Declutter Your Home as if You’re Moving Out
While interest rates are sky-high, not many of us are buying new homes and moving this year. That means a lot of us are staying right where we are, trying to make our current spaces work. The problem is that staying put often means accumulating more stuff. And that leads to clutter—in closets, in drawers, on the floor, on the guest room bed, in the garage . . . you get the picture.
Staying put doesn’t mean you can’t declutter however. But how do you even begin? It’s simple: Pretend you’re going to move.
That’s right. Declutter like you would if you were getting ready to move out. That means getting rid of things you don’t love or need, things you wouldn’t want at a new home, and things you wouldn’t want to pack and pay to move.
To help you declutter like someone who’s moving, Space Makers Junk Removal offers these tips to get you started.
IMAGINE YOUR HOME AS YOUR NEW HOME
Pretend you’re moving—to your house. How would you want it to look? Spacious and organized, right? Now whip out your phone and take photos of each room. Not so spacious and organized, huh? According to Ali Wenzke, author of The Art of Happy Moving, taking a photo can help you see what your home really looks like, compared to what you’d like a new home to look like. Immediately, you see the problem areas.
SET AN ACTUAL MOVING DAY
According to the Move-Out Method, the perfect way to start seriously decluttering is to pretend you have a hard and fast move-out date, that day when the moving truck shows up. Since you’re not really moving, your “move-out date” is a serious deadline you set for yourself.
You can set a whole-house move-out/declutter date, or you can set smaller dates for portions of your house. For example, on a Friday you might set a move-out date of Monday for decluttering all your closets.
TAKE OUT THE TRASH FIRST
Wenzke recommends grabbing a couple of trash bags and going room by room. In one trash bag, stuff actual trash—stuff you need to just throw away. In the other, stuff things that can be recycled, like paper, magazines, clothes, etc. If trash bags seem too unwieldy, use boxes.
MOVE OUT
Well, not actually move out, as in packing up all your stuff, but take everything out of a space as if you’d packed it all up. That means removing everything from a room or, if you want to go smaller, removing everything from a closet, a drawer, etc. and putting it somewhere else.
EVALUATE WHAT YOU TOOK OUT
This is the hard part. Start by designating four piles: keep, donate, recycle, toss. Now evaluate each item and ask yourself if you would really, truly want to take that with you to a new home. You might start with the biggest, heaviest stuff first, such as furniture, books, and small appliances. Ask if an item would be worth the expense of packing and moving it. Ask, too, if you’d use it or want it in your “new” space (the room you’ll be moving back into). If not, place that item in the donate, recycle, or toss pile. Then move on to the smaller items and ask the same questions.
If you have trouble evaluating an item, try this tip from the Move-Out Method: Ask yourself if that item would stay packed in a box after you move, instead of being immediately unpacked. How long would it stay in that box? If the answer is months and months, or even years, then you likely don’t need that item after all.
ENLIST HELP
Evaluating your stuff is hard. If you find yourself waffling over whether to keep something or not, get family members to help you decide. For example, your son may have always wanted that record collection you never listen to but hate to let go. A grandchild might love to have some old dresses or hats for playing dress-up. That Eiffel Tower statue you got on vacation might mean something to your daughter, who went on that vacation with you.
CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN
Now that you’ve got an empty room (or closet or drawers), clean that space as if you’ve moved out and are preparing it for the next person to live there—you. If you were moving in, you’d expect a spotless space, right? Take the time to vacuum, mop, dust, and repair anything that’s been damaged. Repaint if you have time. In other words, pretend you’re the one moving into that space. Make it fresh and new.
MOVE INTO YOUR “NEW” SPACE
Now move back into your “new” space as if it was brand new to you. Take time to organize items; make an effort to place them in fresh configurations. Invest in organization solutions like closet systems, shelving, totes, etc. And enjoy your “new,” decluttered home.
CALL SPACE MAKERS JUNK REMOVAL TO HAUL AWAY THE JUNK YOU DON’T WANT
If, after you declutter, you have a pile of junk in your “toss” pile, call Space Makers Junk Removal to take it away. We can haul off old furniture, haul away old or broken electronics, and haul off broken appliances. We do mattress removal, as well. We also do garage cleanouts and storage shed cleanouts. We service the San Antonio area, and we now service Boerne and Kerrville, too.
CONTACT US TODAY to help you make your “move-out” as easy as possible!