How to Declutter Your Home Before Moving
Decluttering is an excellent way to organize your belongings before you even start with packing, and salute the memories you made in your current home. Maybe you do not have impressions that your home is cluttered, but when you start taking everything out and see all items that were collected year by year, your opinion may change. Do not be tempted to throw everything in the box, and make packing faster, because this will only cause trouble in the end. Here are some tips on how to declutter your home before moving.
Reasons to decluttering your home
Your transportation costs will be lower
Moving companies are charging based on the weight of your household items, which means if you have more stuff price of shipment will be higher. Every company will send their representative to check your property before they tell a final price. Take extra percussion when looking for moving companies, especially online, check their reviews, quotes, and background, because a lot of scams are present these days.
Save your time for packing, and go out with your friends one more time
Getting rid of the household items that are not necessary for the new house will save your time for packing. Plus, it will help you not to feel stressed when you have a mountain of stuff on top of your head. Instead of that, reduce the number of items, and use extra free time to go out with friends and make more amazing memories in your life.
How to declutter your home
Put every item in “sell”, “donate”, or “throw” pile
When you are arranging your things, use the sell-donate-throw method. It is a simple way to eliminate items, and it doesn’t require much preparation at all. Make three piles where you will put each household item, and every stack will have a specific purpose: to sell, to donate, or throw. Also, if you need any advice to pick what to toss and what to keep, invite your friends, this can be an excellent time to spend with them. In the past, people were organizing a yard sale, but nowadays, you can sell more items online, which will save your time too, plus you can reach a bigger crowd. The most popular sites for sale are Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, etc.
These days people are using social media too, like Facebook, or Instagram, where they share albums with items that they want to sell. The only downside of this can be that people are more local and from the same community.
Declutter room by room
When you are moving, one eminent duty is to stay organized until the end. Take more time for planning, organizing, and following all steps that will help you not to rush and be anxious during the moving process. Therefore, when choosing which items to get rid of, the best way is to work systematically and complete room by room. Otherwise, you will lose your compass between stuff. The times you will need to sort out your things are optional and depend on how many household items you have. However, here is some advice on what to pay attention to when classifying your things.
Declutter items in the living room
The living room is a place where we spend a lot of time daily and where we have lovely moments with our family members. Hence, there are plenty of different items (books, CDs, toys, game consoles, magazines, etc.). You will need more work and more time to arrange them, but look on the bright side, this could be a fun activity and new remarkable moments with your family. How to organize items:
Books are heavy items to move and require more boxes to pack them. Therefore, separate your special ones, and the rest of them you can donate to the library or local school. These days electronic versions are more available, and they will not take too much space like hard copies.
Kid’s toys: Kids are growing and going through different phases, so they are outgrowing their toys very fast. For that reason, no need to keep old toys. Instead, you can donate to some other family or your friends with kids.
Declutter items in the bedroom
The bedroom is one of the main places to sort out before a move because closets and dressers are a demanding area, and those areas may need more time to be sorted out. How to organize items as:
Clothes and shoes: When it comes to sorting out clothes and shoes, you can always use the “12-month rule” to decide which items you want to take with you and which not. “12 month’s rule” is simple and means that every item that you didn’t use in the last 12 months you can eliminate from your closet.
Jewelry and Accessories: fashion is changing very quickly, and what is IN one session will be OUT next one, and there are a lot of potentials to clear away. However, keep your favorite ones, but you can put a smile on your friends’ faces, donating them some pieces too.
Declutter items in the bathroom
The bathroom is maybe the most uncomplicated place when you need to get rid of items before relocating to another address. Whatever you don’t need- throw it. Most of the items in the bathroom have an expiration date, so there is no need to keep them with you. One important tip, when you are disposing of expired medicine, do it responsibly and correctly -don’t only throw them in the toilet. For more information, check the Drug Enforcement Administration, where may find more details about proper disposal.
Declutter items in the kitchen
In the kitchen, you want to get rid of everything that is damaged, expired, or never used. Cleaning a fridge and throwing expired food is not a difficult job. On the other hand, organizing all kitchen tools and utensils that you were collecting for years requires more time. To make this less hard, you can use Mari Kondo’s method: take out all your kitchen utensils and sort them by type and category. Checking and comparing the same items will allow you to see how many same kitchen utensils you have and what kind of conditions they are in. Throw away everything that is damaged or not usable anymore.