Full Guide to Downsizing Your Home: Tips To Declutter

Are you looking to make a change in your home? Maybe you want to redecorate, or you have a big move coming. Before you do that, there are some changes to make with the interior design. If you have a habit of never throwing things away, you’ll want to read on. Here’s a full guide to downsizing your home and tips to declutter.

Overview Your Home

Depending on the number of possessions you own, decluttering might take some time. You’ve lived in your home for quite some time. You might have a skewed perspective, so it’s important to look at your home with fresh eyes. Observe every space and room with the idea of downsizing.

The things you’ve collected over the years might have held significance before. Go through all your items and see if they still hold any relevance or significance to you.

Decide on what you want to sell and what you want to give away. You don’t have to complete the overview in one day. It might not be possible either. Start the overview a couple of months before you know you’re moving. Then, take a couple of weekends to go through the different rooms and start composing a list. Keep the list of items on your phone so that you never lose it. Working through the list will make the process seem more manageable.

Map Out a Plan

Now that you have a list, our next tip for downsizing is the need to map out a plan. These may sound similar, but they have some differences. During the planning stage, you’ll organize which days you’ll start decluttering. You can also recruit people to help you, and you can go over the logistics and finances of everything.

You’ll need to create a well-thought-out schedule for yourself so that you don’t feel overwhelmed with the process. Things may pop up and cause you to veer off course a little. That’s OK. Don’t panic. You just need to adjust time frames and tasks for another time.

Mapping out a plan helps you to see things clearly instead of as one big, jumbled mess. Try not to put off starting the process as much as possible. The sooner you can start, the better. During this stage, make sure you contact all the necessary parties. If you’re planning on moving and storing things away, Capitol North American can help on both fronts.

Observe Your New Space

Another tip for downsizing is to consider what your new home can reasonably hold. It might be hard to figure out what you need and don’t need without a clear view of your new home. You can’t downsize on certain items without knowing the setup and size of your new place. Perhaps your new home is smaller, or it might be the same size, but you want to become a minimalist.

Whatever the case is, observing your new space is vital. Because you went through a detailed walkthrough of your current home, you can compare and contrast both locations. Picture your current kitchen appliances inside your new house, and do the same with the bedrooms. From here, you can picture what works and what doesn’t.

Carefully measure out your new space and document the exact measurements. When you go back to your current home, label those measurements inside the room. This tactic might help you get a clearer picture of the things you’ll need to cut out.

Pace Yourself

Now comes the fun part. You’ve observed, strategized, and mapped out everything. When it comes to decluttering your home, you can’t do the entire home at once. It’s just not realistic. This is one of the most common mistakes that people should avoid when they are moving. Pace yourself and start with one room at a time. 

You can start with the biggest room or the smallest one. If you start with the most cluttered room first, then the other areas of your home might feel like a breeze. For each room, compose at least three piles. One pile for storage, another for charity, and the last for selling. We recommend getting plenty of containers so that you don’t need to resort to placing your items in trash bags.

Label each container so that you know what’s inside without getting disorganized. Pacing yourself also means moving things in their designated spot a little at a time. Doing so saves you the trouble of having to complete all the tasks in one day.

Consider Storage

We’ve mentioned storage earlier on, but now we can go into better detail. When it comes to storage, you need to scope out a few locations before you decide. You’ll want to find a company that has an impeccable reputation, 24-hour surveillance, and offers insurance rates. Luckily for you, Capitol North American offers all three and more.

We specialize in household storage, and because we know how precious your possessions are to you, we keep our facilities secured. While we have climate-controlled units, we don’t recommend storing certain items regardless of our precautions. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

You’ll want to review the space and make sure it’s spacious enough for all your items. Don’t overfill the unit because then that defeats the purpose of downsizing and makes your storage unit more difficult to manage. Also, organize your items in a way that groups related things together. This way, you always have a clear path to navigate through on days when you need to visit and sort things out. You should also consider taking steps to ensure you can track what’s in your storage unit boxes. 

Stroll Down Memory Lane

Downsizing and decluttering might get emotional. That’s OK. Some of these items hold a lot of sentimental value, and moving to a new home is a big change. When you go through your items, give yourself a chance to reminiscence. Trying to avoid the emotion makes the process more difficult for you. 

Give yourself a chance to remember, and you’ll find that it’s easier to say goodbye to some things. Once you allow yourself this time, you may feel more open to giving items away because you gave yourself a chance to remember what was important about them. Now you can successfully move on.

We want to help you declutter and downsize your home in the most efficient way possible. That’s why we make it our business to offer so many services. For more information, visit our website.

Full Guide to Downsizing Your Home: Tips To Declutter