What kinds of things do you keep in your attic?

For the first time, we own a house that has an attic that actually has usable space above the garage. To get to it, you have to climb one of those tri-fold ladders that collapse up into the ceiling. I know that it’s traditional (to the point of cliche almost) to store Christmas trees and decorations in one but other than that, what items are good candidates for keeping up there?

Carrying something while climbing a ladder doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Luggage maybe? What else?

I don’t store anything in my attic because I’m afraid to go up there. I’ve never even seen it :slight_smile:

Nothing. I kind of forget it’s there. I have a basement, so I have plenty of storage space, and it’s just not convenient to get to the attic (I’ve got the tri-fold ladder thing too, and mine is in dubious condition).

I don’t store anything in my attic now due to a low-slope roof, but my previous house’s attic got lots of use. Attics are ideal for anything bulky and lightweight - like your luggage suggestion, and the ubiquitous Christmas decorations. I used to keep a huge roll of bubble wrap, a few(OK, many) empty just-in-case cardboard boxes, and some folding aluminum chairs in my attic.

I keep the Christmas decorations up there. We have a basement with a lot of storage but it can get damp down there especially in the summer. We have to run a dehumidifier all summer long. The attic is nice and dry.

Entry to my attic is via a concealed door from my bedroom, it’s two steps up, so it’s very easy to access. Has a window on either side, with screens, and I can stand up for the first eight feet or so, after that I must crouch a bit. When we moved in there were only a few loose floorboards, so one of the first things we had done was have floorboards properly installed throughout. I’d never lived with an attic before so it quickly became where we chucked anything we weren’t sure what to do with. After a decade it was so full I spent an entire summer clearing it of stuff, a few years ago.

It has a couple of old trunks, some old paintings, old furniture, camping equipment, sporting stuff, a cedar chest, Christmas decor etc. All pretty cliche I have to admit!

The house is well situated for solar panels and, if we ever go that path, I’m thinking it will make set up easier, lots of room, easy to access, already wired, etc.

Used to keep empty boxes and a roll of insulation up there, until rodents moved in. Now, there’s nothing up there. I’m kind of afraid of it up there anyways.

We store our xmas decorations in our attic and that’s about it. My gf stands on the ladder near the top, and I hand the boxes up to her, sometimes sneaking a peek up her skirt.

Our shed also has an attic. There we store “junk” that still might have a use. Partial rolls of hardware cloth, a toboggan, an old ten gallon fish tank, are what I can remember seeing up there.

Nothing. When we bought the house we found it had very thick blown insulation up there. It is significantly above the height of the ceiling joists. If we put anything up there to make a “floor” to put other items, we will smash down that insulation and make it less efficient.

Good for energy bill, bad for storage.

Mostly cliche Christmas stuff but I have a box of household junk (some small statue, a lamp, etc) up there and moved my son’s toddler bed up there when he was done with it. There’s actually a toddler bed from the house’s old owner up there as well. When I moved in and first went up there, I found a wedding dress. Seven or eight years later, it still went unclaimed (I didn’t have contact info for the previous owner) and my wife used parts of it in our own wedding decorations.

My house has an attic. I’ve never been in there, neither has my landlady. She has told me that if I ever go up there, anything in there we’ll split 50/50. In my head it’s a treasure trove of rare baseball cards, menus from Titanic, an original draft of the Declaration of Independence, and gold bars. I suspect what’s actually up there is a whole lot of nothing.

Our ‘attic’ is really just a side room off of our loft. Never gets hot or anything. Suitcases and backpacks mostly. A number of rifles/handguns and ammo as well.

Things that heat/cold won’t hurt. Mostly holiday decorations, old toys, old school papers, a few car parts I’m not 100% ready to part with yet.

Nothing but insulation and 45 years worth of dust up there in my house. There isn’t really any good storage space up there in my house unless it’s something long enough to lay across the rafters, otherwise it would be sitting on top of the insulation which probably isn’t good for the insulation. And it’s inconvenient to get to. Since the trap door is in the garage and I actually park my car in the garage, I have to back the car out any time I need to get into the attic.

Most of my attic has blown-in insulation. But the part above the garage I put plywood down and we keep “off season” stuff up there like skis and shovels April-Oct and planters/hoses the rest of the year (+/- a few weeks).

I have some left over construction material in my attic. A box of floor tile, piece of carpet, some vinyl flooring and left over hardwood flooring.

Useful for future repairs.

There’s a box of my girl’s old toys up there. Dolls, and stuff they didn’t want to throw out.

We have a huge attic that covers the entire house, and is accessible through an actual staircase, not a trap door. It has the shape of an irregular pyramid, with a lot of height in the center. It is unfinished, uninsulated, and the only electricity is a single light bulb high up. It has lots of bare beams to suspend things from. There’s one window and a cedar closet. It’s a wonderful place to be in a thunderstorm.

We have converted it into a dungeon.

One of the first things I did when we got the house was to install one of them folding ladders. Lots of good space up there, mostly occupied by stuff we should be throwing instead of stowing.

Plus Christmas decorations.
mmm
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My current house has an attic but I don’t use it - I’ve got a basement that suits all my needs.

At my parents’ house they have an attic with a pull-down staircase. Luggage was the main thing they kept up there, and Christmas decorations until my mom moved them down to a closet when us kids moved out. There’s a footlocker with dad’s stuff from the Army and keepsakes. For a long time our old toys were up there until my parents cleaned it out and dispersed the toys.

Huh…I wonder if they keep anything up there at all now, other than that footlocker.

Stuff for various holidays, some old clothes that are almost a sort of collection, odds and ends of our youth or family keepsakes, a little luggage, some odd and ends of furniture pieces in case we need to repair a piece we’re using. Our attic is tough to access since its basically a small hatch under the eave almost and you have to climb off the top of an 8 foot step-ladder and boost yourself onto your belly. At some point soon all of it will have to be emptied; in my 60s its not as easy as it was when I was 30.