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Tips for Decluttering Your Home Before a Move

By May 25, 2021 No Comments
Tips for Decluttering Your Home Before a Move

One of the biggest hurdles you’ll face when planning a move is the amount of “stuff” you have. Is it worth packing everything up and taking it with you? Chances are, you have quite a bit of clutter that you could do without and there’s not much reason to move it with you so your new home is cluttered, too.

Today we’ll look at how you can declutter your home before you start packing up for your big move. It will be far simpler to move once you’ve eliminated all the unnecessary items and simplified your life. In fact, a move is a wonderful excuse for getting through all the things you’ve been saving up for years.

Start Decluttering Early

This is not a task that should be left until the last minute. When you feel rushed and don’t have the time to properly eliminate the excess things you have around, you’ll just end up tossing them in a box and taking it all with you. Since that’s precisely what you are trying to avoid, it’s best to plan out your move and get started a couple of months before you need to pack up and leave.

When you give yourself time, you’ll also be able to work through everything bit by bit. This is less overwhelming than trying to complete everything in the entire house.

Get Rid of Rubbish

As you begin to go through everything, you’ll notice that you hold onto a lot of rubbish. The extra lids for your kitchen containers, a bent spoon that no one uses, a radio that you keep meaning to get fixed . . . these things no longer serve you and should be tossed out in the rubbish heap. If you’ve spent time thinking that you’ll do something with the item someday, then it needs to go.

You may be surprised at how much of this sort of rubbish you have in each room. Eliminating it will give you plenty more space for packing what really matters.

Declutter Room by Room

It’s often easier to divide a task like this up. Don’t expect to finish all your decluttering in one day. In fact, you should plan on up to a week per room, depending on how much there is in each one. Dividing the task up like this will give you time to get through it all without feeling overwhelmed.

Pack As You Go

Some things you won’t use again before you move, so go ahead and pack those up in boxes. This will give you a head start on your packing. Just be sure to include an inventory list on the outside of the box so you don’t forget what went where!

Set Aside Items to Sell

Not all clutter needs to be thrown out. In fact, you could possibly make some good money to help with the move if you sell the items that others might be interested in. This is a very simple way to declutter and get something from it.

As you go through each room, set aside the items that you could sell. You should have a designated spot for these in one room. Next, you can plan a boot sale or simply take photos and sell everything online. Anything that is left can be donated.

Use Things Up

Some items aren’t necessarily clutter, but they aren’t things you want to take with you. If you have consumables on hand, try to use them up so you aren’t packing and moving them later on. Consumables may include items in the pantry, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, laundry products, lotion, printer paper, etc. Anything you can use now doesn’t need to be packed later.

Schedule Donation Pickup

If there are rummage shops nearby, see if they will pick up your donations. Even if they don’t, you can still schedule a day to drop off the donations. These should be all the items you don’t want to bother selling, but are still useful and shouldn’t be considered rubbish.

Again, designate a space and pile all your donation items in this place. You can then take care of everything at once.

Go Through Your Books

Everyone collects something and for many, that’s books. You may love your books, but do you really need them all? Take some time to go through all your books and sort out the ones that you can easily do without. These can be donated, sold, or given away to friends.

The same goes for magazines and anything similar. You probably don’t need to keep it all, so downsize now, while you can. This means fewer boxes and less packing when you actually do move.

Put Things in Storage

As you work your way through the house, you’ll likely come across quite a few things that don’t need to be moved, but you may not want to throw them away or sell them. Childhood keepsakes, a china plate from your grandmother, etc. may have memories, but they just don’t belong in your new home. There are likely quite a few of these types of items.

First, set everything that you don’t want to move but do want to keep in a separate space. When you’ve finished going through the entire house, you can stop and look at these items and decide if you definitely want to keep them or if there are some things that should be passed on to others.

Next, you can move these things into storage where they will be secure, but out of sight. This makes moving much simpler and you can start anew when you eliminate so many items that took up space both in your home and in your mind.

Give Stuff Back

If you’re like most people, you likely have a collection of items that were borrowed from other people and haven’t made it back to them, or that you purchased as gifts and never got around to sending them off. This means you can use this opportunity to return everything to its rightful owner.

Sort the stuff by person and then arrange for pickup or drop off, depending on the situation. You’ll feel relief at getting things out of your home and the others will be happy to have their items back.

Bring In Some Help

Do you tend to keep things and find it difficult to get rid of something, even if you know it’s not really useful? You might think you’re going to use it one day, but one day never comes.

The best way to get rid of your stuff without dragging it out too long is to bring in someone who has the opposite type of personality. Someone who loves to declutter will happily bring to your attention what you shouldn’t be holding onto. They’ll ensure that you get rid of more than you ever would on your own and in the end, you won’t even miss it.

Get Rid of Anything Expired

As you move through the kitchen and your medicine cabinet, now is a great time to check expiration dates. Start throwing those expired items out so you can focus on what’s actually good. When you move to your new home, you’ll find that there are a lot of things you can easily do without. This is quite a simple move and it will help you get into the mindset of eliminating anything that doesn’t work anymore.

Minimalize Your Life

Over the years, people tend to collect things, through gifting or because they purchase items for themselves, but never get rid of the old things. As you move through each room, you’ll notice that these items tend to crowd out the newer items.

Kitchen items are particularly troublesome. You probably have far more utensils than you really need. Look through all your kitchen tools and get rid of the items that are older and worn out. If you purchased a new spatula because the old one was cracked, then you need to throw the old one in the rubbish. This also applies to things like:

  • Shoes
  • Plastic containers
  • Lotions
  • Pots and pans
  • Water bottles
  • Toys
  • Clothing
  • Hangers
  • Cosmetics

There’s no end to how many things you can collect until you move. It’s when you start to pack that you realise you really have no use for seven different water bottles, for example.

Are you planning a move? Call Essex Removals for a quote and remove the stress out of your big move.

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