Storage

To make their young son's room distinctive as well as create easier access to attic storage, Katherine and Robert Dwyer ripped out the ceiling of his bedroom. They left the exposed wood beams and added a skylight and a loft, reachable by ladder. That was 20 years ago. A few years later, in their daughter's room, they built an enclosed area they called a "nest," with louvered doors and a window. Those bedrooms in the Ten Hills house in the city were fun spaces for the children back then.

I am in desperate need of storage-shed plans, because the clutter in my garage has become unbearable. What should I be looking for? Is it really necessary to have detailed plans if I am going to do the work myself? How would you construct the shed to be both easy to build and long lasting? Three years ago, I took back ownership of my garage for my vehicles. When I first moved into my home, we could easily park my truck and our car in the spacious garage. But, over time, we accumulated too much stuff, which forced the cars outside.

We recently bought an old house in the country that needs some serious renovations. Among its charms is a large eat-in kitchen with a rustic look that we'd like to retain. There's no attached mud room, but there is a sizable closet right next to the back door that leads directly into the kitchen. Although the closet has a brick floor, it's not in very good condition otherwise. Can you help us decide what to do about storage space for boots, coats and hats? Storage areas such as closets and enclosed cabinets may seem ideal places for stowing all sorts of stuff.

The storage room in Zora Dougherty's consignment shop has been converted into Success in Style's latest fundraiser - Charity's Closet. "I knew I wanted to do something with the space eventually," said Dougherty, owner of Second Childhood in Ellicott City. "At one point, I received services similar to those provided by Success in Style. I knew they could do something great with it." Success in Style, a nonprofit organization, has provided business attire for more than 1,000 low-income women searching for jobs over the past six years.

We enclosed the triangular alcove under a rear staircase in our home because it seemed a clever place for storing items from our children's adjoining play room. The contents became so chaotic, however, that it proved difficult to find a particular toy or game - and only occasionally did we even bother to look in that space. Now we've decided there must be a better use for a nook that's 3 feet deep and 6 feet long, with a height ranging from 4 to 8 feet. Any suggestions on what we can do with this space?

In your March 2 tips you were asked, "For how many years might a hard drive retain data if stored in a climate-controlled environment?" The problem was that you never answered this question, but did answer several others. Hard-drive storage is my backup plan and I would love to know your thoughts. - Howard Deutsch In some ways the question doesn't have a direct answer. That's because hard drives really weren't designed to be stored unused. The average time between failure for hard drives, last time I looked, was seven years.

After equipping our great room with a custom-made built-in unit for storing books, games and CDs, we realize that the piece should have been made larger to accommodate a serving bar and a rack for bottles. Can you suggest where we might find a free-standing bar unit that would complement the look of our home? It can best be described as transitional in its styling. An at-home bar was once predictably located in what used to be called a club basement. That liquor would be served there was an equally safe assumption back in those days.

A small Annapolis startup is using free software developed by scores of online users to build a data storage company that it claims will be secure enough to store sensitive government data like satellite images of terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan. Exponential Storage hopes to one day persuade the National Security Agency and other government bureaus to hire the company for its data storage network.

Backing up computer files is important. Most of us will face a computer crisis of some type sooner or later. Putting it off can have disastrous consequences for business owners. Damaged or lost data files often cost small or home-based businesses weeks, months or even years of work. It can happen at any time for many reasons. Having backup files available in the event of trouble could be the difference between staying open or shutting down. There are several ways to back up your business files.

Before Stacey Lancaster left last month for Ramstein Air Base in Germany to complete his training in the U.S. Navy's officer commissioning program, the 29-year-old Glen Burnie resident decided to stow all his worldly belongings in self-storage for safekeeping. Or so he thought. On Aug. 11, when he returned to the states, Lancaster discovered that the storage unit that he had "packed to the gills" with more than $8,000 worth of belongings had been overrun with rodents. The filthy little critters had pooped all over his couch, loveseat, queen-size mattress set, desk and linens, Lancaster said.