Houzz, this needs moving to design dilemmas.

Thanks for the heads up Tribbletrouble, I have no idea if I can so that? Can't find any info.

More people will see it.

Don't know if you ever got a reply to this, but if you didn't, here's what I can tell you, based on somewhat varied experience.

First, I'm assuming the container would be provided by a moving company, and stored in their warehouse.

I have had furniture and a good many possessions, including electrical goods, stored in a proper warehouse (not a container) at different periods for up to ten years (no, that is not a mistake, we were working overseas). The warehouse was properly airconditioned and heated in winter (this was Canada, so it needed some sort of climate control). Total damage was one broken glass, a dented bicycle, and my leather sofa dried out a bit.

I also had some furniture, including a 100 year old china cabinet, in storage in Brisbane for a slightly shorter period, about 7 years. No damage from heat, humidity, dust or rough handling when it was eventually moved down to NSW.

Most recently, we had virtually all our household possessions (everything that didn't fit in our cars) packed into a container and stored by the moving company for four months, then transported from NSW to Victoria and unloaded.

In all but the last move, the movers provided the packing materials and boxes and did the packing. The last one, I did the packing myself (and what a tedious experience that was). I bought packing boxes on line, rented some from the moving company, and haunted the hardware store and bottle shop for leftover boxes. I also bought proper packing paper and a giant roll of bubble wrap on line. I became quite expert at handling a tape gun. At the end of the day, total damage: zero. Even the TV came out of it in good shape, and I didn't have a proper box for it.

If the smaller contents are properly packed in decent boxes, and if the container is in a warehouse with climate control, everything should be fine. The movers will wrap your furniture in moving blankets to protect them, and certainly my experience has been that they're quite careful. Oh, and while the pickup/delivery and first month of storage were expensive, the subsequent months of storage for a 20 ft container was fairly reasonable. Do make sure you have proper insurance for the pick up and delivery, and for the storage, though.

I had to store basically our entire house for about 8 months during a renovation and ended up using a container for most of it, so I totally get your concerns. My biggest problem was moisture, you really have to watch for condensation inside those containers, especially in areas with humidity or big temp swings. I found wrapping wooden furniture in sealed plastic covers with silica gel packs tucked inside helped a lot. For textiles, I put my bedding and clothes into those vacuum bags, and they survived pretty well. Crockery and glassware mostly made it, but you need to double-box fragile stuff, even inside a container, things sometimes shift around more than you’d expect.

When it comes time to actually move interstate, careful labeling and making sure nothing’s touching the container walls is crucial. I learned some of these tricks when getting help from ThreeMovers during my last interstate move. Their advice on packing and dealing with long-term storage was on point.