[duckmysick]

That's why you do a "soft delete" and move things from your main area to out-of-sight closet/attic/storage unit. A cold storage, as the OP called it. Then clean it once a year (or when you need more space) and get rid of things you haven't used.

I regretted throwing out a thing like that maybe once.

Don't do it to "insurance" items like a fire extinguisher or a drain snake.

Now, what happened to me more often was: losing a thing, doing an extensive search for it, not finding it, buying a replacement, and then finding the original item the day after.

[theshrike79]

We did this when we were moving. We rented a storage unit, took all of our stuff that wasn't immediately in use there.

Then we did the main move (a LOT less stuff to move) and kept the storage unit for a bit over a year, going there to grab stuff as needed.

After that we sold, donated and/or threw away pretty much everything in there. So much useless crap we were bringing along "just because".