Narrow boats, although used mostly for leisure and occasionally as homes these days, were first developed as commercial transport vehicles from the 18th century onwards. Their design enabled them to be used on the extensive canal network in Britain and they were used for the storage and carriage of goods and raw materials around the country. For instance, clay from Derbyshire was taken by narrow boat to the nearby Potteries area of Stoke-on-Trent to be used in the manufacturing of their world famous pottery.

Narrow boats, on occasion, were constructed along similar lines to the much wider river barges. In spite of the similarities, it is erroneous to call a narrow boat a barge.

Until the early 20th century narrow boats were horse drawn, but with the advent of diesel or steam engines, this practice became a thing of the past. The other advantage of powered narrow boats was that they could be used to tow an unpowered boat behind them. This meant that twice the amount of goods or produce could be transported without having to double the number of crew. However the use of narrow boats for the storage and transport of cargo was already dying out.

Narrow boats, nowadays, are utilised to take holidays in and sometimes as permanent homes. Some narrow boat owners use them as a way of making money by offering trips along a canal in them or renting them out. When the weather is favourable, this can be a novel and pleasant day out.

It is not the act of a mad person to decide to build their own house.  It will be possible, for example, to design rooms to fit shelving systems and storage shelving. You get to choose the number of rooms, where to install bathrooms, how to shape the kitchen to include storage cabinets and so. The cost of self-building is not as horrendous as you might imagine. As many as 20,000 people self-build their homes every year, so you are not on your own by any means. Also the actual value of your finished home is higher. For instance, in one area of the country, a self-build house was worth 108% more than a comparable developer built house.

One thing you need to consider is the storage space available in your self-built home. Many families find that there simply isn’t enough shelving or secure storage in their house but of course the beauty of building your own is that you get to decide the space that you set aside and where it will work best for you.  Many people incorporate workshops or garages into their plans so that they have space for all those projects and places to store equipment both during the build process and afterwards. All workshops need a solid workbench too.

Make you keep to the plans which have been approved by all relevant authorities and build the dream home you have always wanted. Make sure that you enjoy the process as well as the results!

A small commercial garage, especially in these tough economic times, is a very difficult enterprise to run successfully. There are several factors key to the survival of a business such as this.

The quality of service is important. The word of mouth factor is a powerful aspect and information about a good repair job that is reasonably priced will soon spread around the local area. MOT tests are a fact of life that have been with us for a good many years now and small garages benefit from offering their expertise in making sure a vehicle is roadworthy and if there are any repairs or fine tunings needed to offer these as well.

In order to keep up to date with the plethora of paperwork, from receipts for sales to invoices for items purchased, an efficient storage system is vital. The average small garage will probably have an office with a personal computer using a variety of software packages to keep on top of the stock-ordering, accounts’ balancing and word-processing tasks needed. Effective document storage and file storage should be ensured both as hard copy and stored electronically on removable media as well as the computer’s hard-drive.

The garage shelving and storage shelves should be robust and hard-wearing to cope with the rigours of their environment. Mechanics’ tools, engine parts and so on will be stored here. If possible, it would be advisable to store these expensive items in a lockable area of the garage.  A cage with a heavy-duty padlock is one idea.

As electronic devices such as PDAs, laptop computers and mobile phones become more sophisticated, they also become more expensive. Their portability makes them prime targets for thieves. They can be protected at home using secure storage areas and the home security safe is ideally suited for this purpose.

For example; a safe with external dimensions of 18h x 43w x 37d cm and internal dimensions of 17h x 42w x 32d cm is easily concealed under the computer desk for instance, and will provide storage space for a laptop without difficulty whilst still leaving room to spare for other small but valuable electronic items, and cash and jewellery. It will normally weigh approximately 11 kg and have a volume of 24 litres. This style of safe can generally be bought for less than £100 and reputable sites offer free delivery, a definite bonus considering its weight.

Home security safes will be available in a number of different sizes for storage. Their typical insurance rating is £1,000 cash or £10,000 valuables. A quality safe will usually have features such as an electronic combination lock, back-up override key in case of lock out, be constructed of steel and have two live locking bolts. They are suitable to be bolted to the wall or floor and normally the bolts are included.

The home security safe is a major deterrent to many burglars. For a reasonably small sum of money compared to what could be lost in terms of data and material possessions, it is a worthwhile investment for security and storage.

There is nothing worse than realising that something is lost just when it’s needed. Working in a busy office where twenty things are going on all at once, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising to find out that, in all the confusion of a busy office place, a document that should have been filed under B has ended up being filed under P.

The amount of time that it would take for someone to hunt through all the storage folders containing documents and then all the documents themselves, because this one was filed wrongly in the first place, is time that could be spent more productively elsewhere.

Off-site companies have a system in place to ensure that all documents are exactly where they are supposed to be within the organised file storage. When a document is requested, they know exactly where to go to find it and are not left scratching their heads wondering if they filed it in the wrong place.

Anyone who stores information for a certain amount of time is obligated to keep that information in some form of secure file storage so it does not fall into the wrong hands. It can prove disastrous for companies if their documents land in the wrong hands.

Many companies are protected with CCTV cameras and ensure their premises are well secure and locked up, ensuring peace of mind knowing that the important documents are in secure storage rather than being locked up in a filing cabinet that can easily be broken into.