Moving to Buena Vista? A Storage Checklist for Chaffee County

Moves into Buena Vista rarely line up neatly. The lease ends in one town before the closing happens in this one, the rental is furnished, or the house you bought needs a month of work before the furniture goes in. A storage unit is the buffer that makes the timing stop mattering. Here is how people use Buena Vista Self Storage during a move, and a checklist to make it painless.

1. Rent the unit before the truck is loaded

You can rent online in a few minutes from anywhere, and your gate code and move-in details come by text and email once the rental is confirmed. That means you can book from your old kitchen the night before you drive over Trout Creek Pass, and unload straight into the unit when you arrive instead of into a friend's garage. The gate is open 24 hours a day with your personal keypad code, so a late arrival is not a problem.

2. Pick the size for the whole house, then plan the layout

For a full move, most households use a 10x20 or a 10x30 drive-up unit. Our size guide explains what fits in each, and the short version is: a 10x20 holds a three-bedroom house, a 10x30 holds four or five bedrooms or a vehicle plus a household. Load the things you will not touch for months at the back (winter clothes in July, the guest bed, the garage shelving) and keep the kitchen boxes and the tools you will need for the new place at the front.

3. Every unit is drive-up, so use it

There are no hallways, elevators or carts here. Every unit has a roll-up door you can back the truck or trailer right up to, and gravel aisles run along every row. A two-person crew can empty a 26-foot moving truck into a 10x30 in about an hour if the heavy pieces go in first and the boxes stack behind them.

4. The mountain-town extras

Newcomers are always surprised by how much gear this valley collects. Within a year you will own a raft or a kayak, a second set of skis, a bike for every family member and a bin of camping equipment. None of it needs to live in the house. A 5x10 unit holds the whole seasonal pile, and our open-air parking spaces take the camper, the boat on its trailer or a utility trailer for a fraction of what an enclosed unit costs.

5. The checklist

• Measure the big furniture and count the boxes, then pick a size from the size guide.
• Rent online the day before you move, so the gate code is on your phone when you arrive.
• Bring a disc lock for the roll-up door and a marker for labeling the sides of boxes.
• Load heavy and rarely used items first, keep a walkway, put daily-life boxes at the front.
• Photograph the packed unit at move-in. It makes the tenant protection plan and your own insurance simpler if anything happens.
• When the house is ready, give notice from your phone. Rentals are month to month, with no long-term contract.

Where we are

Buena Vista Self Storage is at 27040 County Road 310 in Johnson Village, right where US-24 meets US-285, about five minutes south of downtown Buena Vista and eight minutes from Nathrop. Live availability and pricing are in the rental list on our home page, and you can call or text us at (719) 435-5644 any day. Welcome to the valley.