am just a renter 😉
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Growing up in Wi, I never lived in an apartment building, but I’ve heard they do have some type of storage area. I’ve mostly lived in houses up there and all of them have basements where you can use it for storage, also that is where people do their laundry. And some have turned theres into a rec room or another bedroom if needed. Here in Tx the soil is too sandy to support basements, also the ground shifts to much, which would be unsafe. But he apt. buildings, well most of them have a storage area.
Dont like the idea of the soil sifting. then again i am living in Tokyo 🙂
about the “trunk rooms” – in USA most extra stuff that won’t fit in the mansion has to be stored in storage places away from living space – they have large and small storage spaces and even portable “trunk rooms” – put extra stuff in and a truck will haul it to a “trunk room” storage place.
Here in Hawaii, you have public storage… No such thing as these trunk rooms as far as i know, but it would be neat to have some.
Public storage facilities accessible by car became quite popular in Japan a few years back as well. Many people were investing in them at the same time small parking car lots were popular. Still these small trunk rooms help out with just a small bit of overflow and they are in the same building.
I wonder if I could rent my space out and get some rent money back? 🙂
People here in the UK store things in their garage or loft. Things can get damaged when stored in the garage though due to damp. I had no idea there were basement trunk rooms in Japanese buildings – quite an insight!
The ventilation and damp control looked to be quite sophisticated. You could virtually live down there if you dont mind the small space 😉
The space in the basement is bare concrete floor, bare concrete walls… everything is bare.
When it rains too much water floods, so I had to put metal book shelves (hon dana – that’s because jlpt is coming close :)) 20cms high from the floor. The door is just tin shaped to look like one. This is how they built it, not how I wanted it.
In my previous house we had a room under the roof, was good, well lit, had a window, and had great view on the Alps…
To have such a clean and well kept space is a open eyes daydream to me……
I wouldn’t say trunk rooms are common in Japan, but they are gaining popularity. The average (even new higher end) mansion rarely has them. I’ve hardly ever come across them in the 4 times i’ve apartment hunted. This last time though I had trunk room as a requirement (or an apartment that had abnormally large storage) and it was pretty hard to find buildings with them. The building I moved into does have them, however there is only 35 for 209 rooms and you have to pay rent on it if you want it. But it’s an all renter highrise so probably not worth one for every room. I am renting one though, worth every penny (errr yen) because Im a shopaholic who hates clutter. Mine is the same size as yours, though some of the ones i’ve comr across have been half that size.