For some people, the winter season is a time to bundle up, hunker down indoors, and turn the heat up while waiting for spring. For the rest of us, the winter is prime time for getting outside, strapping on a pair of skis as we break loose for a thrilling adventure.
Though let’s be honest here, ski gear takes up a lot of space. Whether you love a great downhill run or you explore the great outdoors cross-country skiing, you need a place to keep all your ski gear. This includes functional ski gear storage in-season, as well as someplace to store all your ski gear neatly and safely during the summer off-season.
Choose A Room
Ski gear and other winter equipment take up a lot of space. Assuming you care about your gear, you’re not just going to heap it in a corner. Ski racks, boot cubbies, drying stations, helmet cubbies, and hangers for your ski suit or jacket all take up a lot of space. Some of them like ski racks also need to be secured to something to keep skies and poles confidently in place.
The more skiers you have in your family, the more space you’ll need. Though you’re also more likely to be able to find an agreeable room in the house for all your ski gear. If you’re the only skier in the family, then chances are good transforming the foyer closet into your personal ski gear locker is out of the question.
The Entryway Closet
The entryway closet is probably only the ideal space to store your ski gear if you have a family of avid skiers, and you’re all getting out to hit the slopes or the trails once or twice a week. Otherwise, this is sort of a skier’s fantasy space.
Even if you get the other members of the family to sign off on you taking over the entryway closet, your ski gear is still probably going to get in your own way when you’re trying to put on your outdoor winter coats and boots Monday thru Friday.
Garage or Mudroom
In a perfect world, we would all have a spacious mudroom rife with storage space that can be repurposed as a room to keep your ski gear. Though nothing is saying you couldn’t repurpose a section of your garage as a ski gear storage area.
The trick here is to consider the temperature. Chances are good that you’ll need to dry out your ski gear like your coat, gloves, or boot liners in between outings. If you don’t have a heated garage, or the winter temperature of your garage is going to linger around the freezing mark, then you’ll need to compensate.
This might be as simple as putting up some walls to hold in the warmth of an oil-filled radiator set on low. Perhaps it’s just as simple as putting in boot and glove drying stations.
The bonus to using a section of your garage to store your ski gear is that you’re most likely going to have to load out to the car from there anyway. This alone might make the garage or an attached mudroom the ideal location.
A Spare Room or Basement
A downstairs spare room or a dedicated area in the basement is the next best option if it simply isn’t feasible to transform a section of your garage into ski gear storage. You’ll usually have all the space you need to put up cubbies to store your ski boots, as well as copious wall space to set up ski racks.
If you’re going to use a downstairs spare room or section of the basement to store your ski gear during the winter peak season, you want to prioritize easy access to stairs or a convenient way to get your skis to the ski rack on your car. Though even if this isn’t possible the basement is a great place for out-of-season ski gear storage.
What to Put in Your Ski Gear Storage Space
The major things like ski racks and boot cubbies are no-brainers for putting up your essential ski gear items. Though there are a lot of little things and accessories you might want to also keep in mind to help keep your ski gear organized and in good shape for the next time you want to hit the slopes of the trails.
Floor Mats and Rugs
Let’s face it, ski gear drips. Snow melts off boots, it drips off the crevices in ski suits and coats. It finds its way to the floor as water that can not only make a mess, but melted snow can make things slippery.
Simple reusable floor mats and rugs give you the ability to catch that water before it puddles on the floor. It also provides you with some added traction, which can come in handy. When a rug or floor mat gets too wet or soiled, you can swap it out for a clean one.
Boot & Glove Dryers
Boot liners, gloves, and other items that get wet with sweat or melted snow can take forever to dry on their own. Yet most modern driers let you put them on a pedestal and flowing warm air gets them dry in hours. Great for preventing glove odors, or just making sure your ski gear is ready to go two days in a row.
Heavy Duty Hangers
Ski suits and gear can be heavy. You don’t want to trust simple wire hangers and flimsy closet poles to hold it all up. You need metal poles that are founded in robust wall sockets. Then broad hangers that both have the strength to support a laden ski jacket without digging in or deforming the shoulders.
Cubbies For Boots & Helmets
Ski boots and helmets do better when they are stored in their own dedicated space. Their hardware and structural elements don’t do well when they’re dancing around and getting bonked by ordinary boots and clothing. Setting up cubby stations with labels lets you put them away in their own dedicated space. If you have multiple skiers in the family, you can label each cubby to personalize it.
Overhead Storage for Skis and Poles
Let’s say you’re not blessed with a lot of available wall space for a ski rack in your chosen ski gear room. In a scenario like this, you might want to look up. Skies and poles are relatively lightweight, and a single U or J-shaped overhead rack made from PVC or a similar material might be all you need to store them up and out of the way.
This is a great way to keep your skis on hand in the winter. Though you could just as easily put a similar PVC rack down in the basement during the summer. This will let you make use of the space under the floor stringers, without having to spend all summer worrying about if something bangs into your precious skis in the closet or garage.
