How to declutter your home before a move

Our modern lifestyle is centered on work and consumerism. As long as we don’t take it too far, this scenario doesn’t present any problems. However, it does lead us to accumulate a lot of things, which, almost before we know it, end up cluttering our homes. We can react in various ways, including reorganization, voluntary simplicity, creation of spaces and minimalism. But one thing’s for certain: the need to declutter becomes painfully obvious once there’s a move in sight.

Moving light

A move needs to be planned. It’s likely that we know what our future environment will be like, whether we’ll need new décor, new furnishings or a different layout. This is often the clincher that finally pushes us to declutter the home we’re moving out of. Consequently, timing is everything: decluttering needs to be done before a representative from the moving company comes to evaluate our needs and give us an estimate.

Since the price of a move depends chiefly on the quantity of things to be transported, it’s easy to understand why it’s profitable to finish decluttering before sealing the deal. What’s more, transporting items destined to be thrown away isn’t very efficient or ecological. The important thing is to balance input and output (i.e. for each new item purchased, an old one gets thrown away) up until the move and sometimes for several months afterward.

Lightening your move step by step

A seemingly mundane item may be of great sentimental value to you. This is one more reason why hasty, last-minute decluttering is a bad idea. Ideally, it should be done methodically. You can start by making a list of your home’s main furnishings and standard accessories. Then you can discuss (or reflect on) their “exit strategy”.

Next, you will list all the items you’ve acquired over time, which are often smaller, less visible and perhaps less frequently used. These are the things that need to be evaluated. For example, just because something is in storage, in the basement or in the garage, doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be thrown away. You have to take the time to assess the usefulness or uselessness of each object. Old clothing is often among these items.

You can assign one day or even one week to each room. This means that you can set out the bags, bins and boxes in which you’ll be placing all the things you’re going to get rid of. These things might include expired medications and beauty products; broken jewelry; tattered bedding and bath towels; old magazines, notebooks, bills and files; excess cups, plates and bowls; outdated electronic equipment; toys and games your kids no longer play with; plants that are in sad condition; rancid spices; dead batteries and empty pens; unusable tools; bottles of undrinkable wine and liquor; worn-out sports gear; cheap raffle prizes; and so on. Decluttering your home will do you a world of good!

In this regard, it will be useful to come up with some new storage strategies, perhaps implementing systems that are more ergonomic and structures that are more practical. This will also make things easier once the time comes to start packing up your things for the move.

At Martineau Movers, we’re always happy to give our clients great advice on every aspect of moving. Nothing useless and nothing superfluous. Nothing but professionalism!