Decluttering Before Moving in to Your New Home

If you’ve ever watched the popular television shows on hoarding and the harmful effects it has on homes and families, you’ll understand that it can be very difficult to deal with a lot of junk in the home. Most likely you won’t ever have to handle such a case of extreme clutter in your own home, but every house accumulates some degree of clutter over the years, even for people who are clean and organized. If you’re packing up and moving into a new home, you can be surprised at the amount of stuff you’ve amassed, and overwhelmed at how to deal with it. To make things easier for yourself and for your San Antonio movers, it’s best to get rid of clutter before moving. This will require some time and planning, but the long-term results are well worth it.

What to keep and what to toss?

Getting rid of things can be difficult for many people. The memories associated with an object can create powerful emotions, and removing the object from your home can seem tragic. Whether it’s a treasured high school trophy or a birthday gift that your best friend gave you years ago, you’ll usually want to hang onto these things. Or it could be something nice that you don’t use now, but you imagine you’ll have a use for in the future. For whatever reason, moving time is the perfect time to decide once and for all whether you want to hang onto those old crafts or worn-out but sentimental gifts.

When going through each room to pack, create piles of things you haven’t used in the past year. One pile should go into the garbage; another to give away; and another to keep. To truly de-clutter, you should see a significant amount being put into the piles of things not to keep. For sentimental items you simply can’t part with, it would be a good idea to pack them into neat, labeled boxes to store out of the way in your new garage or closets. For craft items, old clothes and other things you haven’t used in a year, just get rid of them.

Holding onto the memories

There is nothing wrong with hanging onto some keepsakes to share with children and grandchildren years down the road. But while it would be worth it to pack away old yearbooks, a prom or wedding dress, and some of the kids’ school artwork, other things such as broken gifts and outdated decorations can be tossed. If it’s truly something that meant a great deal to you, but you know will just take up space in your new home, then take a picture of it to put into a scrapbook with written memories of the object. This is an especially handy tip for children’s crafts that you treasure, but won’t be able to hold onto indefinitely.

Letting go of the extra baggage

Just like with losing weight, decluttering a home is getting rid of unneeded weight and baggage. While it may seem hard at first, it can be very liberating to send piles of clutter to the garbage, or give boxes of things to people who need them more than you do. After your San Antonio movers have helped you into your new home and you’ve started unpacking, you’ll appreciate how easy it is to only have the things you need in your new home. You will also love the fresh start that comes from not having extra clutter.