At Steeles of Stamford, we know how easy it is to slowly fill up your home with more and more clutter. You don’t realise how much you accumulate over the years and suddenly you’re left with a home that’s bursting at the seams!
Although there will always be things you want to keep for sentimental or practical reasons, you’d be surprised how much of your ‘stuff’ you don’t actually need or want.
Moving house is the perfect time to get rid of all these excess belongings, because there’s no point wasting time packing and relocating things that you don’t even want.
What’s more, you might even sell your house quicker after you’ve had a declutter because estate agent photos look better when everything is neat and tidy. Without too much on show, rooms look bigger and prospective buyers can more easily visualise themselves living there.
Top tips for decluttering
Over the years, we’ve helped thousands of people to declutter and move house – so here are some tips on how to do it well.
- Plan ahead
Before you start your clear out, plan ahead and think about how you’re going to dispose of your unwanted items. While there will be some things that you’ll want to sell, give away to friends or donate to charity, the reality is that some of it will be rubbish that you just need to dump. We’d recommend getting some packing boxes and labelling them with ‘sell’, ‘give away’ or ‘donate’ so that it’s clear where everything is going.
For things you want to sell, whether it’s furniture or clothes, you could use Facebook Marketplace or reselling sites like eBay and Vinted. This is a great way to reduce waste at the same time as making some pennies – it’s a win-win.
And for things you want to bin, make sure you have a good supply of rubbish bags and sort them into things you can bin yourself at home, take to the tip or have collected by your local council.
- Tackle the loft first
If you have a loft, you’ll probably find that you don’t go in it very often – only at Christmas when you need to get the decorations down or in the summer when you need your suitcase for your holiday!
Because of how little you go in the loft, it could be a voyage of discovery in your decluttering journey, so it’s a good idea to tackle this early on. There might be stuff in there that you haven’t seen or used for years, suggesting that you don’t really need it and can easily get rid of it before you move house.
- Look around you
Furniture takes up the most space in your rooms, so one of the easiest ways to declutter is to simply look around you and consider whether you actually use all your furniture and whether it will fit in your new house.
Lots of people like to buy new items of furniture for a new house, such as a sofa or dining table. If you’re one of these people, then you might want to sell or dispose of your old pieces before you move, to create more space in the removals truck.
- Give your wardrobe a makeover
If you go through your wardrobe, drawers and under-bed storage, we can guarantee you’ll find items of clothing that you haven’t worn for years. Maybe they don’t fit, your tastes have changed or you simply forgot you had them, but whatever it is, you can get rid of them!
When it comes to reusing and recycling unwanted belongings, clothes are excellent because something that’s old to you can be new to someone else and might really help them out.
And for those things you don’t wear that often but still want to keep – like party clothes or holiday clothes – storage bags are ideal. They’ll keep things clean and moth-free, and you can label them up so you know they need to be put into storage in your new house.
- Have a clear-out of electricals and gadgets
We all have one of those drawers that’s full of chargers, headphones, batteries and all sorts of other electrical items. Things like this are easy to collect and keep because you think they might come in handy in the future. But in reality, do you really need them?
And it’s not just small items either! Some things like exercise machines, video players and kitchen gadgets are quite bulky, so you should consider whether you really want them taking up space in your new house.
- Paperwork
Even in today’s online world, we still keep lots of pieces of paper and documents because we think they’re important – even though we have a digital version saved! And it’s not just important documents either, lots of people keep magazines, instruction leaflets and receipts which can simply be put in the recycling bin or shredded.
Paper can be very heavy when there’s lots of it and you don’t want to be packing heavy moving boxes with useless bits of paper, so make sure it’s all been cleared out before you start packing.
How can Steeles of Stamford help you to declutter?
As well as removals, we also offer storage and house clearance services which can both be very helpful when decluttering before a move.
Our professional house clearance team can help you pack, store or rehome belongings, relieving you of unnecessary stress in the moving process. We also hold a waste disposal licence and are fully insured, so we can get rid of any unwanted items and give you peace of mind that they are being handled correctly.
And if you have items that you still want to hold onto but don’t have room in your new home, our storage services are a great solution. Our secure storage site is purpose built and our containers are specially designed for storing furniture and household goods.
If you’d like our help, then get in touch with our friendly team and we’ll be more than happy to give you a free, no obligation quote.