Decluttering before moving – make moving less stressful

Moving home can be a stressful experience for all involved, one of the best ways to move stress-free is to remove the “junk” from your home before the big day. In this article today we will look at the importance of decluttering before moving.

Why declutter before moving house?

You’re moving anyway, why not just take all of your items with you and throw them into a van? There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, taking your unwanted items with you is going to clutter your new home too and secondly, you’re going to have to pay more as you are going to need a bigger van to transport some of these items you don’t need.

We always recommend putting some of your items into storage too so you don’t have to move them all on the same day, so moving your clutter into storage is going to mean you are going to need more storage space and you have to pay more for a larger storage unit.

Lastly, decluttering before moving will allow you to have more time to sort out your items into storage boxes so at the other end it doesn’t take you weeks to unpack.

What items should you be decluttering before moving?

When you start decluttering your home before a move you should first look at the items you don’t use often. Each room in your home is going to have something that doesn’t get used, so go through your home and start with those.

In the kitchen you are going to have additional items such as ingredients that have gone out of date, you can throw those out too. Then look at any tupperwear, pots, pans and crockery that is either damaged or missing parts of them and get rid of them too.

In the living room, you may have items such as books, DVDs, VHS tapes, magazines and even photo albums. Now we aren’t suggesting throwing these out but what we would suggest is making digital copies of these and putting the hard copies into storage. Not only does putting your old items into storage free up room in your home but it also protects them from accidental damage.

If you have children you may find that your living room is full of toys that hardly get played with. We would suggest either packing the least used toys away now, giving them away or putting them into storage.  

In the bedroom, you can look for old clothes and get rid of what you don’t need. You can either sell your clothes, donate them to charity or recycle them depending on your situation. Many apps allow you to sell your old clothes which could help you out when buying items from your new home shopping list.

In the bathroom, you probably have beauty products that have gone out of date. Now is a good time to throw those away. Look through your bath bombs, body wash, scrubs, shampoo, toothpaste and whatever else you use to see if any of them have gone off and get rid of them.

In the garden, you may have items such as strimmers or lawnmowers that are old and need replacing. You may also have seeds, plant pots and garden equipment that isn’t going to come with you to your new home, make sure these get binned now too.

If you have been working from home over the last few years you probably have a home office area, check this space for old documents, printouts and anything else which is adding to the clutter which can be binned. Just don’t throw out any vital files which could land you in trouble with your boss. If your home office is cluttering your home then we have great deals on business storage at the moment which could be worth checking out.

When should you start decluttering before a move?

Our advice would be to start around two weeks before your house move. If you start any earlier there is a good chance that your home will be filled with clutter again before you move. If you start any later you could be in a big rush when it comes time for moving day.

When you do start decluttering your home for a move you will need the following items:

• Black Bags.
• Cardboard Boxes.
• Cleaning Spray.
• Duster.
• Pair of Gloves.
• Scouring Pad.
• Shredder.
• Packing Tape.

When you declutter you think of throwing items in the bin but the majority of people who declutter will donate some of their items to charity or put them in a storage container for a later date. We recommend having black bags ready to throw out any rubbish that you may have such as out of date food and then having the cardboard boxes ready so you can keep your items safe if you do choose to donate them or put them into storage.

We also recommend having cleaning sprays, dusters and a scouring pad handy as you often find when you remove clutter there are nasty marks or stains left behind.

Finally, a shredder is useful if you have any confidential letters or documents that you don’t want others to get their hands on.

Final Thoughts

Decluttering can seem like an unneeded task before a house move but it will help you get rid of items you don’t need before your moving day. This allows you to focus on the items that you do want to keep while saving you time from unpacking at the other end of your move.  

Decluttering doesn’t have to be done in one go either as you can do a little at a time around 2 weeks before you move. You don’t have to throw all of your items out either you can convert them to digital versions, or put them into storage until a later date.